AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Gunner smiled when he saw Raketa cringe.
* * *
“How does an MI6 agent have access to a safe house in the middle of Lake Michigan?”
Pimm laughed. “It isn’t a safe house, and it belongs to my aunt and uncle.”
Gunner watched Raketa out of the corner of his eye as she assessed every word Pimm said. She was right to. He was an agent from the UK who had been undercover inside the Armenian embassy with close access to the ambassador. He could very well be a double or even triple agent. Gunner had gone through his own vetting process and was as comfortable with Pimm as he was with Onyx, Dutch, Monk, and Alegria. He was more comfortable with Pimm than Striker, but that was because he couldn’t stand the latter. He’d never liked him, not from the first day they met. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust him, he just didn’t like him.
—:—
“Your team is spread thin,” Pimm said to Gunner, “but you’ve got plenty of coverage from MI6 until your guys can get here.”
“Appreciate it,” Gunner said, shaking the man’s hand.
Raketa had no intention of doing the same. While Gunner may trust him, she didn’t. Not even a little. That Oruzhiye, one of the deadliest assassins who’d ever lived, had found her so easily, along with how much the person who’d called her burner knew about where she was, what she was doing, and why, meant someone close to her was feeding them information. Pimm Torosyan was the most likely suspect.
She hadn’t received another call since the one had come in while she was in Gunner’s hotel room, not that she could’ve answered if one had. She kept her hand close to the phone anyway in the event it vibrated. If it did, she had to figure out how to get away from Gunner. Her mother’s life depended on it.
—:—
Raketa bristled when Gunner put his arm around her shoulders. It didn’t surprise him given the amount of stress she was under. She moved away from his grasp and walked over to the window of the house Pimm had ensconced them in.
“I can’t stay here,” he heard her murmur.
“We won’t be here long. The important thing was to get you out of Chicago and away from Orlov as quickly as possible.”
She nodded, but had a faraway look on her face. Gunner hadn’t forgotten that, prior to his gunfight with the Russian assassin, she’d been walking away from him.
“You were leaving.”
“I told you I had no choice.”
“Actually, you said you couldn’t stay.”
Raketa shrugged. “There is no difference.”
Gunner walked over to where she stood. “There is. Telling me you can’t stay means one thing. Saying you have no choice means something entirely different.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
He wasn’t about to relent. It absolutely did. Something, or someone, was making her choose to leave, rather than stay and let him help her.
“You know it does. Talk to me, Rocket Girl. Tell me who’s threatening you and with what?”
He saw the flash of pain she didn’t know broke through her steely facade every so often, always over the same subject.
“Someone is using your mother to make sure you work alone.”
She didn’t react, but he knew he was on the right track. It was the only thing that made sense.
She didn’t trust him when she came to him for help initially anymore than she did now. Less, actually. Her refusing his or K19’s assistance now only meant that she had a very good reason for doing so.
The logical answer was that it was Petrov. Had he been in contact with her? If so, how?
It wasn’t a surprise that Orlov had managed to find her. United Russia’s resources were far-reaching. Petrov, on the other hand, was operating almost solely on his own. The only help he may have been getting would’ve been via Azerbaijani or Iranian intelligence, neither of which had the means to effectively track her, K19, or MI6.
“You have the full force of K19 behind you, not to mention MI6.”
