Page 43 of No Going Back

“I was the only suitable candidate.”

That was nothing new—there’d been other missions with an equally limited pool of officers to choose from. “So you said. That happened to other people we knew—what was different this time?”

“There was a very good chance I wouldn’t come back from it.”

“But… we all knew that. Every mission had that risk.”

“Not like this one.” He turned around.

His expression was so bleak, Maddie gasped. “Tell me.”

“When I say there was a very good chance I wouldn’t come back from it… it was damn close to being a suicide mission. At the briefing, they told me everything and gave me a choice, but… there was no choice. It was a matter of national security. Thousands of lives would be put at risk if we didn’t get someone on the inside. That person had to be me. Even though it was need-to-know, I would have told you—for any other mission I would have told you.”

“But not for this one.”

“I couldn’t work out how.”

A couple of steps brought him closer, but then he stopped dead and rammed his hands in his trouser pockets. “If I didn’t make it back, I didn’t want you grieving for me or what we’d had together. I figured breaking your heart and making you hate me was the most efficient way to achieve what I wanted. If I didn’t make it back, you’d have already moved on.”

“And if you did come back? What then?”

“I’d have moved heaven and earth to get you back. But it became a moot point when I was told you’d died in a fire, and no one would tell me what you were doing in that building. I couldn’t stay long enough to press anyone for answers, otherwise the mission would have been placed in even greater jeopardy. I went back, but after that, I didn’t care whether I survived the mission or not. You were gone.”

What an unholy mess. Maddie ran through everything Guy had just told her, trying to see the situation from his point of view, and balancing it against hers. A person could go insane, trying to make sense of something so… she didn’t even know the words to describe it.

“You were gone.”

Something about the bleak way he repeated the words set her alarm bells ringing. Even as she watched him, he was visibly withdrawing from her. “Guy?”

“So where did you go? You didn’t fake your death for the hell of it. Why?”

“You weren’t the only one with a mission. After the last time we were together, our lords and masters needed someone to go undercover in Moscow. I was the best Russian speaker available. With you gone, I had no reason to stay and every reason to go. And the mission wasn’t without its risks.”

Risks she hadn’t thought about in years, until recent events had set her instincts on alert.

“I have to go.”

Guy’s abrupt declaration sent an arctic blast through her—was she about to lose him again? “Guy…?”

“I have to go.”

“Call me.”

Pleasehovered on her lips. It died before the door closed behind him, and was buried the second the lock clicked into place.

For a moment, she wondered what had just happened. Her brain kicked into sluggish gear and began to process. It was for the best. Really, it was. Because if the monstrous, black SUV she’d first observed in the area a few days ago, and spotted several times since, proved to be the threat she suspected, she’d have to run.

And not just for her life. For her enemies, she would be a means to an end. She couldn’t allow them to find Yana, even if that meant giving up the life Maddie had made for herself since they’d fled to the West.

Even if that meant giving up her life, period.