Crossing the Line (39 page)

She gasped. “Oh God, Aleksei.”

“You. Okay?” he gasped.

She didn’t know. All she could feel was his weight on her, keeping her down. He’d saved her life. She turned to look at Revnik, expecting him to fire again but he was doubled up holding his stomach, blood flowing over his hand like a red tide. The gun dropped from his fingers and he used both hands to try and hold himself together, but his guts slipped through the wide gash in his belly. He sank to his knees, his face white with shock and fumbled for his gun. Kirill kicked it away. He lifted Revnik’s head by his hair, brought a knife across his throat and slashed.

Katya whimpered.

“My phone. Pocket.” Aleksei rolled off her.

She lay shaking.

Kirill walked over. “Is he dead?”

She glanced at Aleksei. “No. He needs help.”

“I mean Viktor,” Kirill said.

Aleksei had his phone in his hand, pressing buttons. She pushed to her feet and walked over to Petrenko. She couldn’t find a pulse. “Yes, he’s dead.”

Kirill knelt by his father and stroked his face.

She turned to Aleksei to see him struggling with his phone and shot back to his side.

“This is not the way…I thought today…would turn out.” He sucked in a breath and groaned. “Should have trusted me…”

Katya started when Kirill pressed his fingers in her neck.

“Come with me,” he said.

Everything went black.

When Katya came round, she found herself lying in the trunk of a car with her hands tied behind her back. She struggled to get free but the cable ties dug into her skin. Too cramped to maneuver, she lay still, listening to the sounds of the engine.

Death was coming.

She was a little surprised it hadn’t already arrived. Deep down she’d always known it would come to this and she was calmer than she’d thought she’d be.

At least Petrenko was dead. Revnik too. Did it make her feel better? The answer was no. But her killing him had never been going to happen. She didn’t have it in her. Her heart hurt when she thought of Aleksei. He’d sat and listened to her become a person he didn’t know and he’d still put himself between her and a bullet. Tears sprang into her eyes. It proved something, didn’t it? That he really cared about her. But it was all for nothing because she was in the trunk of a car being driven, she suspected, by his deadly brother. And she knew what he was going to do. She hoped help came fast for Aleksei, that he wasn’t too badly injured, didn’t go to prison for long, and one day he could be happy.

She tried to go somewhere in her head so she didn’t think about what was to come but fear enveloped her body like an incoming tidal surge. What a mess she’d made of everything. She hadn’t even managed to tell Ethan what happened at the meeting.

When the car stopped and the engine was turned off, she began to scream for help. It seemed a long time before the lid was raised. Kirill looked down at her, blood all over his shirt. They were in a garage.

“No point screaming,” he said. “No one can hear.”

He picked her up, slung her over his shoulder and carried her up some stairs and along a corridor into a bedroom. He put her down on the bed and she saw Aleksei lying on another, blood on his face and his chest. His eyes were closed but she could hear his ragged breathing beneath a gag.

“He needs help,” she said to Kirill. “If you don’t want anyone to come here, then take him to the hospital. Please. He’s your brother. Help him.”

Kirill looked down at her. “Who are you really working for?
Derzhimordovskaya
?
Pecherskaya
? FBI? FSB?”

“I’m not working for anyone.”

“Tell me the truth.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “It is the truth.”

“But you said—”

“Whatever I could think of to stay alive.”

“Was any of it true?”

“Some.”

“Were you fucking an FBI agent at the same time as my brother?”

“No. I slept with him once in Paris, that’s all. I thought he was an American businessman. It was before I met Aleksei. Get help for him, please.”

“Not for you?”

Katya swallowed hard. “I’ve guessed my fate. I knew this day would come.”

She glanced across at Aleksei. His eyes were open, staring at her. It was to him she spoke.

“When my sister was killed, I was dragged into a different world. All my father could do was rage about revenge, night after night. I felt like I was burning in a fire, losing myself bit by bit. Then one evening, while I laughed and drank and flirted at a party, thinking things would be different now my mother had finally found the courage to leave the house, my family died. I was no longer burning but drowning and the only way out was to find who was responsible. The trail led me to Miami. I didn’t know I’d bring hell with me. If I could turn back the clock, do things differently, I would. I’m sorry.”

“Do you love Aleksei?” Kirill asked.

She took a deep breath. “More than I’ve loved any man before.” The relief in having the chance to say it blocked her throat.

“Does he love you?” Kirill glanced at Aleksei.

“I don’t know.”

“He let himself get shot instead of you.”

“It was brave.”

“Stupid,” Kirill said. “Will you plead for your life?”

“You wouldn’t listen.”

“What if I told you that you could choose who died? You or Aleksei?” He regarded her carefully with his black eyes.

“Why would you kill your brother?”

“He tried to kill me.”

Was he really offering her a way out or was this a trick?

“You’re brave. No tears, no whimpering, no pleading, no leak between the legs.”

He unwrapped his knives on the bed beside her. Katya turned her head to look and wished she hadn’t.

“You or Aleksei?”

Aleksei tried to rub off his gag.

“Don’t kill your brother,” she whispered, hardly able to believe she’d said it. “Kill me.”

Aleksei groaned and shook his head.

“Why not Aleksei?”

“Because he’s all you have left. I have nothing.”

She looked at Aleksei. His face was too pale, sweat glistening on his forehead, his shirt covered in blood
.

“Viktor loved me,” Kirill said. “Now he’s dead.”

This was a guy who had no idea what love was. “He took care of you, gave you a place to live, money, asked you to do things for him but did he tell you he loved you? Did he ever say the words?” She waited a couple of seconds and then said, “I love you, Kiryushenka.” She had to guess the diminutive. There weren’t many for Kirill; Kiryusha, Kiryukha and Kirya had been the first ones she’d thought of. The one she’d used was the most affectionate. The one a mother might have used for her son. Her life might depend on her having made the right choice.

He smiled and flipped her over. Katya tensed but her hands fell free, followed by her legs. He rolled her back and sat on the edge of the bed watching, the long thin knife still in his hand. Katya rubbed her wrists to bring back the circulation, then slowly pushed herself up. She leaned against the headboard with her legs stretched out in front of her. Her heart beat fast and her breathing was shaky but why wasn’t she more frightened? Maybe because she knew her chances of survival were nil.

“You’re not like the others,” he said.

Now he’d cut her free, at least she could do something. Her gaze fell on Aleksei. The cover beneath him had turned red. He needed help now.

“Take off Aleksei’s gag. Unfasten him. Please.”

Kirill tilted his head. “You beg for him not you?”

“Yes.”

“He’s dying,” Kirill said.

“Don’t let him die tied up.”

She tried not to show her shock when Kirill moved to pull the gag from Aleksei’s mouth and cut the cable tie around his hands. He sat back on the bed next to her, the knife still in his hand. There’d been no chance for her to snatch one of the others.

“You touched my tattoo.”

She nodded.

“Your hands are like my mother’s.” He ran his fingers along hers and she forced herself not to flinch.

“I have lumps and bumps from playing the violin. Your mother must have had the same from playing the cello.”

“Just like yours.”

Katya swallowed hard. Was it good or bad to be like his mother? The direction she jumped might kill her. Saying too much or too little might kill her. The blockage remained in her throat. “Could I touch your tattoo again?”

He pulled his T-shirt over his head and knelt on the bed in front of her, still holding his knife. Katya moved onto her knees. The other knives were close but the one in his hand was closest.

“Your body is beautiful.” It wasn’t a lie. Starting at his shoulders she ran the tips of her fingers over the images, increasingly aware it was an action she was afraid to finish.

“Lie down, stretch out,” she said. “I can’t see them properly.”

Kirill lay on his back, his arms by his sides, fingers still around the knife. Katya slid her feet to the floor but brought her face close enough that he could feel her breathing on his skin.

When her fingers reached the edge of his jeans and she touched the scales of a snake, she realized he had an erection and felt a flutter of panic.

“That happened with my mother. Aleksei saw and when we went hunting, he shot me.”

Aleksei groaned. “It was an accident.”

Before Katya had chance to do anything, Kirill flipped positions so she lay on her back, with him above her, sitting on her thighs. He trailed the knife down her arm, leaving a thin red line. The blade was so sharp, Katya didn’t even feel it for a moment.

“I’ll make your body beautiful,” Kirill said.

“Leave her alone.” Aleksei’s voice was little more than a whisper.

“That’s pretty,” she said and ran her finger along the scratch. “Is it difficult to do without cutting deeply?”

“Yes.”

“Can I try on my other arm?”

He stared at her a moment and then moved her hand over his where it held the knife.

Shit.
She’d hoped he’d give it her. She clenched her teeth not to cry out and cut her upper arm.

“Not right.” She made herself sound disappointed. “It’s cheating if you hold on.”

If he let her go, she had one chance to do this. One chance to strike in the right place, only where the hell was that? Chest? What if she missed his heart, hit a rib? Stomach? Wouldn’t kill him instantly. The neck? She might not hit an artery. Her heart pounded so loud, surely he could hear it.

His fingers moved from the knife as Katya ran it slowly down her arm, looking at him while she did it. She had to strike faster than a snake or he’d overpower her. Blood trickled in a thin line down to her wrist and she thought of her sister, and what this man had done to her.

She rammed the knife into his chest just as Aleksei thrust one into his brother’s back.

Before both men collapsed on top of her, she flung herself to one side. Kirill stared at her, blood trickling from his mouth and then sank onto the bed. Aleksei rolled off him panting.

“Accident?” Kirill muttered.

“Then but not now, little brother.”

Kirill’s eyelids fluttered, he gave a soft gasp and stopped moving.

Aleksei groaned. “We need to get out of here.”

“You need to be in the hospital.”

“No. Get me to the car.”

“Aleksei—”

“Do it.” He pushed himself upright.

It was a struggle but Katya managed to help him into the passenger seat. His face was waxen, blood everywhere. She thought he was dying.

She put his hand over the wound. “Press tight.”

“Take me…to the ocean,” he gasped. “Want…to see the water.”

Katya drove with her eyes full of tears.

* * * * *

The CIA dumped Ethan back at his car outside the hotel. He found his gun in the glove box but when he tried to start the engine nothing happened. He lifted the hood, hoping they’d not done anything complicated or irreversible. He was still staring at it when the limo swung back round.

“Get in,” Kelso said. “There’s been an incident at Petrenko’s house. There are people dead.”

“Katya?” Ethan could hardly say her name.

“Three dead, two male, one female. That’s all I know. God, what a fuck up.”

Ethan’s relief that Katya wasn’t among the dead was tempered by him not knowing where the hell she was. There was blood on the couch not near any of the bodies, but until it was tested, he didn’t know if it was Katya’s.

* * * *

The discovery of Kirill’s body in another house should have reassured him but Katya and Kusmin were still missing.

And remained missing. Checks at local hospitals came up negative. He suspected the CIA were hiding them but could get no answers. It was possible they were in witness protection but every enquiry he made came up blank. He did everything he could to persuade the authorities to issue a warrant for Kusmin’s arrest. Every suggestion he made was countered.

The authorities might not have their hands on the uranium but it hadn’t fallen into the wrong hands on this occasion. Whoever had it had likely put it back where he’d hidden it and would wait. The market would always be there.

His dreams of a life with Katya faded back into dust. Would he really have given up everything for her? He thought he might have, but if she’d wanted him, she’d have contacted him.

Hours of not knowing turned into days.

Ten days and he still had no idea if she was alive or dead.

On day eleven he had a call.

“Ethan?”

He slumped into his chair. “Oh God. I thought you were dead.”

“I am.”

He straightened. “What do you mean?”

“Katya Mazarov is dead. So is Aleksei Kusmin.”

His heart pounded in his chest.

“Can you tell me where you are?”

“No. I’m not supposed to have called you but I wanted you to know that I was all right.”

He swallowed hard. “I wanted us—”

“I’m happy, Ethan. I want you to be happy too.”

Oh fuck.
“I wish I’d done things differently.”

“There’s a lot I wish was different but sometimes things happen and we have to take the road offered. You are a good man and sometimes a bad one, but your heart is in the right place. I hope you find someone to share your hammock on Sanibel . Don’t think of me. Good bye.”