Page 16

“Wait.” Her voice stops me before I can leave. “What’s your name?”
I pause with my hand on the door handle, every muscle in my body tense with the effort of walking away from her. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
I don’t answer. I can’t answer, because giving her my name would make this real in a way that I’m not prepared to handle. It’s not even about fear that she’ll have my name to give the police if and when I let her go. It’s about her having power over me. Hearing her say my name might break me.
I walk out and the door automatically locks behind me, putting physical distance between us even though the damage is already done. She’s gotten under my skin in a way no one has in years, and that makes her more dangerous than any enemy I’ve ever faced.
For the restof the evening, I force myself to stay in my office and focus on work. I review intelligence reports, analyze financial data, and plan operational strategies for scenarios that might never come to pass. I tackle anything to keep my mind occupied and away from the woman locked in the room upstairs.
Thunder rumbles outside as a storm moves in from the mountains, and I welcome the distraction of weather that matches my mood. Rain begins to patter against the windows, and the wind picks up enough to rattle the glass in its frames.
For the first time in hours, I’m not checking the camera feed. I’m proving to myself I can conquer this weird obsession and thinkabout something other than the way she looked at me when I almost kissed her.
I’m making progress on a logistics report when my office door bursts open. Maksim stands in the doorway, his hair damp from the rain and his expression grim. “She’s gone.”
I flinch, but I don’t respond immediately. I don’t ask how or when or where she might have gone. I don’t demand details or explanations or theories about what happened. I simply stand up, grab my coat and my gun from the desk drawer, and walk toward the door.
“Nikandr—” Maksim starts.
“How long?”
“Maybe an hour. The guard checked on her at nine, and she was there. When he went back at ten with a snack, the room was empty.”
I check my watch. It’s nearly eleven now, which means she has at least an hour’s head start and probably more. In this weather and terrain, that could be the difference between finding her and losing her forever. “Any idea how she got out?”
“Security system shows the door was opened with a keycard at 9:47. She walked right out.”
The words jerk me to a halt. “Whose keycard?”
Maksim’s expression grows darker. “About that…”
I think back to my visit to her room and the way she touched my arm when I leaned close, the moment when I almost kissed her and lost all sense of professional distance. Her hand brushed my hip when I pulled back. I touch my belt, and my blood turnscold. There should be a keycard clipped to it, but there’s nothing there. “Security footage?”
He watches me touch my belt and nods as I realize she took my card, having the grace not to rub it in. “That shows her waiting by the door, then walking out like she owned the place. She’s smart, I’ll give her that. She waited for the guard rotation and timed it perfectly, so she’s been listening at the door over the past two days.”
I pull on my coat and check the ammunition in my gun, my mind reeling from the realization of how thoroughly she played me. “Which direction?”
“East, toward the main road, but Nikandr, she’s on foot in this weather?—”
He’s probably right, but she’s also proven to be far more resourceful than I gave her credit for. The woman who pickpocketed my keycard while I was distracted by the urge to kiss her is not someone to underestimate.
I walk past Maksim toward the elevator, my mind already shifting into hunting mode. “Get Viktor and Anton. Have them take the south and west perimeters. Radio if you find anything.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll take the east route. If she’s heading for the road, that’s where she’ll end up.”
The elevator doors close before he can respond, and I spend the short ride to the ground floor thinking about everything I know about Sabrina. She’s smart, stubborn, and resourceful. She’s also alone in unfamiliar territory during a storm that’s only going to get worse.
I need to find her before the weather does what I haven’t been able to bring myself to do.
I need to find her before it’s too late. I still don’t know what I’ll do with her then, but like a blinding epiphany, I accept what I’ve known all along…
I can’t bring myself to harm her for any reason.
7