Page 30 of The Allure of Ruins

“Because this thing with your ex is scaring the crap outta you.”

I nodded. “Yes, that seems well reasoned.”

“Oh, thank…you,” he said, having started out with sarcasm, but stopping because something had caught his interest as we reached the street we had to cross to get to the pub. Even though the snow was falling steadily now, it had warmed up a fraction, which was always strange. What was even stranger was that after a total of nine years in the city, I could tell that.

“Is something wrong?” I asked him.

He tipped his head toward the entrance of the pub, and I saw the men there in trench coats, scarves, gloves, and trapper hats. They looked like they were freezing to death.

“That’s probably the protection for the men waiting for us inside.”

“Why would FBI agents need protection?” he asked. “From whom?”

“Whom,” I repeated.

“Whom is correct,” he declared. “Heathen. But FBI agents don’t need protection.”

“Gen Antonov is scary,” I promised him. “Or, if not Gen, then whoever else is hunting for me.”

“No. Still not buying it,” he said, his eyes never leaving the men across the street even as he yanked me sideways after him. “Walk with me, and we’ll see what⁠—”

“Stop!” someone yelled.

“Okay, so I think you’re probably right,” I said drolly as I ran beside him.

He didn’t even snarl at me, which told me how worried he was.

Taking a right down an alley, I was pleased that it was a full one—lots of restaurants, and the last one on the left was a nightclub because people were coming out the door scantily clad and immediately pulling on coats. It had been a good call to make Janelle change; she would have had her legs freezing off, as one woman we ran by complained.

As soon as we were on the street again, we heard an engine revving, and then Colton was tugging me after him again to the left. Bullets hit a window we ran past, then brick, making small pieces of mortar fly off the walls.

We ducked down a second alley and stopped as Colton leaned out to peer around the corner.

“Let’s split up,” I suggested. “That way⁠—”

“The fuck we will,” he replied angrily.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” I insisted, trying to pull my hand free of his grip.

“Stop that,” he ordered, scowling, his eyes like molten gold. They changed to the darker, deeper, nearly brown color when he was mad. “We stay together. We always stay together.”

“I—”

“Like I would ever let you leave me,” he grumbled, squeezing my hand for a moment.

What?

What was he saying to me?

Why did he always include the me when I was trying to go? He’d done it the first day we met, and now here it was again. I had to wonder if he even knew when the word tumbled out of his mouth.

His head turned to the right, staring over my shoulder, and I did the same, taking in the large black SUV coming fast down the alley.

We stood at the same time, then veered left, bolting down the snow-covered sidewalk toward the intersection. A van was suddenly so close, too close, and even as Colton changed directions, the door was thrown open.

“Hurry, get in,” the woman there demanded, standing in the door, hunched over, holding out her badge.

Colton shoved me forward, putting me in the van first, then followed quickly. She threw the door closed just as the van was strafed with bullets.