I run my fingers through my girl’s soft hair, wishing I could take away what she suffered. Wishing it was me who took that bullet.
Wishing we were in Budapest already.
“How did Kiss know all this?” Ilya asks.
“Nagy and Kiss shared a few drunken nights in brothels around the time Nagy left the military. Nagy bragged about his scheme to Kiss one night after a bottle of vodka. Kiss was an accomplice in the attack, so Nagy didn’t consider him a threat.”
More puzzle pieces click together. Slowly, the ugly, nasty picture takes shape. “When I went after Mina’s attackers, Nagy got nervous.”
“He was worried the men would eventually break under the torture and talk,” Anton says.
“So Nagy took them out,” Ilya concludes.
“Correct,” Anton says. “Kiss wasn’t hiding only from us. He was hiding from Nagy as well.”
Something else is eating at me like acid. “What about the price on Mina’s head?”
“Kiss heard from an ex-military connection that it was Nagy himself who put up the bounty.”
The fucker. “Nagy saw us together at the station in Budapest,” I say. “He knew Mina had taken the blame for the job of framing us as terrorists. He must’ve been worried she’d eventually tell me the truth, and we’d come after him.”
“So he made sure every assassin went after her in the hope that someone would eventually succeed.” Ilya spits on the floor next to his seat. “Ublyudok.” In our business, a man who stabs one of his own in the back is the worst kind of scum. “Who set us up?”
I have a damn good idea, but I want Anton to say it. I want to hear the traitor’s name. I want the syllables of that name to sink into my heart and brain. I want the filthy sound of those dirty consonants and vowels to smolder in my thoughts and feelings until I can smother the hatred with the violence I’ll commit with my bare hands.
Anton gives Ilya a level look. “Who do you think?”
“Nagy,” Ilya says with undisguised hatred.
“After slitting Kiss’s sorry throat, I told our hackers to see if there was anything new on Nagy,” Anton says. “They thought it was most interesting that Nagy had met with Dimitrov only yesterday at his home in Prague. They managed to get a satellite recording with audio. Nagy, that fucker, casually relayed our plans over a cup of tea, lounging on Dimitrov’s pool deck.” Anton clenches the yoke as if he imagines it to be Nagy’s neck. “I called you the minute I got the info.”
Fuck. Mina must’ve confided in Nagy when she met him in Budapest. There’s no other explanation. Nagy sold us out to Dimitrov, knowing we’d be outnumbered and believing Dimitrov’s men would take Mina, my team, and me out—a whole lot of birds with one stone—thereby eliminating the problems that would’ve followed if Mina or her last remaining assailant were to expose Nagy. His bad.
“He’s dead.” My voice is ice, even as fire consumes my veins. “Ilya, put out word that I’m doubling Nagy’s price. It’s on his head now, but I want him alive.”
Ilya’s features soften marginally as he looks at Mina. “You better hope someone finds him before I do.”
Not if I get to him first.
Nagy’s greed almost cost Mina her life. He arranged her brutal assault and posed as her savior. He pretended to provide her with a means of earning money while taking kickbacks behind her back. He let her take the blame for a job he did. He set her up while posing as her friend. No matter how desperately I long to tear Nagy apart and rip out his intestines, he’s Mina’s to kill. That doesn’t mean I can’t make him suffer before I hand him over.
I swear on Mina’s life I’ll find Nagy. I’ll deliver him to Mina if it’s the last thing I do.
“How’s she holding up?” Ilya asks, his face pulled into a mask of concern.
My gut clenches. Emotions threaten to erupt, but I push them under the surface. If I give my feelings free rein, I’ll go stark raving mad, and that’s not going to help Mina. “She’s tough. She’ll pull through.”
She has to.
“Buckle up,” Anton says. “We’re lucky we had the wind behind us. We’re touching down in five minutes.”
Thank fuck. The hour-long flight felt like an eternity. My nerves are raw, my emotions all over the place. On the outside, I’m acting with the efficient rationality of a man with military training. On the inside, I’m a mess. Mina’s injury—an injury that could very well turn out to be fatal—is jeopardizing my sanity, while the information Anton shared is making me boil with rage.
As I hold Mina’s motionless body, I take a silent oath to make all the wrongs right. I’ll give her the freedom I intended. I’ll give her anything in my power. If I believed in God, I’d pray. I’m desperate enough to pray anyway. I’ll do anything, anything at all. I’ll become a goddamn priest if that’s the bargain I have to make.
A vehicle has been delivered to the hangar. Anton, bless his efficient soul, called the rental agency while he was waiting for us in Prague. Ilya grabs the two Glocks to bring with us. Armed with the AK-47, Anton stays behind, using the hangar as a workstation to tap into our satellite and check the area around the clinic for suspicious activities or persons. One can never be safe enough. Ilya gets behind the wheel and drives.
Cradling Mina with one arm against my chest in the backseat, I use my secure cellphone to dial the clinic and ask for Dr. Adami. I didn’t want to call while we were in the air and find a team of feds waiting for us at
