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She’d never been arrested before, and inside she was terrified. Not just because she didn’t know what was going to happen—deportation wasn’t something she wanted to think about, but if they didn’t know who she really was how could they know where to deport her to?—but also because she feared Aleksandrov Vishenko’s men would find and kill her. Or worse, take her back to Vishenko.
When the two men had come to fetch her from the detention center, she’d thought the worst. That they were taking her away to turn her over to Vishenko’s men. Vishenko had policemen on his payroll. She had the records. So when they’d brought her to what they referred to as a safe house and left her in the custody of the Barrons, she hadn’t believed them. When they’d unlocked her handcuffs and shown her to a bedroom with its own private bath, she’d been amazed. But she still hadn’t believed them.
Even when she’d been told she could change out of the prison jumpsuit into any of the clothes in the closet or dresser that took her fancy, she hadn’t believed them...although she had changed clothes. It would be easier to escape and hide when the opportunity arose if she wasn’t wearing prison-issued clothing.
She kept expecting Vishenko to show up. Kept expecting that it was all a cruel trick of some kind. She’d slept—if you could call it sleep—with the expectation that any moment Vishenko would walk through her bedroom door...and that the nightmare would begin again.
But night turned into day and no one else had appeared. Only the same two people, who claimed to be husband and wife, stood guard over her. They both wore guns, so she hadn’t tried to escape. Not yet. She was biding her time. Waiting for them to relax their vigilance for an instant and then she’d be gone. She was good at it.
* * *
The SUV’s windshield wipers were working overtime against the snowstorm when Cody turned right, into a middle-class suburban neighborhood. “They’re still back there,” he told Alec and Angelina. He drove halfway down the block and then pulled into the driveway of a house that had seen better days. He parked and said, “Showtime.”
Alec glanced over at Angelina, and she nodded. “Then let’s do it,” he said. The three of them exited the SUV and made their way to the front porch, rang the doorbell and waited, stomping their feet to clear the snow. When the door opened, they entered the fake safe house, and the door was closed behind them. Then they waited, with guns drawn.
Five minutes went by. Then ten. None of the agents who’d set up this trap said a word—the house was silent as a tomb. At the thirteen-minute mark, a voice from the top of the stairs whispered, “Here they come.”
The glass in the back door was shattered by a burst of submachine-gun fire and four black-hooded men kicked the remnants of the door open and swarmed into the kitchen. Three of them made it as far as the foot of the staircase before Cody’s agents tackled and cuffed them. The fourth, who’d been guarding the death squad’s escape route, heard the commotion from the other room and tried to run for it, only to find his escape thwarted by Alec and Angelina, who’d circled around from the front of the house to the back porch.
“Federal agent!” Alec shouted, identifying himself as he and Angelina confronted the hooded gunman. “Drop your weapon! Drop it!”
* * *
Cate’s fingers wandered into another of her mother’s favorites—Schumann this time. Träumerei. It had always soothed her to play it. She was almost to the end when the doorbell rang, and she froze, her heart nearly jumping out of her chest. Then she sprang to her feet. “Please,” she whispered to her captors in a breathless, desperate voice. “Please...” They were the first words she’d spoken in more than a week.
She didn’t run when the woman went to answer the door. What would be the point? And besides, she refused to show fear in front of him. Hatred, yes. And contempt. She would show him those emotions. But not fear. Never fear. She would slash her own wrists before she would let him force tears from her. She’d cried once. Begged him once. Never again.
She steeled herself to face him, locking her muscles so she wouldn’t tremble. The front door opened wide, and a tall blond man walked through. Not Vishenko. He shook snow from his overcoat and stamped his boots on the rug just inside the door. He was followed by a woman who did the same thing, but she was shielded from Cate’s view by the blond man’s broad shoulders and the woman’s coat hood. Cate’s gaze was drawn to the third person to enter, another tall man, younger than the first one, but with auburn hair and a determined expression. Again not Vishenko, and Cate breathed a sigh of profound relief. Then the woman moved into view. “Caterina,” she said, and all the gladness in the world was in her voice.
