Page 30 of Lethal Torture

We chat for a few moments more and hang up in a reasonable state of peace.

But I’m more unsettled than I want to admit. Not because Liana brought up the past, and the abusive motherfucker our mother married. I took Liana and ran when I was fifteen and she was only eleven, and like I said, I’d do it again tomorrow without an ounce of regret.

I’m edgy because something about this job feels different.

Zinaida Melikov feels different.

Once, years ago, I was in a small village in Afghanistan, running surveillance on the local Taliban from the home of an old man who was opposed to their regime. One night when we were talking, I asked him why he had chosen to help us, even though it would likely cost him his life.

“Every choice we make kills a life we might have led,” he told me through an interpreter. “You Westerners, you tell yourselves you can have it all. We Pushtan understand that every choice decides what we allow to live and what we let die.”

I haven’t thought of that old man for years. But now, when Zinaida’s flawless face seems to lurk just beneath the inky shadows of the River Thames, and her world reaches for me like a seductive whisper, I know I’m about to make a choice.

One that just might kill any chance I have left of returning to the life I’ve always told myself is waiting.

And I have no idea what life will take its place.

7

ZINAIDA

I wake long before dawn.

Ifwakeis the right word.

I really haven’t slept a lot.

I pull on sweats and head for Hyde Park, which is only a ten-minute walk from my rooftop apartment in Lowndes Square. Instead of my normal path around the Serpentine, I turn right, taking the wide tree-lined way toward Buckingham Palace. I need space to think.

I start jogging, inhaling the scent of damp earth and autumnal leaves like a welcome relief. The chill of coming winter is calming after last night’s frantic heat in the Quartier.

Be honest, Zinaida. You mean the heat of that little game you lost in the Viewing Gallery.

Anger, and more than a little frustration, lend wings to my heels, and I pick up speed.

Phone Mak and call it off.

After all, I still haven’t officially offered Luke the job.

Calling it off is definitely the smartest call to make.

I’ve reduced the hardest criminals in London to quivering little boys with my naked body and dead-eyed stare.

Luke Macarthur didn’t turn a goddamn hair.

Oh yeah, Zin.That’swhy you want him gone.

Nothing to do with the way his eyes made me come undone faster than loose stitches.

Or the fact that he haunted every moment of sleep last night.

I round the bend, mist damp on my face and wet leaves underfoot. In the distance, Big Ben chimes the Westminster Quarters: it’s five fifteen a.m.

Tell Mak to find someone else.

Only I know I won’t.

No matter what excuse I give Mak, changing my mind now would be a tacit admission that Luke beat me at my own game.