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“Consider it an incentive to stay alive on those roads,” he said.
She returned his smile, glad there would be no hard feelings between them. She couldn’t afford to get too close to anyone on the island, even as friends, but her casual chats with the locals were bright spots in her otherwise isolated days.
“Free coffee,” she said, picking up the cup. “The best incentive of all. Thank you.”
“Anytime. Let me know if you change your mind about that ride.”
“I will. Is it alright if I leave my bike out front while I go to Darvill’s?” she asked. She hadn’t minded the ride down the hillside, but traversing the roads on the bike with a cup of coffee in her hands was a bridge too far.
“Of course,” he said.
She waved goodbye, stepped outside, and took a drink of the coffee, savoring the hot bitterness of it in the cold, briny air. Then she started down the street, glad she’d found some used boots in one of the island thrift shops. There wasn’t snow on the ground, but it was wet and cold, and she’d been in too big a hurry, too intent on keeping her plans secret, to pack properly when she’d left Chicago.
The town was quiet except for an occasional car passing on the street. She called out a greeting to Meredith, the manager of one of the island’s outdoor shops, as she shoveled the walkway in front of the store, and waved to a shop owner named Joan through the window of one of Eastsound’s cute little boutiques.
Joan lifted her eyebrows in question and pointed to the mannequin she was dressing in slim black pants and a colorful cable-knit sweater.
Kira smiled and gave her a thumbs-up, and Joan mouthed the words, “Thank you.”
Kira continued to Darvill’s, inhaling the scent of old paper and ink, and spent a few minutes talking with Beth, the young woman working the cash register, before moving into the stacks of books to browse. She chose two new titles — well, new to her — and was unsurprised to find that almost two hours had passed by the time she took her purchases to the register.
It was easy to lose track of time when looking at books, as easy as it was to lose track of time when she was playing music.
Her chest constricted at the thought. She missed the grand piano in her father’s house, the way her fingers felt gliding over the keys, the music filling her body until she felt like it would spill out of her eyes and mouth, out of her heart.
She sighed and forced herself to smile as Beth rang up her purchases.
She carried the small paper bag to the market and picked up a few things, careful to make sure they would fit into the basket on the bike, then went back to the coffee shop for her bike.
Still warm from her finished coffee, she tucked everything into the basket and headed for the cottage, already looking forward to starting a fire in the fireplace and curling up with one of her new books and a cup of tea.
She left the last of Eastsound’s houses behind less than ten minutes after she’d climbed back on her bike and wound her way up the hillside. The ride back was always hard, the incline not too steep but steady, leading her upward to the cottage on the cliff. When she’d first arrived on the island, she’d been forced to climb off the bike and walk alongside it on the ride back.
But weeks of walks on the rocky shoreline, of hiking up the steep staircase from the beach to the cottage, of riding to and from town, had all served to improve her physical fitness, and she was proud that she could now remain on the bike, although the going was slow and she still breathed hard doing it.
She’d almost reached the top of the hill, the road deserted and silent, lined with towering trees and overgrown ferns and the wild blackberries that seemed to grow everywhere on the island, when a black SUV roared onto the road in front of her.
She barely had time to register that it must have come from one of the long wooded driveways when it skidded to a stop sideways in front of her.
For a split second, she was dumbfounded. It was rare to see cars on the island, and even rarer to see an expensive black SUV barreling down one of the narrow roads.
Then she realized what was happening: it was Lyon.
He’d come to kill her.
She scrambled off the bike as the front passenger door opened on the SUV. She dared a glance back as she pushed the bike away, her newly acquired provisions tumbling out of the basket, books flying, oranges rolling downhill.
There was the image of a figure in black approaching, an image that flooded her body with adrenaline and propelled her back down the hill on foot. She ran as fast as her feet would carry her, but she was no match for her pursuer, and a moment later she felt the man rush into her from behind, pushing her to the hard, wet pavement.
She struggled, but she was on her stomach, fighting the asphalt instead of her attacker, who straddled her body with a weight that felt like it would crush her to powder.
Strong hands grasped her flailing arms and pulled them behind her back. Something cold tightened around her wrists, and then the world went dark as something was placed over her head.
She stopped struggling. It was useless, and she would only tire herself out when she needed all her strength to escape certain death.
She knew too much. That was the problem. By running, she’d called her lifelong loyalty into question, and Lyon had sent someone to kill her because she knew too much about the bratva’s inner workings.
The Spies must have crowned Lyon pakhan. It was his job to protect the organization now, and Kira was nothing more than a threat.
