Page 75 of Mile High Ruin

“You were about to.”

“I was thinking very loudly.”

Anton opens the rear door of one of the undamaged SUVs.

Vadim stands carefully. I hover close enough to catch him if he sways, which is ridiculous because he still looks capable of carrying me again if necessary.

He notices. “I can walk.”

“So could I earlier.”

His eyes narrow. “That was different.”

“Of course it was.”

Camille had been pulled behind one of the ground vehicles by a security man, white-faced but unharmed, and when our eyes meet she gives me a quick nod that tells me she’s all right. I don’t get the chance to go to her before Vadim’s men close around us and start moving everyone toward the cars.

We get into the SUV. I end up beside Vadim in the rear seat, with Anton in front and Marek squeezed into the row opposite us. Iosef is directed into another vehicle, apparently because Anton has not forgiven him for failing to transform into an action hero during the firefight.

The convoy moves almost immediately. Only when we leave the private airfield do I finally see where we are.

Bucharest. The name was on my assignment sheet, but until now it existed only as an airport code, a hotel note, and a city I knew almost nothing about.

Outside the tinted windows, Bucharest stretches beneath the night in long avenues of amber streetlights, broad boulevards lined with a strange mixture of elegant old buildings and severe concrete blocks. We pass shuttered shops, glowing pharmacies, late-night cafés still crowded despite the hour, and rows of apartment buildings rising beyond trees black against the sky.

The city looks both beautiful and bruised. Old facades stand beside glass towers. Ornate balconies overlook streets filled with modern cars. Orthodox church domes appear unexpectedly between office buildings, their crosses catching the lights as we pass.

Under different circumstances, I would be pressing my face to the glass.

Instead, I’m holding a folded cloth against a bullet wound in Vadim Chernovar’s side.

He looks mildly irritated by the entire situation.

I look at him. “Who were those people?”

His gaze remains on the window. “Men who shouldn’t have been there.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the answer I currently have.”

“Were they trying to kill you?”

He turns his head. “Yes.”

The bluntness makes me pause.

Marek watches us but doesn’t interfere.

“Why?”

Vadim’s expression closes slightly. “A dispute.”

I stare at him. “A dispute?”

“Yes.”

“People don’t normally bring rifles to disagreements over contracts.”