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A light went on in my head. I’d been feeling pretty useless since Yolanda deciphered the algorithm: international conspiracies are way above my pay grade. But finding someone? That was exactly what I was good at. I narrowed my eyes, stared at the road ahead and thought, getting inside Maravic’s head.
“He’s using American mercenaries,” I said at last. “And we killed two of them in the forest.”
Tanya glanced at me and wrinkled her forehead. “So?”
“So he’s going to need to replace them. And mercs talk, that’s how they hear about jobs. We can probably find someone who knows someone who was hired and get a lead. We just need to ask around in the same places Maravic went to do his hiring. He killed the stockbroker in New York so we should start there. And in New York, there’s only really one bar where mercs hang out.”
Tanya stared at me, surprised and impressed, and I wasn’t ready for the warm glow that spread through my chest. It charged me up like a goddamn battery...and made me do something dumb. I knew that I needed to be like her, all cool and professional, that I shouldn’t mention what happened at the hotel, that I should just give her space and wait. But that wasn’t me. I was crazy about her and I needed her to know that. My mouth opened all on its own and before I could stop myself, I was speaking. “Look—”
Her face fell. That’s how good at reading people she was, she knew just from the tone of my voice what I was about to say.
“Colton,” she said quietly. Her lips pressed tight together. “I like you. Much more than I should.”
More than she should? What the hell did that mean? I realized she must have been trained to never develop feelings for anyone, and my chest ached for her.
“But I’m not someone who can...be involved with someone.” Tanya’s voice was normally so light and confident, but now her words were heavy, clumsy lumps of ice.
“You quit the GRU,” I reminded her. “You don’t have to do what they tell you anymore.”
“It’s not my job,” she told me, her voice strained. “It’s what I am. That’s why they picked me. Do you know what they told us, in our first week at the academy? That our training would separate the mice from the spiders and the scorpions. They only wanted the ones with hard shells, with nothing but poison inside. That’s me.”
“I don’t believe that,” I told her firmly.
She looked across at me. “You are a good man, Colton. And you deserve a good woman.”
I leaned closer. “I’ve found a good woman.”
She shook her head viciously. “I’m barely a person. I’m a painted mannequin, I know how to lie and fuck and kill. Jesus, if you knew some of what I’ve done...”
“I don’t care what you’ve done.”
“People like me aren’t—We aren’t trained to love. We’re trained not to. We can’t be with someone.” Her voice cracked. “Even one of our own kind.”
Aw shit. I knew she was thinking of Lev. I tried to figure out what to say but before I could—
“From now on,” she said, her voice shaking but firm, “we need to be a team. Just a team.”
She held out her hand for me to grip but I just glared at it. I didn’t want to be just a team.
Her eyes swam. Begging me.
I sighed and gripped her hand hard.
And we drove on towards New York.
39
TANYA
I cursed silently and tightened my grip on the steering wheel. He was a good guy, and he deserved better than me: what did the Americans always say? A wife and children and a white picket fence. I’d never understood why they thought a fence was so important. But he did deserve a wife, some sweet thing who didn’t have blood on her hands, who knew how to love and be loved.
The bar was on the far side of the city and we had to go slowly, avoiding toll roads because they were full of cameras, and changing cars frequently. The next car we stole had a bag of fresh laundry in the back seat, and we took a stretchy, bottle-green dress for me and a fresh t-shirt for Colton: he grunted in approval at the name of some metal band I’d never heard of, and immediately ripped the sleeves off. When we switched cars again, I watched, bemused, as he counted off some bills and left them on the seat to cover the clothes.
We weren’t as lucky with food. We didn’t dare go into any gas stations to buy road snacks so, aside from a half pack of gum we found in one of the cars, we didn’t eat at all. By the time we reached the bar, the sun was going down and we were exhausted, grumpy and starving.
