AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Daria rose just as stiffly, her joints starting to lock up on her. She stepped into the circle of his open arms.
Nik groaned as she fitted herself against him, her head resting on his shoulder, her strong arms enclosing his waist. His future dangled on the scales of the precarious balance he’d worked years for to build. Korsak was on a surgery table fighting for his life. He nuzzled Daria’s neck, inhaling her scent, kissing her softly here and there. “How are you doing? Having a relative gunned down in front of you?” He felt her quiver and knew that it had to be tearing her up inside. Daria had certainly not envisioned a drug lord for a relative.
“I’m numb right now,” she muffled against his neck. “Exhausted, like you. It’s going to take me… weeks… months… years… to sort out Pavlovich and the fact that we’re on the same family tree.”
He held her tightly, his chin resting against her mussed, dusty hair. “I know… I know,moya kotya. But I’m here for you. All right?” and he eased her away from him just enough to study her darkened gold eyes swimming with tears.
Daria wasn’t numb. She was struggling with so much internally and she knew this wasn’t the place or time to let it all out. She needed to cry.
Nik wanted to be the one who held her and soothed her while she found her way through all this unexpected shock and grief. He knew she wouldn’t cry now. He’d seen her in action during the recent firefight and knew she was capable of brutally crushing her emotions in order to meet the end objective. In this case, he understood she was being brave forhim. He was walking the edge of the sword. His whole life was up for grabs. And Nik had no idea on which side of the blade he was going to land. He saw all of his internal turmoil understood in, underlying, the expression in her eyes as she searched his own.
“Thank you for being here,” Daria whispered, leaning upward, her mouth finding his.
The moment her lips slid across his, inducing warmth, chasing away the icy fear in his gut, Nik groaned, and his mouth crushed down on hers. He wanted to impart so much in that kiss with Daria. She could have died out there today. That destabilized him in equal part, as Dan not having yet received the medical help he deserved. Daria had stolen his heart quietly, gently, and now the fierce love he felt for her blossomed throughout him. Her mouth opened eagerly beneath his, alive, denying the death they’d both dodged today. Her very breath affirmed life. That special spicy scent that was simply her infused him with hope against the brutal reality that dogged his heels. And, when Daria moved her hips against his, the fire that had lain in barely smoldering coals within him, flared to life in his lower body. Loving Daria was like getting an IV infusing him with life against his death sentence here in Peru. He was so grateful she was in his life. There was so much to tell her, to share with Daria, but this wasn’t the time or place to do it.
Reluctantly, he parted from her mouth, staring down into her exhausted eyes. “The apartment is nearby,” he rasped, sliding his fingers across her dusty cheek. “I’ll be back as soon as possible…”
The change inNik upon his return was like night and day to Daria. He was clean and shaven, his hair combed, and was wearing a set of ivory chinos, and a red polo shirt that showed off his well-sprung chest. He looked even better to her as she penetrated his garments with her sniper’s gaze, missing nothing. Standing, she met him at the door.
“No change. No one’s come out to say anything about Korsak. They just brought out Brudin and he’s in recovery right now. The nurse said he was doing fine, but he will be kept here for two days under observation.”
Nik halted, cupping her jaw, placing a light kiss on her brow. “And Kravec?”
“Already out and in recovery, too. He’s going to be here for three days before they release him.”
“Good,” he murmured, his gaze centered on her. “All good news.”
“Yeah,” she muttered, taking his hand, kissing and releasing it. “I asked about Korsak, but the surgery nurse said they were still working on him.”
“She’s not going to tell you anything,” Nik murmured. He picked up her ruck, settling it on her shoulders. Handing her a piece of paper, he said, “This is the safe house. The digital combination for the front door and the apartment are here.”
“Okay,” she said, “I’ll be back as soon as possible.” Daria wanted to remain in contact with Nik, but knew she couldn’t. The light burning in his blue eyes, the care, the love he held for her, was clearly there despite his fatigue. And itwaslove and Daria knew it. She gripped his fingers, squeezing them. “I’ll be back…”
She found the three-story ivory stucco apartment building four blocks from the hospital. It was early evening, quitting time in Cusco, and the streets were jammed with cars trying to get home. Square plazas, all busy with foot traffic, intermingled the streets throughout the ancient pre-Inca city. Daria worried over the potential spies Valdez could have in Cusco. Did they know about the Russian’s safe house in the city? She wasn’t about to drop her guard. She missed her firearms, and wished she still had them on her. The knife in her ruck was her only defense should they find her and try to capture or kill her. Daria’s senses were on full sniper alert, taking nothing or anyone for granted.
She worried over Nik at the hospital. If Valdez and his men had tracked him there, they could go after him, too. There was no safe ground right now. Her mind gyrated back and forth between her mafia relative’s recent demise and the outcome of Nik’s dilemma with Korsak, balanced as it was on the thin blade of a scalpel, and his brother Dan’s future, bound by fate to the skill of that scalpel-wielding surgeon. How badly she ached for Nik to come to the US. She wanted him in Alexandria, Virginia, with her. She loved him. Her heart felt squeezed by an invisible fist, twisted, and the pain was almost too much for her to bear. Somehow, she had to stuff all her escaping emotions into a box and slam the lid shut. As she crossed a busy street, the smell of gasoline exhaust in the air, the sun sending orange shafts through the metropolis of buildings as it slanted in the west, Daria forced herself to remain alert.
She had just changed into some dry, clean clothes, a set of jeans, a pink-capped tee, when her sat phone rang. Hurrying to her ruck on the kitchen table, she punched the button, seeing that the call was from Jack Driscoll.
“We just got word Korsak is going to make it,” he told her.
Jagged relief plunged through Daria. “Thank, God,” she whispered, her hands tightening around the sat phone. She sat down in a chair. “How did you find out?”
“Got an undercover mole in the hospital,” was all he said. “Nik will be told shortly by the surgery nurse.”
Grinning, she said, “What next?”
“The CIA is initiating that C-130 to fly down two days from now. In the meantime, we want you and Nik to play guard dog for Korsak. We don’t trust Valdez at all. We’re sure he and the other drug lord, Suero, have spies in Cusco. You’re going to have to stand guard in shifts. I’ve already contacted thepoliciaand they are going to provide protection as well, but frankly? They aren’t someone I’d trust with my grandmother, much less with someone like Korsak in the mix. There’s too much graft and corruption in the ranks and I wouldn’t be surprised if Valdez and Suero had their own moles inside the police department.”
“I agree,” she said grimly. “What about the CIA giving Nik and Dan political asylum? Have you heard anything on that front, Jack?”
“Yeah, the State Department is moving on it right now. When I know, I’ll call you.”
“What if Korsak suddenly dies?”
“I talked to a woman at the State Department who’s tasked with bringing Dan out of Ukraine to the US. I asked her the same question. She said she has a green light on this, that Dan is going to be on a US flight out of Kyiv, Ukraine tonight, Virginia time, regardless if Korsak dies in transit or not.”
She swallowed; her voice suddenly emotional. “Seriously? They’re going to give Nik and Dan what they want even if Korsak suddenly goes belly-up?”
