Chapter 7 #5
Alan headbutted him. Damien’s grip loosened for a half second—long enough for Alan to drive an elbow into his ribs, create space, bring his gun up again—
The blade flashed.
Fire split Alan’s forehead, just above his right eyebrow. Blood poured into his eye, blinding him on one side. He staggered, firing blind, the shot punching through drywall.
When he wiped the blood away, Damien was by the adjoining door. Not even breathing hard.
“You don’t leave the Bratva.” Damien’s voice was calm, almost gentle. “And a reminder: You don’t get to care about anyone. Not anymore.” He paused, hand on the door. “Next time, it won’t be someone you’re just starting to love. It’ll be someone you’ve loved for years.”
Alan only had one person he’d loved for years, and she was already gone. But . . . Timea’s family. The thought stabbed through him. Her mother in Budapest. Her sister. Her brother’s little girl.
“Stay in line,” Damien said. “Do what you’re told. And they’ll stay breathing.”
Then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him.
Alan stood in the wreckage of the room. Blood dripped from his brow onto the carpet. His ears rang from the gunshots.
He should run. His blood was on the carpet, on the broken mirror. Someone would have heard the shots.
But he’d been dead a long time. The DNA wouldn’t find him. Besides, the room was booked under a name that would trace back to RJ Marshall which meant someone wanted it to look like she’d been the problem.
But he couldn’t stop looking at Sophia.
He walked to the bed. Sat down beside her, not caring about the blood, the evidence, any of it. She’d been dead before he arrived. Long enough for her skin to cool.
She’d been waiting for him. Please come, the text had said.
Except maybe she hadn’t sent that text. The Bratva had. Using her phone after they’d killed her, luring him here to see what happened to people he let himself care about.
“I’m sorry.” The words came out broken. “I’m so sorry.”
He reached out, closed her eyes. The gesture felt hollow. Meaningless. Like everything else he’d ever done.
Timea. Sofia from Sicily. Now Sophia. And yes, he was aware of the coincidence in names.
Maybe it was just a reminder that everyone he touched died.
He made himself stand. Made himself walk away from her, through the living room with its untouched wine, out into the hallway, where the carpet was still clean and the world hadn’t ended.
The stairs. Fourteen flights, blood still seeping through the handkerchief he pressed to his forehead. The parking garage, cold and echoing, his footsteps too loud in the concrete silence.
His car was where he’d left it. A rental. Anonymous. He fumbled with the keys, got the door open, collapsed into the driver’s seat.
His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
He could run. Get to the airport, use one of his backup identities, disappear somewhere the Bratva couldn’t find him. Argentina. New Zealand. Somewhere with no cell service and no memories.
Except they’d already shown him they could find anyone. Reach anyone. Kill anyone.
There was nowhere to run.
A tap on his window.
Alan’s weapon came up, aiming at—
Tom Crowley stood outside the car, silver hair perfectly styled, expensive wool overcoat untouched by the fluorescent chill of the parking garage. He gestured calmly for Alan to lower the window.
Alan stared at him for a long moment. Then lowered the gun. Lowered the window.
“You knew.” Alan’s voice was raw. “You knew they were going to kill her.”
“I knew she’d become a liability. For you and for our operation.” Crowley produced a handkerchief from his pocket—monogrammed, because of course it was—and handed it through the window. “For your head. You’re making a mess of that rental.”
Alan pressed the fresh handkerchief to his brow. The cut was deep. He’d have a scar.
Good. Something to remember her by.
“I’m done.” He said it again, hoping it would feel true this time. “Do you hear me? I’m out. Find someone else to finish this.”
Crowley’s expression didn’t change. “You’ve just learned something important tonight, Alan. The Bratva doesn’t share. They don’t negotiate. And they don’t forgive weakness.” He paused. “Caring about that woman was weakness. Letting them see it was worse.”
“She was—” He couldn’t finish. What was she? A target who’d become something more? A woman who’d asked the right questions at the right time? A possibility he’d let himself believe in?
“She was a CIA analyst who was getting too close to things she shouldn’t have seen.” Crowley’s voice was patient, almost fatherly. “Her death was always coming. You just made it personal for yourself.” A beat. “That was foolish. Don’t be foolish again.”
Silence filled the car. Outside, rain hammered the parking-garage ramp, streaking the distant light from the lamps.
“What do you want?” Alan finally asked.
“York Newgate.” Crowley said the name as if he were ordering coffee. “He knows too much. He saw things in Moscow years ago—things that could unravel everything we’ve built. And now he’s asking questions again. Digging into old files. Getting too close.”
“York.” Alan closed his eyes. His old partner. The man who’d married Crowley’s daughter. The man who’d lost his wife and child to the Bratva. A shadow now, dangerous.
“I need him handled,” Crowley said.
“You want me to kill him.”
“I want you to do what’s necessary.” Crowley straightened, adjusting his coat. “And then, perhaps, you’ll have earned some peace.”
Peace. As if that were possible now.
Alan looked at the blood on his hands—Sophia’s, his own, impossible to tell the difference. Upstairs, her body was cooling on hotel sheets. Her investigation into the dating site would die with her. His questions about Isaac White’s security would go unanswered.
And somewhere in Budapest, Timea’s family was sleeping peacefully, not knowing that their lives depended on Alan doing what he was told.
“Where is he?” Alan heard himself ask.
Crowley smiled. Just slightly. The smile of a man who always got what he wanted.
“I’ll be in touch with the details.” He stepped back from the car. “Get that cut looked at. And Alan?” He paused. “Don’t make me regret believing in you.”
Then he was gone, disappearing into the parking garage shadows as if he’d never been there at all.
Alan sat in the silence. The rain fell harder now, drumming against the pavement, washing the city clean.
Three months ago, Sophia Randall had asked him if he thought he was too broken to be worth fixing.
Now he had his answer.
He started the car and drove into the night, leaving hope bleeding out on a hotel-room floor behind him.