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Other times I dream of my missions when I was a sniper in Delta Force, lying in a ghillie suit in the sand with my spotter next to me. I’m shooting people regardless of their sex or age, like I’m in an arcade. I don’t know from my position who they are—and for my own sanity don’t want to know. I only know they are a danger to my brothers, and I’m to kill them before they harm any members of my unit. After these dreams I wake up holding my breath, waiting to pull the trigger.
This dream is so different than all my other nighttime movies. In this dream Regan is telling me that the only way I can save her is to have sex with her. No doubt this dream is going to end as badly as all my other dreams, but I can’t figure out whether fucking her is swimming toward the shore or back into the ocean. She keeps saying that this will make it all right for her—that she’ll be healed by my dick. There’s something about it that I know is wrong, but the press of her body against mine drowns out all those concerns. It’s a pretty fucking good dream, and then . . . I wake up and realize it’s not a goddamn dream. That the fucked-up chick is stroking my cock, but her eyes are dead, and I’m not into drilling corpses.
I stuff my stupid-ass hard cock into my pants and zip up. Even though I’m pissed as hell at her, I get her a glass of water.
Inside the bathroom I see Regan leaning over the toilet, her bare ass resting on her heels. She’s not just gagging. She’s crying and trying to retch out every ounce of her body. I kind of want to start vomiting right beside her. Half of me wants to scream at her until my throat is raw and the other half stupidly wants to pick her up and soothe her tears.
“Here’s a glass of water. We need to talk.”
She doesn’t acknowledge me. Her shoulders are heaving and every breath is labored. I place the glass on the sink, and my hand hovers over her head. Apparently the side that wants to comfort her is winning out. That’s probably my dick talking, so I clench my fingers into a fist and back out, closing the door quietly behind me.
The sounds of her sobs and dry heaves are muffled but still audible. Each reverberation of her grief is like a fucking needle into my skin. I grab my burner phone from the counter. She must have looked through it, because it was in my jacket pocket. This morning I was dead tired from flying from Seattle to Russia down to Rio in three days followed by three more days of looking for Regan at Gomes’s. I’ve had only a handful of hours of sleep, and this morning, after disposing of Gomes’s thug and buying Regan some clothes, I thought I could give in and rest a moment. We’d have a few hours before Gomes’s dead man would have to check in.
I’d thought that I’d have time to sleep. I needed a few hours, but apparently my body and mind had shut down so completely I couldn’t tell what was going on. But what the fuck was she trying to seduce me into doing anyway? I let anger at Regan, at the whole goddamn situation, burn away my guilt. She had no business trying to have sex with me. I’ve been nothing but good to her.
Fuck. Me. Sideways.
Climbing out onto the fire escape, I dial up Petrovich because if I don’t check in, the motherfucker will keep texting me. And that pretty much ruins the purpose of the fucking burner phone.
“I’m working, and if I have to stop every goddamn second to tell you that I’m taking a shit, then you’re not going to see any results.”
“You sound angered, Daniel.” Petrovich’s nearly accentless voice tumbles down the phone lines.
“Not angered. Irritated. Do you know what that is in Russian?”
“Yes. I went to Oxford, do you not remember?”
“I could give two shits where you went to college. Just fucking stop texting me.” I wish I could pace, but the fire escape is about four feet by four feet. There’s barely enough room to take one step.
“I should come,” he muses.
“Sure, come on down. This place definitely needs more Russians. You aren’t going to look out of place at all,” I say.
Petrovich grunts. “The Emperor. Remember, he must be captured but not harmed. You must do everything possible to keep him out of harm’s way.”
“Yeah, I know.” I sigh and lean against the iron railing. My previous anger is draining away. Regan’s fucked up. Of course she’s going to do stupid shit. I just need more patience. It’s what I would want for my sister. “Who is this Emperor person anyway?”
