“It better be on the give side,” he ground out tightly.
It took less than one to connect the wire to the two chips, snip another, bridge it off the first, and attach it to the keypad on the cell phone. Rocking back on her heels, she tapped in the first code in the sequence of ten.
T
ime ticked by at an excruciating pace, forcing Alexei from the car, down the sidewalk, to stand at the edge of the gathered MI6 and Black Opal operatives. He kept his distance, too agitated to talk, his thoughts centered solely on Sasha. She’d been inside too long.
He glanced absently at his watch, but he didn’t see the digits. He was blind to everything but the feeling in Sasha’s wide blue eyes. If he lost her here, if he somehow managed to survive the Novichok poisoning and had to live with himself, knowing he was responsible for bringing her here, Clarke would have to pull his gun. Alexei would eat it if he didn’t.
A frightening realization that made everything somehow worse. He had never put another person’s life, except for his mother’s, over his own.
“Nikanova!”
The crisp, British voice punched into Alexei’s thoughts, snapping his head up. He turned to find Hughes climbing out of a government car, hailing him down. Just fucking great. If Sasha made it out, Alexei would have to say good-bye in front that jerk. He wasn’t certain when he’d started to hate Hughes, but right now he despised him more than Amir, more than the
Bratva
scum Alexei had spent so many years trying to destroy.
He tensed as Hughes stepped onto the curb at his left. “Where’s Clarke?”
“Dealing with your dead op.”
So Kadir was dead. The knowledge brought a strange mix of sadness and joy. Kadir had been a legend among the elite. He should have died that way, not as a rogue, a traitor. At the same time, with Kadir out of the picture, one less person was trying to harm Sasha. All that remained was her father. And Alexei would stop at nothing to make sure Yakiv couldn’t get close to her while she was in British confinement.
A murmur broke through the gathered men and women, drawing both Hughes’s and Alexei’s attention on the barricaded entryway. Two burly MI6 men at the entrance stepped back as the door swung outward. Sandman shuffled out like a turtle, cradling an insulated cooler-like container. He waved off a hand that reached out to slap his shoulder.
Behind him, Sasha emerged from the shadowy recesses. With her mask removed, her long blonde hair was a beacon in the warm, orange glow of the twilight sun. Alexei’s heart skidded to a stop. His focus locked on her, his chest too tight to let his lungs expand.
In that moment, as time stood still around him, he knew he could never let her go. Her past didn’t matter. She’d been a pawn, a gentle soul incapable of harming the men and women her father had orchestrated into death. Whatever it took, Alexei would spend the rest of his life trying to prove her innocence, forcing people to believe her word over that powerful bastard’s.
He took a step forward, needing to touch her, to hold her close and confess the words he’d withheld in the car. But Hughes’s hand fell on his shoulder, dragging him to a halt. “She’s mine, Nikanova. She leaves with me.”
Alexei jerked away. He was going to fucking kill that Brit before the day was through. “Just give me a goddamn minute.”
He had to force himself to walk, not run, down the sidewalk to the decontamination tent erected at the side of the building where three female
operatives ushered Sasha inside. A renegade smile twitched the corner of his mouth as the wind blew, stirring the loose flap of the foremost chamber, and giving him a glimpse of creamy white skin, a perfectly rounded buttock. His. That pretty little ass belonged to him, and nothing in this world could drive him away.
He waited, impatient as a kid on Christmas morning, for Sasha to complete the shower, wishing like hell he could jump beneath that curtain with her. The idea was so out of place he almost laughed. But in a few minutes, Hughes would take her away, and Alexei didn’t know when he might have a chance to touch her again. To hold her in his arms, to lose himself in the sweetness of her body.
He tightened at the thought. Not with desire, though that was never far beneath the surface. With something he couldn’t understand. From the top of his head to the pads of his toes, every part of him hurt.
It seemed an eternity passed before the back end of the curtain opened and Sasha emerged, dressed in a pair of workout pants and a T-shirt one of the female ops evidently pulled from the trunk of a car. They were wrinkled, like they’d been stuffed inside and forgotten. But they were clean. He grinned as he noticed her sneakers squished as she approached.
Her gaze caught his, and that grin transformed into a heartfelt smile. He shouldered around the man beside him, leaving Hughes even farther behind, and went to her. Not caring who witnessed, he gathered Sasha into a bear hug. He turned his head in search of her mouth, needing her kiss more than he’d ever needed the softness of her lips.
She was there in an instant, her kiss every bit as needy and desperate, fiery and hot, full of the yearning that arced across his soul. Her body melted against his. The ends of her wet hair dripped onto his hands, his arms.
“Sasha,” he murmured, breaking the kiss for an instant. The parting became too much, and he took her mouth again. Her tongue tangled with his. Deep possessive strokes matched the fervor of his own.
God, he needed her. He’d been such a fool. So damnably dedicated to what was right, when the only thing right and good in his life stood directly in front of him.
His heart drummed hard as he realized he was dangerously close to peeling away her clothing right here on the sidewalk in front of everyone. Panting, he drew the intoxicating kiss to a leisurely close and cupped her delicate face between his larger, coarser palms. “I love you, princess. I’m so sorry for being an ass.”
Her eyes glistened up at him, tears gathering in the corners. But her gaze shifted over his right shoulder, and she winced. “They’re here already?”
Alexei nodded. “I’ll talk to Clarke. I’m going to make myself a pain in his ass until he agrees to pull whatever strings necessary and get you out of here.” He stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. “I promise. Whatever it takes.”
If he could usher her past these people and somehow clear the way for her to run, he would. Duty be damned, she didn’t deserve to be punished for the things her father did in her name.
Hughes wedged a hand between them, locking his fingers onto her shoulder, wrenching her sideways, out of Alexei’s grasp. He tossed Alexei a scathing glare. “Nice to know the Opals are so loyal to terrorists.” He wrenched Sasha’s arm behind her. “Say good-bye, Sasha.”
She let out a pained yelp as he jerked her other arm behind her and mercilessly clamped her into cuffs. It took every bit of Alexei’s self-control to not react to the sound, to keep his balled fist at his side and resist the urge to ram it down Hughes’s throat.
“I promise,” he murmured, holding her watery gaze.
Sasha nodded, and then she was gone, Hughes marching her down the sidewalk to the government car without a single word of thanks for the job she’d done.
A part of Alexei went with her. He felt it pull from inside his soul and arc out of his reach. There was only one way he could get it back—Clarke.
Gritting his teeth together, he avoided the curious stares and made his way back to his borrowed car. He needed to get back to MI6 headquarters before Hughes caved to Sasha’s father’s demands and forced her to confront the man.
As he climbed behind the wheel, he frowned, his subconscious making an uncomfortable connection. For a man who’d gone to so much trouble to create the appearance of a despondent father, not once had Yakiv made a request to see her. True, Sasha had been in custody since their arrival, but she hadn’t been in total isolation.
Hughes hadn’t even touched his phone during the interrogation, as he would have if Yakiv had called.
Odd.
Though not entirely out of place, given what Sasha said about her father’s motives.
Alexei shook off the thought and turned his mind to the impossible task of not only making amends for his earlier interference, but swaying Clarke into moving boulders for Sasha’s freedom.
He arrived at the nondescript building that temporarily housed the joint task force, shut the car off, and palmed the keys. Fuck it. They hadn’t missed the car. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with the necessary paperwork that would secure his own.
Inside, a few people murmured congratulations as he marched down the hall. Whether they praised his return of a perceived terrorist, or the success Sasha had with the bomb, Alexei didn’t know. Didn’t give a damn. He’d turned an innocent person over to British custody without once standing up for her innocence. Not that it would have mattered—they didn’t have time with the bomb over their heads. Still, he couldn’t escape the fact that he had betrayed Sasha once again.
He shoved open the small door to Black Opal command central, frowning. Yes, he had betrayed her. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. He’d make it up to her when she was free. Somehow.
“Where’s Clarke?” he barked at the nearest operative, a young man Alexei didn’t recognize.
The kid jumped out of his chair like a gun had gone off. He stuttered as he turned around. “Wh-what?”
Great. Alexei was in the crises of his life, and he’d stumbled onto a wet behind the ears analyst who was too afraid of his own shadow to ever amount to anything more than a research rat.
Alexei tried like hell to soften the formidable creases he knew were etched into his brow. “Clarke. The boss. Where is he?”
“I-I don’t know.”
Clamping his teeth over a curse, Alexei scanned the room for someone,
anyone
he might recognize. An unfamiliar man bent over three other kids who looked about the same age as this one—twenty-two, Alexei guessed—lecturing them. His voice drifted over the hum of electronics, computers, and conversation, full of the same frustration that was building inside of Alexei. Odd. He knew almost everyone who led a team. Yet that man was nowhere in Alexei’s mental Rolodex of faces. He didn’t bother trying to reach for a name—names were insignificant and changed too frequently.
“I can ask Moretti,” the kid beneath Alexei’s nose offered.
Moretti.
A grin threatened. No wonder the guy sounded like he’d rather slam the brainaics’ heads together. He was their boss, a man seasoned in undercover and not likely to embrace ignorance when lives were on the line. Alexei glanced back at the analyst. “Where’s Trubachev?”
Two things passed across the kid’s face. The first, a grimace. The second, gratitude. “Not in today.”
Despite himself, Alexei laughed. He shook his head, greatly amused. “Tell you what, kid. You talk to him.” He pointed at Moretti. “Find Clarke. I’m going to find some coffee, and then I’ll be in the interrogation room across the hall.”
“There’s a conference room over there.” Rising to his feet, the analyst pointed at a closed door in the corner of the room.
“Even better.”
Alexei thumped the ball of his hand on the corner of the desk and strode away, his dismal mood improved by a glimpse of the effect a pregnant Trubachev had on her team. When this was all over, when he had Sasha secured, he was going to enjoy being chained to a desk. If for no other reason, he’d have a hell of a time flipping Natalya shit.
He pushed open the door to the conference room and found a full coffeepot in the corner. Still hot, he acknowledged with a measure of surprise as he glimpsed the rise of steam. He poured himself a cup, dashed in a healthy amount of sugar, then took a seat at the edge of the table.
Before he could get the cup all the way to his mouth, the door swung inward on its hinges, crashing into the wall.
“I ought to deport your ass for that little stunt, Nikanova.”
Alexei couldn’t help himself; he smirked. “No analyst job?”
Clarke dropped a heavy manila folder on the table. “I’m not fucking joking. If you
ever
pull a stunt like that again, I’ll have your credentials, your gun, and your pension. You’ll have to ask me for permission to take a piss. As for Sasha—” He stopped, a frown replacing his furious scowl as he glanced around the small room. “Where the hell is she?”
Alexei gave his director a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”
Letting out a groan, Clarke braced his hands on the table and stared Alexei in the eye. “Don’t tell me you did something stupid like, I don’t know, maybe putting her on a train out of here?”
“What?” Alexei blinked. “She’s with Hughes. In custody.”
The pensive, introspectiveness that slid into Clarke’s expression balled Alexei’s gut into a knot.
“With Hughes? He didn’t bring her back here?”
“Yeah, he took her off the site.” He scanned Clarke’s face, searching for the answer to why the room suddenly felt too small for the both of them. A wary edge crept into his voice. “Why?”
Clarke’s frown cut deep lines in his forehead. “Because he went
there to bring her back to me. So I could offer her a job and bail your happy ass out of a whole lot of shit.”
Alexei shoved away from the table so fast his hot coffee tipped off the edge, into his lap. The oath that exploded from his lips was a combination of pain, fury, and soul-deep fear.
T
he car made a sharp right-hand turn that didn’t feel right to Sasha. She scanned the buildings beyond the window. Granted, she’d been distracted when Alexei took her to Central Hall Westminster, not exactly paying attention to the route Alexei chose, but she was certain Hughes was going the wrong way. “Isn’t headquarters to the east?”
Hughes’s angry eyes held hers through the rearview mirror. The already hard line to his mouth firmed even more. Then he blinked, and absolute nothingness registered in his expression. Beyond creepy.
She rubbed at the bruise on her left wrist, where the handcuffs he’d removed once she was in the car had pressed too tight. “Where are you taking me?”
“Someone wants to see you.”