Sokolov is a fairly common Russian surname.
But clearly, it wasn’t a coincidence, and now I’m Yan’s captive again, in some wooden shed someplace warm.
“Where am I?” I ask in Hungarian, my voice cool and steady as I quickly survey my surroundings. He now knows what I am, so there’s no need for the fainting damsel act. As I speak, I become aware of a stinging pain in my lower lip and a dull throbbing in my jaw—likely from when I fought during my capture.
“Colombia.” Yan’s smile turns darker as I shift slightly, trying to relieve the pressure on my bound wrists. “Julian Esguerra’s compound in the Amazon.” He says it in Russian, mocking the lie I told on the night he’d taken me.
I stare at him unblinkingly. The name “Esguerra” means nothing to me, though the fact that I was brought halfway across the world is more than a little worrisome. I switch over to Russian. “Why am I here? What do you want from me?”
“Right now, answers. After that, we’ll see.”
Despite the pain in my battered body, my insides contract, a dark heat sizzling over my skin. Ignoring the sensation, I ask as calmly as I can manage, “And what do I get if I give you these answers?”
“Your life,” someone answers in Russian. It’s a different, rougher voice speaking, and I tear my gaze away from Yan to see his brother approaching, the dim light in the shed making his skull tattoos look like a patchy buzz cut.
“Hi, Ilya.” I give him my brightest smile—something I immediately regret, as the movement reopens my split lip. Still, it’s worth it. Ilya looks taken aback at my enthusiastic greeting, and some of the dark amusement on Yan’s face fades.
He doesn’t like it that I’m happy to see his brother.
It’s probably unwise to piss off Yan, but I don’t believe I’m going to get out of this alive. Not this time. With the Henderson job, I messed up in more ways than one. Not only did I accept a job that I had doubts about, but the SWAT agents didn’t kill Sokolov when I took a shot at one of them from a nearby roof. Somehow, the bastard managed to survive a firestorm of epic proportions and go on the run with his wife.
And if he’s the twins’ friend or boss or whatever, the best I can hope for is a quick death.
“Mina.” Ilya crouches next to his brother, his expression tight as he gazes down at me. “I guess you were never a waitress, were you?”
“I was—I am. I waitress and bartend part-time.” I need a source of legitimate income for things like renting an apartment and keeping my grandmother in the dark.
“Right.” Yan’s tone is mocking. “And the rest of the time, you do what? Kill SWAT agents for fun?”
“Not for fun,” I say evenly. “For money. Same as you two. I was trained as a sniper in the Hungarian Special Forces, but things didn’t work out for me there. So when an opportunity to make some extra cash came up, I figured I’d put my skills to use.”
There. I’ve said it. It feels strangely liberating to admit the truth, to drop the mask that I’ve been wearing for the past few years. No one except my trainer knows about this side of me, and if they did, they’d be shocked and horrified.
The two men in front of me don’t look shocked or horrified. They look like they’re contemplating killing me, which is still somehow better than moralizing disapproval.
Yan reaches out and strokes my lip again, his touch deceptively tender on my wound. “Where’s your employer?”
I lick my lips, tasting blood as he takes his hand away, his fingers smeared with red. “I don’t have an employer. I freelance.”
“He’s talking about Henderson,” Ilya says harshly, and when I look up at him, he’s glaring at his brother for some reason. Focusing back on me, he growls, “Where is he?”
“I have no idea. I only met him in person once, when he gave me the assignment. The rest of the time, he communicated with me through encrypted emails.” There’s no point in denying my involvement. Even if I somehow managed to convince them that this is all a misunderstanding, they’re not going to apologize and fly me back to Budapest.
I’m a dead woman walking—or lying flat, as the matter may be.
“And what exactly was your assignment?” Yan’s voice is silky soft. “Was sleeping with me part of it?”
Ilya visibly tenses at the question, and my face heats despite my resolution to keep my cool. “Of course not. You kidnapped me off the street and dragged me to your place, remember? I had no idea who you were that night, and in any case, I only met Henderson a couple of months ago.”
“Really?” Yan drawls, his eyes gleaming. “So you weren’t spying on us at the bar?”
“Not on purpose. If you didn’t want to be overheard, you shouldn’t have been discussing your business in public. I was working at that bar, that’s all.”
“Bullshit.” Yan’s tone doesn’t change, but the temperature in the shed drops as he touches the side of my neck, his blood-smeared fingers rubbing against my tattoo. “They couldn’t locate you in their system, and you never came back—not even to pick up your measly paycheck. There was no Mina with a hummingbird tattoo on social media, either.”
I try to ignore the effect his touch is having on my body. “So you did look for me.” I feared he might, so when I miraculously didn’t break anything during my escape, I went back to the bar and erased my personnel file in the computer. The owner never paid much attention to his part-time staff, and I wasn’t close to any of my coworkers, so I
