“She was a CIA analyst who was getting too close to things she shouldn’t have seen.” Crowley’s voice was patient, almost fatherly. “Her death was always coming. You just made it personal for yourself.” A beat. “That was foolish. Don’t be foolish again.”
Silence filled the car. Outside, rain hammered the parking-garage ramp, streaking the distant light from the lamps.
“What do you want?” Alan finally asked.
“York Newgate.” Crowley said the name as if he were ordering coffee. “He knows too much. He saw things in Moscow years ago—things that could unravel everything we’ve built. And now he’s asking questions again. Digging into old files. Getting too close.”
“York.” Alan closed his eyes. His old partner. The man who’d married Crowley’s daughter. The man who’d lost his wife and child to the Bratva. A shadow now, dangerous.
“I need him handled,” Crowley said.
“You want me to kill him.”
“I want you to do what’s necessary.” Crowley straightened, adjusting his coat. “And then, perhaps, you’ll have earned some peace.”
Peace. As if that were possible now.
Alan looked at the blood on his hands—Sophia’s, his own, impossible to tell the difference. Upstairs, her body was cooling on hotel sheets. Her investigation into the dating site would die with her. His questions about Isaac White’s security would go unanswered.
And somewhere in Budapest, Timea’s family was sleeping peacefully, not knowing that their lives depended on Alan doing what he was told.
“Where is he?” Alan heard himself ask.
Crowley smiled. Just slightly. The smile of a man who always got what he wanted.
“I’ll be in touch with the details.” He stepped back from the car. “Get that cut looked at. And Alan?” He paused. “Don’t make me regret believing in you.”
Then he was gone, disappearing into the parking garage shadows as if he’d never been there at all.
Alan sat in the silence. The rain fell harder now, drumming against the pavement, washing the city clean.
Three months ago, Sophia Randall had asked him if he thought he was too broken to be worth fixing.
Now he had his answer.
He started the car and drove into the night, leaving hope bleeding out on a hotel-room floor behind him.
EIGHT
Someone had tried to kill Jayden.
Dakota couldn’t prove it. The dive crew had checked the equipment, called it a malfunction, logged the incident, and moved on. “These things happen,” they’d said. Regulator issues. Manufacturing defects. Bad luck.
But Dakota had seen the tiny cut in the o-ring that the crew dismissed as wear and tear. He’d felt the cold certainty settle into his bones as he helped her onto the dive platform.
Funny, she hadn’t been as rattled as he’d expected her to be. But it could have been adrenaline. His own adrenaline had turned hot when he’d realized it wasn’t an accident.
Yeah, someone on this tour wanted her dead. And Dakota was going to find out who.
So after he showered and changed back at the hotel, he found the tour director, Bonnie, in the lobby. She was checking something on her tablet when Dakota approached, and her professional smile flickered when she saw his expression.
“Mr. Rivers! How was the?—”
“Someone tried to kill her today.”
She froze, her voice dropping. “I’m sorry—what?”
“On the dive. Jayden’s oxygen ran out.” Dakota kept his voice low, controlled, even though his pulse thundered. “That wasn’t an accident.”
