Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

" K ira! Wait!" His shout was a desperate plea, but she continued down the path, heading for the exit.

Dammit, he'd known it was a shit idea to keep her in the dark. Still, he'd done it. He couldn't blame Freya for this epic fuckup. His desire for Kira messed with his logic, so he'd overcompensated by making the harsh choice—as that's what he'd do if it were anyone else.

But Kira wasn't anyone else. He needed to stop pretending his feelings for her were irrelevant when it came to the decisions he made on this op.

No doubt now it was an op. And he'd fucked it up beyond all recognition and been kicked off the team.

"Please, Kira. I'm sorry."

She didn't look back. Didn't offer any sign that she'd even heard him.

The one thing he'd believed from the moment he'd first asked her out and she'd turned him down was that eventually, he would win her over. Even with her father's interference, he'd held on to the idea that if he didn't push and was patient, she'd give him a chance.

Now he realized he might have broken her trust beyond repair. And he couldn't blame her. This trip meant everything to her. She'd shared her fears about what she'd learn, not just about her parents, but herself. And he'd withheld a vital piece from her.

Worse, because he'd messed with her emotions, she was even more vulnerable. Her gait was angry and lacked signs of situational awareness. Because she wasn't protecting herself, he had no choice but to follow and protect her as best he could from a distance.

Before she turned onto the main street where she was supposed to meet Kulik, she pivoted and faced him. "Stop following me."

"No."

"I meant it when I said go home. You sure as hell aren't staying in my room."

"You're in danger, Kira."

"And whose fault is that? Maybe the person who had intel he didn't bother to share?"

"I wanted to extract you from Stoltz's hotel room the minute I found out, but I knew you wouldn't appreciate that, and, more important, we'd get more information from him if he didn't know we were on to him."

"But we weren't on to him. You were."

"You had your suspicions. You said as much to him, but you never said a word to me."

"Don't make me the villain here, Rand. I'm not the one who knew for a fact he wasn't Andre."

"I fucked up. I should have told you. But you did have your suspicions, and if you'd shared them, I'd have told you everything. As it was, I wasn't about to let you see him without me by your side again, and I'd hoped to get more information from him if I played along with his charade."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

The truth would sound like an excuse: He absolutely would have told her if not for Freya's instructions. His rationale for following her command was solid. Freya was a former operative who had run this kind of op for years when she was in the Special Activities Division. He had no one else of higher rank to consult with. Plus, he trusted Freya.

But Freya underestimated Kira, which meant so had Rand.

Excuse or not, he owed her the unvarnished truth. Still, he made sure to keep the blame on himself. "Freya wanted you to be unwitting, thinking we could catch him off guard if you didn't know. But I never should have agreed to that. It was the wrong call, and I'm sorry I didn't trust that you could hold your own with him. In the end, he was the one who broke cover."

"Don't you get it? Given our history, Freya will always think I'm less-than. I'm sure she thinks I wasn't good enough for her brother and that I was a fool. That you went with her assessment even after I told you about Apollo, well, that hurts even more." She turned and resumed walking toward the main road, where there were crowds of tourists.

He chased after her. "First, you were too good for Apollo. Second, I don't for a moment think Freya thinks less of you."

"Bullshit. There's no other reason to hold back that information."

He clamped his mouth shut. He wasn't throwing Freya under that bus, even if she did make the bad call. When this was over, the two women had some painful history to sort through. Rand wouldn't make that harder.

"Freya is a former covert operator who ran ops like this and called the shots when she did. She slipped into that role here and was making the same kind of decisions she would for anyone."

"This isn't Freya's op, Rand. It's mylife . I've let you join me, but I never asked for Freya's help. You did that. And then you made her the boss. Not me."

Every word was a hammer on his heart. She was right.

"How did Freya even know the man isn't Andre?"

He braced himself for another volley of anger. "Remember when I said I have supplies in my rental car? Freya gave me a whole kit for taking photos and planting bugs. Including this ring"—he held up his hand and tapped the championship ring with his thumb—"which takes photos. I snapped his picture last night at the reception and sent it to Freya along with all the others."

She took a step backward, retreating from him, her face showing a mix of emotions. "I can't believe you didn't tell me." She turned away from him again. "You tracked my phone without my authorization. You sent photos to Freya… I might have appreciated that, but…not like this."

"I'm sorry, Kira." He spoke, once again, to her back as she walked away from him.

All he could do was follow at a distance and hope that before the night was over, she'd accept his protection again.

K ira couldn't think about Rand and secrets that were also betrayals. She had a fake cousin who'd lured her to Malta and a meeting with an oligarch—or rather, an oligarch's son, from what she'd managed to learn before going to sleep last night—to get through.

Reuben Kulik sat at a two-person table close to the street. He smiled at seeing her, then frowned when he looked behind her. He must've spotted Rand. "Kira, my dear, we agreed this would just be the two of us."

She made a show of glancing backward. Rand was rapidly approaching. "He's not with me."

Rand took a seat at an empty table just ten feet away. There was no worry he'd overhear what she and Kulik talked about, as the restaurant next to the Co-Cathedral was playing loud music that filled the piazza.

Kulik glared at him, then turned to Kira. "You're certain he's really an author? He could be playing you. A little convenient that he can't tell anyone his pseudonym."

Kira gave him a tight smile. Clearly, he'd asked the manager of his gallery about Rand. "If I'm being played, what's it to you?"

"It doesn't bother you that he could be a spy, trying to uncover your father's secrets and manipulating you to do it?"

"Why would he—or anyone—be after my father's secrets?"

"I told you last night what your father was."

The waiter approached to take her drink order. Remembering her vow to drink fruity cocktails with handsome men and feeling utterly shattered by all the events of the day, Kira decided to throw caution to the wind and order the most froofy drink possible. She pointed to the sign that showed an orange and red drink with a tower of fruit garnish. "What's that?"

"Sex on the Beach."

"Works for me." It was too bad she didn't actually want to flirt with Reuben, or she could check off two items on her to-do list for this vacation.

The server informed her that because it was happy hour, she'd get two drinks. "Even better," she said.

Reuben ordered a vodka martini, and the waiter left.

"Does it bother you that the author appears to be following you?"

Considering Reuben's demeanor put her on edge, in this moment, no. But later, when Rand tried to get back into her hotel room, there'd be a big, ugly problem. "What makes you so certain he's following me?"

He scowled and said, "Don't be na?ve."

"I'm not, Mr. Kulik. I just wanted to know why you think so. Are you following me, or him?"

"Call me Reuben. Tell me, are you sleeping with him?"

"That's really none of your business."

"If you're here to claim your inheritance, it is."

"My inheritance?" Did he know about secret bank accounts she had yet to discover?

"Yes, Kira." His English took on a faint Russian accent as he said her name. The sound was achingly familiar and unheard by her ears in the years since her mother had died. "Your inheritance."

"And what is this inheritance?"

"You expect me to believe you don't know?"

"I'm tired of your games, Reuben. Tell me what this is about."

"Cousin Andre didn't tell you?"

"He's not my cousin."

"Step-cousin, then."

"He's not my step-cousin either. But you knew that already."

"Yes, but do you know what he is ?"

She tightened her jaw. She was sick of these conversational circles. "Not a single fucking clue."

"Such language is unbecoming, my dear."

"I don't fucking care. Now tell me what the man who calls himself Andre Stoltz is."

"He, my dear, was your father's handler with the FSB."

"FSB—You mean Russia's Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB?"

"Yes. Of course, Cousin Andre wasn't always your father's handler. He was assigned to him eight…maybe ten years ago. Prior to that, your father had a different handler, who moved with him from KGB to FSB. You see, your father has been a Russian asset since the mid-1980s."