Lie to Me (37 page)

Right. Just like she couldn’t let the disaster between them distract her from the task that lay ahead. One slip, and it would all end right here. Not that there was much beyond the here and now. At least not for her. After suffering through the interrogation, she’d begun to realize her future included a bleak concrete cell and bars. Hughes despised her. Clarke was marginally better, but even he didn’t totally trust her answers.

And Alexei—it hurt just considering what he thought of her. So she refused to think about it at all. “I’m going to jail, aren’t I?” she asked in a near whisper.

Again, he paused for several drawn-out heartbeats before he dipped his head in a nod. “Probably.” He slowed as he took a turn, kept the pace steady as the road evened out. “You killed a lot of people, whether you meant to or not.”

He faulted her. She couldn’t blame him. When it all boiled down to the bottom line, she’d made the bomb. Only her claims separated her from black and white evidence. In truth, she had to admit, her story sounded a bit implausible. What kind of father manipulated a daughter, convinced her she killed her brother, and held that over her head to coerce her into designing black-market arms?

Certainly not a father revered for his dedication to improving the quality of human life.

Alexei took another turn, driving them deeper into the heart of
London. His gaze flicked to her, back to the road. The muscle along the side of his jaw worked as he chewed his thoughts.

After several agonizing minutes of uncomfortable silence, he asked, “How did you end up at that hole-in-the-wall strip club in Moscow?”

“My father’s cousin.”

He shot her a look of disbelief.

Sasha shook her head. Sheer desperation for a hot meal had driven her to take the risk of discovery, but even after all this time, she still couldn’t figure out why Boris had taken her in. “I couldn’t get out of the country. My father was looking for me. He knew all the officials—I couldn’t leave. So I ran. I was hungry. You saw me—I looked like a stick after six months on the street. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Boris told me he’d let me stay in the club’s office as Irina for a few weeks to earn a bit of money. I was getting ready to move on when we…”

She trailed away, not wanting to open the subject of their involvement. The distance between them was too raw to revisit memories.

Alexei’s profile tightened, evidence of his own discomfort.

There was nothing else to say, nothing that would lessen the pain of loss and the heartache of betrayal. She looked out the window, turning her thoughts to the bomb, doing her damnedest to control the quivering in her belly.

A
s they approached the historic concrete building with its sweeping, self-supporting dome and its many intricate arches and columns, Alexei found it more difficult to apply pressure to the gas pedal. For all intents and purposes he was leading Sasha to her possible demise. He’d been here once before, back when she was a mission and had only scratched the thick outer layer of his heart. It had been nearly impossible to deliver her to Amir. Now, she was embedded deep, and
impossible
didn’t encompass half of the resistance he felt.

He wanted nothing more than to follow the instinctual urge to protect her at all costs and turn this car around, take her far away from here.

Clarke, and the loyalty Alexei owed to the man who had pulled him out of the Triad in San Francisco and away from the women he serviced, kept him navigating the Jaguar down Victoria Street.

He didn’t know how to turn his back on Clarke any more than he knew how to lead Sasha through that rapidly approaching rear entrance, or the barricade erected around the block.

Even Misha could understand that, he supposed. Quite possibly, Misha was the only man who might. He had been in the same position, after all. Mission and personal were never meant to combine.

Alexei glanced around at the people gathered on the sidewalk, the unsuspecting tourists and residents who trusted their government to keep them safe. They had no idea of the danger that lurked in the belly of that imposing building. No clue that at any minute they could wink out of existence.

He owed it to them, to the innocents who’d never been exposed to the darker side of human nature, to keep his toe on the gas. Sasha was their only hope. Hell, his too, for that matter. If he turned the car around like he ached to do, he’d never get outside the range of fallout. Novichok carried on the wind. It would float several miles before it deteriorated enough to be harmless.

Fuck, this was wrong. The instinct to protect her was so fiercely natural it threatened to eat him alive. A man did not send a woman he loved into the heart of danger. Period.

He glanced at Sasha’s profile, admiring the resolve in her somber expression. If she weren’t telling the full truth, she wouldn’t be here now. He knew it in his gut. His mind, however, couldn’t wrap around the words. The story was too fantastic, the loss she’d suffered, the betrayal of her
father
, too great to consider. Maybe it was his own deep yearning to have a father, his inability to believe his could have turned
on him if he’d lived through the car accident that took him when Alexei was three. Fathers loved their children. They didn’t blow them up, they didn’t force them into crime.

Whatever the reason, no matter how much one side of him believed Sasha, the other simply couldn’t climb on board with the theory. All he knew was he loved her. He’d do anything to keep her safe. And he was escorting her to a highly unstable, deadly canister of Novichok.

Alexei sighed.

The barricades approached faster than he could prepare for them, and before he knew it, he was flashing his temporary badge and driving to the collection of armored vehicles near the southwest entrance. Agents and operatives flocked between the cars, hurriedly entering the building, and just as quickly exiting. A sense of nervous excitement hung in the air. Agitation that made the hairs on Alexei’s arms stand on end.

He eased the car to a stop and shut the engine off, still not able to look at Sasha for fear he’d say something that would hurt them both more. When this was over, she belonged to England. To Hughes and the justice he would demand.

Nothing Alexei could do could change that.

“Well. I guess I’m off,” she mumbled as she grabbed at the door handle.

“Wait.” The word popped out before Alexei could stop it. Driven by a need he couldn’t name, he reached across the console and clasped her hand. His throat closed as her blue eyes lifted to his.

I love you.

He choked back the confession. It would only do further damage. Instead, he lifted his free hand to her face and brushed her cheek with the back of his knuckles. Studying her. Etching that beautifully tender expression into his memory.

Her voice thickened with emotion as she whispered, “I kept my past from you, but everything else was the truth.” With a sad smile,
she reached between them to run the pad of her thumb across his lips. “You’ll always be my hero, Alexei.”

“Don’t,” he whispered. At that moment, it hit him what she was doing—saying good-bye. As if she didn’t think she would return from that building. And the thought was beyond comprehensible. “Don’t fucking do this. You’re coming back out.” His hold on her arm tightened. “You’re coming back out, Sasha.”

“I can’t—”

Whatever protest she’d intended to make, he squashed with the hard assault of his mouth. His hand slid from her cheek into the thick mass of hair at the nape of her neck, and he nudged her lips apart, delving inside to tangle his tongue against hers. Need and desperation fought against what he knew was right, what duty demanded. Longing for what they had lost rose from the depths of his soul.

When emotion broiled to the point he thought it might swallow him whole, he tore his mouth away, in dire need of air. The hard fall of his breath rasped in time with hers. Beneath the fingers he held around her wrist, her pulse bounded. She stared into his eyes. “Tell me I still have a part of you.” Her lower lip trembled as a soulful plea filled her tremulous blue eyes.
Lie to me.

Not lies. She would always have a piece of him. “You do,” he murmured thickly. Increasing the pressure at the back of her neck, he dragged her close and pressed her cheek to his shoulder. “Don’t think about anything but what you’re doing in there, princess.”

She nodded.

Reluctantly, Alexei released her. Sasha slid from his embrace, exited the car without a backward glance. He watched her walk toward the group of specialists that had been instructed she’d arrive while they were on the plane, all the while loathing himself for being the one to deliver her to danger.

For the first time he could remember since God had turned away from a scared teen’s pleas, Alexei lifted his gaze to the sky and prayed.

S
asha’s tennis shoes squeaked against the polished marble tiles that led to the elevators. Through her gas mask, she stole a glance at the fabled Sandman, who had made no attempt to hide what he thought of her upon introductions.

Fucking bitch
said everything quite nicely.

She supposed, on some level, she deserved the insult. More importantly, though, it had served to chase away the heartache and fear, replacing them with a strong determination to prove to the arrogant bastard she was better with bombs than he could ever be. To succeed, despite the high risk of the situation.

Supposedly Novichok had been designed as a more stable way to handle nerve agents. But her father had been part of the group of scientists who’d constructed the series of agents, the deadliest of which was Novichok-7—her father’s personal favorite, because it was comprised of two gasses, both harmless until combined. Colorless, undetectable substances that transported easily and, for the purposes of military research, was akin to finding gold.

He had brought this poison to London. Sasha was certain of it.

The two bomb squad men escorting her and Sandman came to a halt outside of a heavy, windowless steel door. Beyond the thick barrier, machinery hummed telltale tunes that marked a boiler room.

“It’s all yours from here, Sandman,” the shorter of the pair said as he backed away from the door.

Mine.
Sasha thought. Sandman would only secure the canister. The bomb, the real threat, belonged to her.

She pushed past the hulking figure currently receiving the credit for her expertise and opened the boiler room door. She made it two steps inside before a heavy hand compressed her right shoulder and ground her to a halt. “You stay with me.”

Sasha couldn’t resist rolling her eyes. Just where did he think she was going? “Do me a favor, don’t touch me.” Her breath rasped through
the gas mask as she struck off ahead of him, rounding a corner, passing the old boilers that churned timelessly, and down another hallway, following the likely path her father would have taken. Into the deepest part of the building, where chances of discovery were nil.

She spied the silver canister tucked neatly against the base of a concrete support column. It waited like a sleeping guard dog, programmed to attack, trained to go for the gullet. Sasha took a deep breath and turned to her reluctant partner. “How much time do we have?”

“Ten minutes.”

Plenty. As long as she didn’t jostle the aluminum container, she could kill the microchip in five.

“Give me your cell phone.”

Through the clear flexible window of his full-face mask, his gray eyes narrowed. He shook his head. “You’ll give me the codes, and you’ll give me the
right
ones.”

A streak of belligerent defiance shot through Sasha. She’d be damned if she let one person know how her detonation devices worked. She jabbed a finger into Sandman’s broad, hard chest. “That’s the last one in existence. I will
not
give you, or anyone else, the ability to re-create it. Hand me your damn cell phone.”

He stared her down for one full agonizing minute. Surprising even herself, Sasha held his unblinking gaze, returning his stubbornness bit for bit. She wasn’t going to fold. Not for him. Not for Alexei. Not for God Himself. Enough people had died by the things she’d created. Never again would that risk exist.

The knowledge would die with her, she’d take it to her grave.

With a profane mutter, Sandman jammed both his hands behind his back. One came forth with the cell phone. The other held his pistol. As she snatched the phone out of his hands, she snorted at the gun. “That’s not going to get you far if I activate the chip now, is it?”

Though he didn’t respond, his stormy expression made his distaste for having to work with her clear.

Turning her back to him, she slammed the side of the cell against
the cement column, cracking it in half to access the microchip inside. Then she took a deep breath and knelt before the canister. With a far more steady hand than she’d imagined possible, she carefully set the cell’s microchip across the 10-X-6 serial number.

She felt his stare boring into her shoulders as she plucked a pair of wire cutters out of her hip pocket and snipped a wire on the device. Heard him suck in a sharp breath. Sasha tossed him a smirk over her shoulder. “Relax. The wires are harmless until the chip gets into countdown mode. I have three minutes, give or take, until then.”