thin frame, she knew who hid behind her son's body -- her half-brother.
Dima faced the door, one arm holding a gun, the other wrapped around Bogdan's neck. He had claimed the boy as his son, but that was a lie. He had never cared for him, only cared how he could use Alina's son to control and hurt her. The boy thought she was his aunt, Dima slowly warping Bogdan's opinion of the woman who had lived in so much pain to bring him to life and for the rare hours each month she was allowed to be in his presence.
Now he was using his nephew as a human shield.
A figure took up most of the thermal display on the iPad, its brightness and size blocking the reading for Dima and Bogdan.
"Straight from your shoulder, hold..." Simon said, all of his attention on the iPad. "Hold...hold...shoot!"
Alina screamed, the howl drawn out and turning her throat raw. The green figure dashed to the left of the screen. She could see another green figure kick in the door, but Dima was on the ground, unmoving, the blue figure covering him and also motionless.
The shooter entered the room and scooped Bogdan up. The boy started fighting, kicking and punching at the giant who held him. Fresh air filled Alina's lungs at the sight.
"Target acquired, pull back," Simon ordered. "All threats appear neutralized."
She scanned the screens again to see that Simon was right. The Rodchenko men were flat, dead or dying. One of the green men was slung over a team member's back, his vitals showing in a readout at the bottom of the screen.
Hurt but not dying.
Chapter Thirteen
Russia - present day
As soon as the operation to rescue Bogdan from Dima's safe house successfully concluded, Simon packed up his equipment and hustled Alina out to an old sedan. The Englishman had given her no idea of where they were going, deferring her questions over and over with the promise someone would fill her in when they met up with Kane and Mishka.
"We have no papers," she said as they drove out of Moscow. "Dima took control of our passports and visas after we cleared customs."
His mouth quirked and he strummed his fingers along the steering wheel. "Not every flight has to go through customs and immigration."
She lapsed into silence and wondered how Mishka had come to have friends like Simon and Kane -- and why he had let her languish all those years in misery when he had the means to rescue her.
The fault was hers. It always was. She had treated him cruelly at their last meeting. Even though he had broken her heart after they had made love, she had wanted nothing more than to protect him.
She hadn't known their single encounter had put a baby in her womb when she had scared him into fleeing the library by threatening to alert the guards. That painful lesson would come two months later.
Her first month of an absent period, she marked up to stress. It had happened before. The second missed period came with an inability to eat breakfast without throwing it up, something one of her father's staff noticed and reported to the old man.
That was the day her misery reached its flash point.
Seeing Simon tense at the wheel, she looked around for suspicious vehicles. When nothing caught her attention, she looked at the road side signs to read which city they were coming up on.
"Was the safe house in Novgorod?"
The Englishman nodded. "Rodchenko stashed your son there after Nazarov's first attempt to kidnap you."
Slowly, she processed the information, focusing first on the memory of one of Dima's brigadiers swooping in like a vulture and grabbing the boy and a few bags as she begged in the hallway to go with the boy. The man had punched her in the stomach to shut her up, in front of Bogdan, who watched emotionlessly, his life around his so-called father inuring him to violence, even against a woman who cherished every moment she was allowed to spend with him.
Her mind drifted next to Mishka and all the visible marks of what had happened to him after she had forced him yet
Dima faced the door, one arm holding a gun, the other wrapped around Bogdan's neck. He had claimed the boy as his son, but that was a lie. He had never cared for him, only cared how he could use Alina's son to control and hurt her. The boy thought she was his aunt, Dima slowly warping Bogdan's opinion of the woman who had lived in so much pain to bring him to life and for the rare hours each month she was allowed to be in his presence.
Now he was using his nephew as a human shield.
A figure took up most of the thermal display on the iPad, its brightness and size blocking the reading for Dima and Bogdan.
"Straight from your shoulder, hold..." Simon said, all of his attention on the iPad. "Hold...hold...shoot!"
Alina screamed, the howl drawn out and turning her throat raw. The green figure dashed to the left of the screen. She could see another green figure kick in the door, but Dima was on the ground, unmoving, the blue figure covering him and also motionless.
The shooter entered the room and scooped Bogdan up. The boy started fighting, kicking and punching at the giant who held him. Fresh air filled Alina's lungs at the sight.
"Target acquired, pull back," Simon ordered. "All threats appear neutralized."
She scanned the screens again to see that Simon was right. The Rodchenko men were flat, dead or dying. One of the green men was slung over a team member's back, his vitals showing in a readout at the bottom of the screen.
Hurt but not dying.
Chapter Thirteen
Russia - present day
As soon as the operation to rescue Bogdan from Dima's safe house successfully concluded, Simon packed up his equipment and hustled Alina out to an old sedan. The Englishman had given her no idea of where they were going, deferring her questions over and over with the promise someone would fill her in when they met up with Kane and Mishka.
"We have no papers," she said as they drove out of Moscow. "Dima took control of our passports and visas after we cleared customs."
His mouth quirked and he strummed his fingers along the steering wheel. "Not every flight has to go through customs and immigration."
She lapsed into silence and wondered how Mishka had come to have friends like Simon and Kane -- and why he had let her languish all those years in misery when he had the means to rescue her.
The fault was hers. It always was. She had treated him cruelly at their last meeting. Even though he had broken her heart after they had made love, she had wanted nothing more than to protect him.
She hadn't known their single encounter had put a baby in her womb when she had scared him into fleeing the library by threatening to alert the guards. That painful lesson would come two months later.
Her first month of an absent period, she marked up to stress. It had happened before. The second missed period came with an inability to eat breakfast without throwing it up, something one of her father's staff noticed and reported to the old man.
That was the day her misery reached its flash point.
Seeing Simon tense at the wheel, she looked around for suspicious vehicles. When nothing caught her attention, she looked at the road side signs to read which city they were coming up on.
"Was the safe house in Novgorod?"
The Englishman nodded. "Rodchenko stashed your son there after Nazarov's first attempt to kidnap you."
Slowly, she processed the information, focusing first on the memory of one of Dima's brigadiers swooping in like a vulture and grabbing the boy and a few bags as she begged in the hallway to go with the boy. The man had punched her in the stomach to shut her up, in front of Bogdan, who watched emotionlessly, his life around his so-called father inuring him to violence, even against a woman who cherished every moment she was allowed to spend with him.
Her mind drifted next to Mishka and all the visible marks of what had happened to him after she had forced him yet
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