He’d never forget when their eyes first met. He’d come close to death that day—closer than he had up to that point in his career—and all because he’d hesitated. She could’ve shot him and the man he was assigned to extract, but she didn’t. She’d lowered her gun enough that Gunner knew if she did fire, it would hit the ground.
Her beauty had left him almost breathless. He knew from intelligence photos that Raketa’s long, straight, blonde hair hung past her waist when she left it loose. Piercing blue eyes coupled with the pallor of her skin were striking to the point of being heart-stopping. Raketa was thinn
er than he usually preferred a woman to be. How much thinner would she be now, after being in Petrov’s clutches?
The fact that Petrov hadn’t killed her was as troubling as it was a relief. What reason would he have to take a UR assassin hostage in the first place, particularly given she hadn’t been a direct threat to him when she was captured? Gunner couldn’t come up with any answer that made sense.
His plan for today was to attempt entry into Baku’s Old City. He’d dyed his usually reddish-blond hair black, put dark brown contacts in to mask his green eyes, and the scruff of a beard he’d been letting grow longer was dyed the same color as his hair. Between that and his usual mostly black attire, he fit in well in a country that had as many Armenian citizens as Azerbaijani.
—:—
“He wants to see you,” said Topor after unlocking and opening the door to her apartment without knocking. She was a prisoner; had she really expected privacy?
Raketa stood and folded her arms, waiting for his next directive.
“Come,” he barked, grabbing her arm when she didn’t move quickly enough. If she wasn’t certain that by doing so she’d end up dead, she would’ve taken the bastard down for manhandling her the way he was.
He led her down the same long corridor of rooms she’d passed the other time Petrov summoned her.
“Zaryana,” Petrov said without raising his head when Topor pushed her into the room.
She hated his use of her given name. To her, it represented a time when she was too weak to stand up for herself—between the ages of eight and eighteen—before she’d become “Raketa” and had taken control of her own life.
Petrov looked up and waived her escort out of the room.
“Topor tells me you’re not eating.”
She responded with silence, the same way she had every other time he’d spoken to her. This time, though, she made the mistake of making eye contact.
“You may die today, little one, by trying my patience or starving yourself to death. The choice is yours.”
“I’ll eat,” she murmured.
“That’s better.”
“Why am I here?” she asked.
“You should have left well enough alone.”
“I wasn’t after you.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I wanted out of UR. K19 could help me do that, so I helped them. If you’d left well enough alone, neither of us would be here.”
The truth was, until she came face-to-face with him in this very office, she hadn’t believed the man really was Makar Petrov. She was very young the last time she saw him. She wouldn’t have recognized him with or without the extensive plastic surgery he’d undergone.
“There are things…people…” he began.
She glared at him. “I cannot help you. You’ve made yourself a prisoner within these walls.”
“There are people who will try very hard to get to me.”
“The list of those who want you dead is endless.”
Again, Petrov raised an eyebrow. “I don’t care for your smart mouth.”
“Are your prisoners often conversational?”