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That’s when I realized that, sometime in the last few days, I’d stopped being a spy.
“No,” I said, my voice brittle.
Rurik looked at me like I was a child refusing to drink her medicine. “It was not a request, Tanya. We can’t have you running around with the knowledge that Russia knew about a terrorist attack on the United States and didn’t stop it. That’s as good as an act of war!” His hand tightened on my shoulder and I saw the concern in his eyes. He did care. “The others wanted you dead, said you were too much of a risk. I had to fight for you, persuade them I could bring you home.”
That’s when I realized things were even worse than I’d thought. He’d said bring you home. He hadn’t mentioned Colton. I looked over my shoulder to where Colton waited, then back to Rurik, unable to speak.
Rurik gave me a somber nod, confirming my fears. “The American dies. You know we can’t leave a loose end like that. They want you to do it. As a show of loyalty, before you come home.”
I stared at him, speechless.
“If you won’t do it,” he said slowly, “My orders are to shoot you both.” His firm expression crumpled. “Please, Tany’echk’a, don’t make me do that.”
It felt like a black hole had opened up in the center of my chest and everything was slowly being sucked in, leaving only cold darkness. I turned away from Rurik and walked slowly towards Colton.
I knew what I had to do. It was the only thing I could do.
Colton scowled protectively when he saw the expression on my face. “What happened?”
I took a deep breath and tried to speak, but a tremor shook my chest and I nearly sobbed again. I pressed my lips together and tried again. And then again. Chyort! I couldn’t afford to cry. Not now. I put my hand on Colton’s chest. “I love you,” I blurted.
So many emotions played out on his face. Shock. Elation. All abruptly swept away by the realization that something was very, very wrong. “I love you, too,” he said, his voice ragged. “What’s—”
“I’m sorry.” I pulled out my gun and shot him in the chest.
50
COLTON
The pain hit me first, white-hot agony that erupted in my heart and spread across my whole chest. It was so intense it pulled the colors from my vision, leaving everything in hazy black and white. I saw Tanya lower her gun, saw the tears in her eyes. Then the sky, where I knew the clouds should still be pink and orange from the dawn but suddenly they were just funeral gray. I was dimly aware I was falling backwards. Then my back hit the runway and jolted everything, and the pain I thought couldn’t get any worse, did.
The shock started to hit me. The reality of what had happened. And all of the fear and doubt from the early days came back, crushing me. You fucking idiot. Of course a woman like her didn’t love me. JD had been right, she’d made the whole thing up, it had all just been an elaborate plan to let her escape back to Russia.
But then my brain kicked in, even though my thoughts were hazy, through the pain. I’d seen Maravic and his men with my own eyes. I’d seen the effects of the nerve agent. The conspiracy was real. Tanya had just had a better offer. Maybe she’d even known it would go this way, when she’d called Rurik. Spies are pragmatic.
I should have hated her but I couldn’t. I craned my head up, even though it made the pain worse.
I wanted to see her one last time. That’s how much I loved her.
She’d just reached Rurik. He patted her on the arm: well done. Then they climbed the steps of the plane together. She didn’t look back at me.
The plane’s door closed. My head fell back to the ground and I closed my eyes and lay there, utterly defeated, waiting for death to claim me.
But it didn’t. I felt around on the ground next to me. I should be lying in a lake of blood. Where’s all the blood?
I opened my eyes. Lifting my hand and bringing it to my chest made the pain balloon to the point I nearly passed out, but when I touched my shirt, I couldn’t find any blood there, either. What the fuck? But the bullet had hit me right—
My fingers found the textured steel of my granddaddy’s cigarette case. The bullet had hit it dead-center, bending it from a flat shape into something that looked like a bowl. It had punched straight through the front and come within a hair of making it through the back. I figured I’d cracked a rib or two and I was going to have one hell of a bruise, but I was alive. It had saved me.
