Ethan gave her a look loaded with contempt, then glanced at Juliet. “I guess this is the gratitude we get for trying to help.”
“Hey, this was your idea, rookie. I told you not to bother,” she muttered.
Her dark eyes softened, however, when Anastacia Karin let out a small whimper. The girl was whiter than the snow beyond the door, visibly shaking as she listened to the volatile words being flung around.
“It’s all right, Stacie. It’ll be okay,” Juliet said with a sigh. “We’ll get you out of here. Nobody is going to hurt you.”
Liam spoke up briskly. “We’ve gotta move. Orlov’s people could be knocking on our front door any fucking second.”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Sullivan’s voice echoed in their earpieces.
“We’ve got company.”
They all exchanged a grim look.
“What are we looking at?” Ethan demanded.
“Two heavy-duty Humvees. Can’t see inside, but I’m assuming they’re carrying a full load—six or eight men apiece. And a military-looking truck, hauling ten tangos in the back and two inside.”
“How far away?”
“About a click, two at the most. We don’t have a lot of time. And we can’t risk taking the Rovers and getting ambushed on the road. We’ve gotta take the Yams.”
“Meet us out back,” Ethan ordered.
“Copy that.”
“What’s going on?” Stacie cried.
“Our location has been compromised,” Ethan said darkly.
Baronova’s face brightened with happiness, which made him want to slug the woman.
Ignoring her, Ethan snapped into action, gesturing for Liam and Juliet to follow him. They’d already piled their gear in the kitchen, and now they hurriedly hauled it out the rickety back door.
Ethan tossed a command over his shoulder for Anastacia and Baronova to stay put, then sprinted after his teammates. The biting cold slapped his face as they ran across the snow toward the tree line, where they’d stashed their secondary escape vehicles. Liam quickly tore the waterproof black tarp off the three shiny white Yamaha snowmobiles and bent over one of the high-powered machines.
“Fire them up,” Ethan told him. “We’ll get the others.”
Without a word, he and Juliet raced back to the house, where Juliet addressed the two females with a sharp order. “Put on your coats and go outside through the kitchen.”
Anastacia immediately dove for the jacket draped over one of the kitchen chairs. She slipped into it without argument, but she looked shaken up as she ran toward the door.
Baronova, however, wasn’t as obliging. Feet planted on the weathered hardwood, the woman crossed her arms over her ample chest and glared daggers at them.
“I’m not going anywhere with you people!”
Sheer aggravation clamped around his throat. “Do you want to stay and die here? Is that it?”
He reached for her, but the bleached blonde sidestepped him, her cheeks turning bright crimson.
“Don’t touch me!”
Juliet spoke up in disdain. “Do you really think the people out there are coming to rescue you? Because they aren’t, you little twit. The second they enter this house, they’ll put a bullet in your head.”
Baronova remained stubbornly unfazed. “You’re going to be arrested, you bitch! My husband sent the militsiya to rescue me.”
“Enemy ETA less than a minute,” Sullivan barked over the comm.
Juliet glanced at Ethan in annoyance. “I say we leave this bitch behind. Let Orlov have her—that’s one less headache for us.”
“Go take care of Anastacia,” he ordered. “I’ll deal with this.”
“Ethan—”
“Go, Juliet. I’m right behind you.”
Despite the crease of reluctance digging into her forehead, Juliet turned on her heel and ran out the door.
Alone with Baronova, Ethan worked valiantly to control the anger whipping inside him like a loose power line.
“You have two options,” he told the woman. “Either you obediently follow me outside, or I’ll haul you over my shoulder and carry you out.”
She looked incensed. “I’m not going anywhere with—”
“Carry you, it is.”
The blonde screeched in horror as he grabbed her by the waist and lifted her up so that her torso hung over his shoulder. Immediately, a pair of fists thumped against his back, while skinny legs attempted to kick him in the balls. He held her wiggling body against him in a strong grip, kept his other hand tightly on his gun, and marched across the kitchen.
“Put me down!” she screamed. “Put me down right this instant!”
He ignored her shrieks, his boots crunching on the snow as he attempted to restrain the struggling woman. In the distance, he heard the hum of the Yamaha engines. Liam already had Anastacia on one of the sleds, his arms wrapped around her from behind. Juliet and Sullivan were seated on the second, Juliet’s dark hair hanging over her shoulder as she craned her neck to keep watch for Ethan.
“Go!” he yelled when he caught her eye. “I’ll meet you at the rendezvous!”
Even from so many yards away, he glimpsed the hesitation in her chocolate brown eyes, but after a beat, she gave a nod and tapped Sullivan’s broad back. A moment later, both drivers revved the throttle and the snowmobiles roared off into the trees.
The sound of engines traveled in the air again, this time coming from the front of the house. Shit. Orlov’s men had arrived, and they weren’t even trying to be stealthy about it.
“Put me down!”
Baronova was still shrieking like a banshee for all to hear. Ethan ran faster, scrambling to keep his captive in control, but the last remaining snowmobile was still fifty yards away, and he had a sinking feeling he wasn’t going to reach it.
Bang.
The screen door on the patio flew open and slammed against the stucco wall of the house. Ethan kept going without turning around. Forty more yards.
“Help!” Baronova yelled at whoever had appeared in the doorway. “I’m over here!”
Thirty more yards.
His lungs burned as he sucked in the icy air and kept running. Twenty-five yards.
“Help me! He’s trying to kidnap me again! Help! I’m over—”
The gunshot cracked in the night, cutting Baronova off midsentence.
She went limp in Ethan’s arms, bringing a violent curse to his lips. Son of a bitch. They’d shot her. He halted only so he could slide her out of the fireman’s hold and into his arms, but the second he saw her lifeless brown eyes, he realized it was too late.
There was a bullet hole right in the center of her forehead.
Christ, whoever had taken that shot knew what he was doing.
Without a second’s thought, Ethan unloaded the deadweight. If this had been the corps, he would’ve lugged his fallen comrade’s body for miles if he need be, but Alisa Baronova had been nothing but a liability from day one.
He was ten yards from the snowmobile when the bullet hit his back.
Fortunately, they’d all donned vests after Anastacia tipped them off about Baronova’s call, so the bullet lodged into the Kevlar rather than his flesh.
Unfortunately, the impact sent him staggering onto his knees, his palms bracing against the slushy ground to break his fall. Although he felt like he’d had the wind knocked out of him, he regained his balance and shot to his feet—and that was when pain streaked through his left leg.
The bullet didn’t slow him down. He raced forward, closing in on the sled, but the shooter must have realized that the best way to neutralize his enemy wasn’t a flesh shot but another one to the vest. The next bullet hit him square in the tailbone, sending him sprawling. Fuck. Fuck. That one was gonna leave a hell of a bruise.
This time when
he scrambled to his feet, he knew he was done for. He touched his ear to activate his comm, even as he heard his attacker’s footsteps four feet behind him.
The hurried orders flew out of his mouth. “Don’t come back for me. Get the girl to safety.”
He hoped that his whispered message had reached his teammates, but if they’d responded, he was beyond hearing it. He removed the tiny transmitter from his ear and crushed it beneath his boot just as a heavy male body tackled him to the ground.
Chapter 19
Even while traveling at 150 miles per hour, Juliet heard Ethan’s ominous report loud and clear. Sullivan must have too, because his shoulders stiffened and the muscles on his hard chest tensed beneath her gloved hands.
“We have to go back,” she yelled to Sullivan over the din. “He’s hurt!”
“We have our orders,” he yelled back, not slowing down.
She kept her cheek pressed against the back of Sullivan’s coat to protect her exposed face from the wind. At the speed they were going, each frigid gust felt like icicles being launched at her face.
They forged a rapid path through the snow, the snowmobile whizzing by the centuries-old pine trees, its treads demolishing everything in their way. Juliet peered around Sullivan and caught a blurry glimpse of Liam’s sled twenty yards ahead of them as it sped through the dark forest. Stacie was clutching Liam like a life preserver, her face buried between his shoulder blades.
The head start had allowed them to make some serious distance, and they reached the frozen lake in no time and without a single enemy soldier on their tail. There was a reason the Vitebsk region of the country was often referred to as the land of lakes—this wouldn’t be the first one they’d cross before they reached the rendezvous point where Liam and Sullivan had stashed a second pair of Range Rovers.
Juliet spent the next thirty minutes consumed with worry that was even more bone-chilling than the temperature. Ethan wouldn’t have gone dark unless he was in trouble. Which meant either he was injured or he’d been captured.
Or both.
Christ. That goddamn bitch Baronova must have slowed him down.
Juliet didn’t give a shit about Ethan’s bleeding heart—the next time she laid eyes on that infuriating woman, she was putting a bullet in her head.
God, please let him be okay.
She repeated the silent mantra as they sped toward safety. There was no stopping Sullivan at the moment, but the second they reached the rendezvous, she planned on hightailing it back to the farmhouse and saving Ethan’s delectable ass.
The woods were so dark she could barely see a thing. Sullivan hadn’t switched on the headlights in order to avoid detection, but luckily, he seemed to know exactly where he was going. Several miles and two lake crossings later, they finally emerged into a clearing shrouded in shadows.
Sullivan gripped the brake lever to slow the machine down. Once they came to a stop, Juliet dove off the sled and touched her ear.
“Rookie, come in,” she burst out. “Do you copy?”
She was greeted with nothing but silence.
“Goddamn it, rookie, talk to me!”
More silence.
A feeling of pure helplessness crawled up her spine. She looked at Sullivan and Liam, who wore matching expressions of foreboding.
“He’s not there, love,” Sullivan said quietly.
“Fine, then we’re going back for him,” she snapped. “Give me the key to the sled.”
Instead of obeying the order, the tall blond man tucked the key in his pocket and turned to Liam. “Stash the Yams. We have to move.”
Juliet’s jaw dropped to the cold ground. “Are you fucking kidding me? We have to go back for him!”
A pair of steely gray eyes met hers. “You heard the order. He said to get the girl somewhere safe.”
“I don’t give a shit what he said! We can’t leave him behind.”
The hum of an engine caught her attention, as Liam and one of the snowmobiles disappeared into a cluster of trees.
A tornado of disbelief spiraled inside her, sending lethal blasts of panic and fury through her body. She couldn’t believe how calm Sullivan looked. Like he didn’t even care that he’d left a man behind.
“I swear to God, Sullivan, if you don’t give me that key right now, I’m going to blow your brains out.”
Stacie’s gasp of horror echoed in the air.
Clenching her teeth, Juliet glanced at the distraught girl and said, “Go wait in one of the SUVs, honey.”
“But—”
“Go wait in the fucking SUV!”
It was the first time she’d ever raised her voice to the girl, but she couldn’t even muster up any guilt. Her emotion bank was jam-packed with sheer rage at the moment.
As Stacie hurried off, Juliet advanced on Sullivan like a predator closing in on its prey. He didn’t so much as flinch, not even when she withdrew her Beretta from her belt and pointed it right at him. From the corner of her eye, she saw Liam walking toward them with his weapon raised, but she didn’t give a rat’s ass if he threatened to shoot her.
“Put the bloody gun down,” Sullivan said in a low voice. “You’re scaring the girl.”
“She’ll get over it.” Juliet cocked her pistol with a deadly click. “I mean it, Sully. If getting that key means I have to shoot you, I won’t fucking hesitate.”
“Jeez, I leave you guys for two minutes and you’re pointing guns at each other,” came Liam’s annoyed voice.
She didn’t blink. “Stay out of this, Boston.”
“I’m afraid I can’t, darlin’. Not when you’re threatening my BFF.”
The flippant words were meant to relax her, but Juliet maintained her aggressive pose. “Go away,” she told Liam. “If you want to do something worthwhile, get in the car and take Stacie to the next safe house.”
“Sorry, Jules, but—”
“Do it,” Sullivan said with a resigned breath.
Liam sounded startled. “Sully . . .”
“The longer we fuck around here, the closer Orlov’s people get. Just take Anastacia to the safe house. Juliet and I will be along shortly.”
“You sure, man?”
“Yeah. Go.”
Liam reluctantly holstered his weapon, tossed Sullivan the key to the second sled, and stalked to the Range Rover without looking back. A car door slammed, an engine roared, and then tires crushed the snow as the SUV peeled off in the direction of the road beyond the clearing.
As the night went quiet once again, Juliet locked her gaze with Sullivan’s. “I won’t leave him behind.”
“For the love of Jesus, do you really think I plan on bloody abandoning him? My intention was always to go back—after we made sure Anastacia was safe.”
“It might’ve been too late by then.” Desperation filled her belly. “It might be too late now.”
“Lower your bloody gun. You win, all right? We’ll go back now.”
The relief that crashed into her was so strong, she nearly keeled over. “Thank you.”
With a grave look, Sullivan headed for the snowmobile. He straddled it and started the engine. “Get on.”
She shook her head. “No, I should take the second sled. We don’t know if the one Ethan was using is in drivable condition.”
“Good point.” He quickly threw the key into her waiting hand.
“Go on ahead,” she told him. “I’m right behind you.”
It occurred to her that those were the same words Ethan had spoken after he’d ordered her to leave the safe house.
Uncharacteristic fear tightened Juliet’s throat as she raced toward the sled Liam had stashed. Her hands shook like crazy as she wrapped her fingers around the handlebars.
She drew in a slow, steadying breath. Ethan was a soldier. He was strong and smart and he could take care of hims
elf. They’d probably even encounter him on the way back, riding his own sled after having taken down Orlov’s army single-handedly.
Or at least that’s what she kept telling herself as she cranked the throttle and sped across the clearing.
She followed Sullivan’s tracks, keeping her head low to avoid the bitter sting of the wind. The time it had taken to get to the rendezvous had flown by, but the drive back seemed to last forever. The entire time, she tried not to question her motives, not to dwell on the paralyzing fear, not to allow all the worst-case scenarios to penetrate her mind.
It felt like hours before Sullivan slowed down. He signaled her with a hand gesture to pull over and stop, and she did so without question.
“We go on foot the rest of the way.”
Juliet nodded. If Orlov’s men were still at the safe house, the noisy snowmobile engines would surely alert them of their presence.
She and Sullivan moved through the silent forest. Up above, beams of moonlight sliced through the gaps in the trees, casting shadows on the snow. The temperature had dipped below freezing and the air chilled Juliet right to the bone. It was so cold, it hurt to breathe, but the concern swimming in her stomach distracted her from the weather.
They were about a quarter mile from the house when Sullivan halted and reached into his pocket. He produced a pair of military field glasses.
“We can’t risk getting any closer before we scope out the scene. Do you want the honor of shimmying up this majestic pine?”
Swallowing, she tucked the binoculars in her pocket. Then she glanced up at the enormous tree, which seemed to rise all the way up to the inky sky.
But the climb took no time at all. She easily scaled the thick trunk, digging her boots into various footholds and grabbing on to branches to propel herself upward. When she was roughly twenty feet off the ground, she straddled a naked branch and effortlessly slithered on her belly toward the very edge.
She raised the binoculars to her eyes, terrified of what she might see. The possibility of Ethan’s dead body lying in the snow tightened her throat and quickened her pulse.
He’s fine, she told herself.