The Russian Temptation (Book Two) (Foreign Affairs 2)

by Nikki Navarre

  The disclosure hit her like a fist to the face. Reverberations of shock and dismay rippled through her. Her stomach churned with sudden nausea.

  Nikolai had turned her in.

  Bastardo! A bracing flood of anger coursed through her. Ten minutes ago, the son of a bitch had his hands all over her. He’d been coming on to her, and she hadn’t exactly pushed him away. Was it all to keep her busy, lull her into complacence, while his MVD sidekicks got into position?

  Her face burned with humiliation, but she was still seeing red.

  “Get moving, Ambassador,” her captor ordered. “Unless you want real trouble.”

  The double whammy of Nikolai’s betrayal and the open threat got her moving toward the door. At least they’d have to pass the coat check on their way out. Her head was swirling with despair and oxygen deprivation. A thin trickle of precious air barely squeezed through her constricted lungs.

  If she didn’t get to her inhaler within the next thirty seconds, the rest of this crisis would quickly become moot.

  Skylar stumbled along, arms pinioned on either side. The crowd melted away magically before them. Later, during the inevitable inquiry over her disappearance, she knew the entire collective would vigorously deny she’d ever been there.

  What about Nikolai? Had he really turned her in, after all that malarkey about protecting her? Had he planned to betray her while she danced in his arms?

  She recalled their first encounter when he menaced her on the train platform, cold and expressionless, with no more remorse or human emotion than a shark. He was a killing machine, and for a dangerous moment she’d almost forgotten that. She recalled his ruthless efficiency when he’d gunned down her would-be assailants on the highway.

  Why protect her at all, if he was planning to turn her in? None of it made any sense…

  Through the tunnel of blackness that narrowed her vision, the coat check loomed. Her captors waited impatiently while the matron retrieved their coats at glacial speed. In minus forty Celsius, even tough guys like these wouldn’t brave the outdoors without a winter coat.

  Fighting to stay upright, she gripped the counter and wheezed, “Hurry…”

  She might as well ask the wind to stop blowing. As the matron sorted indifferently through the crowded rack, the Mountain bit out a curse and lumbered around the desk, clearly bent on fetching his own damn coat.

  The matron rounded on him with a barrage of shrill Russian, until he raised his ham-like hands and tried to retreat.

  Bullet-head got involved, firing off a few choice curses of his own. His bruising grip on Skylar’s arm loosened, and the Mountain had released her entirely. She dragged in a shallow, whistling breath and prepared to make a lunge for her precious inhaler.

  She couldn’t breathe…couldn’t…breathe...

  Behind her, the sharp tinkle of breaking glass seemed distant and without meaning. Then she heard the whoosh! as a wave of heat blasted against her back. Screams split the air, and suddenly pandemonium broke out. In the flickering red light that bathed the scene, the matron clung to her coats and gaped.

  Skylar tore her arm free and spun to find the bar ablaze. A solid sheet of fire raced along the wooden counter amid a sea of liquor and broken glass. Heat beat against her face, and the first breath of acrid smoke seared her shrinking lungs.

  Must…get…out. Gasping and coughing, she reeled back from the blaze, bright and sudden as a Molotov cocktail. A convenient fire, a useful distraction—if only she’d had air in her lungs to take advantage.

  Panicked customers buffeted her as they muscled past, fighting to squeeze through the single exit. Trapped behind the coat desk by the solid wall of people, the Mountain bellowed vainly. Beside her, his comrade unholstered an ugly black pistol and fired overhead, for God knew what reason.

  Fresh screams split the air, and the collective panic turned violent. A hard shoulder clipped Skylar as a heavy man bulled past. She fell hard to her knees, barely feeling the stab of pain from her bandaged leg. Desperately huddled against the coat desk, she flung up an arm to ward off the stampede before she was trampled.

  Pistol gripped in his hand, Bullet-head scowled and reached for her.

  Behind him, a lean black shadow detached from the streaming mass of people. Direct and deadly as a gunshot, an arm swept through the air in a knife-edge strike. The karate chop connected against her captor’s gun hand with an audible crunch.

  Bullet-head screamed as his pistol went sailing through the air—a short, terrible scream that ended abruptly when the shadowy figure delivered a short, vicious chop.

  Her captor dropped like a ton of bricks and hit the floor hard, where he lay unmoving. Dead, for all Skylar knew.

  Her hand flew to her mouth to smother a cry of shock.

  Behind the desk, the Mountain bellowed and fumbled for his sidearm. But the lean black shadow was already spinning toward him. A coat whirled through the air, its enveloping folds settling over the Mountain’s beefy face.

  As the big man struggled to free himself, the shadow gripped his head and brought it down hard as his knee punched up. With a groan, the Mountain toppled.

  As the MVD man lay like a sack of rocks, Nikolai Markov spun toward her. Since he’d appeared like a ninja, he hadn’t stopped moving once. Behind him a wall of fire roared, greedily consuming the spilled liquor and the wooden counter. Soon the flames would start creeping up the walls.

  Against the red blaze, Nikolai moved like a slice of night. Slender hands closed around her elbows and swept her effortlessly upright. In the flickering light, she caught a glimpse of his elegant features, cold and remote as the Arctic tundra, eyes black and depthless as the pit of hell. Tiny flames danced in their depths.

  “Everything all right?” he asked coolly, gaze sweeping over her.

  Her terror, her rage, the swirling fog of confusion all paled into insignificance beside the desperate need to breathe. Her lungs were on fire, searing hotter than the blaze behind him.

  She fought to scream, but could barely whisper.

  “My…coat…”

  He could kill or maim two professional soldiers without even getting winded, but this concern for her wardrobe seemed to bemuse him. Beneath the silky tendrils of hair that had fallen in his eyes, his brow creased.

  But he swept up her coat and dropped the ivory wool into her arms.

  “May I take it you’ve had enough Khimgorod culture for one night, Dr. Rossi?”

  Ignoring him, she fumbled desperately in her coat pocket and nearly wept with relief when the cool plastic inhaler tumbled into her grip. Heedless of the leaping flames, the last stragglers reeling past, the distant wail of sirens and Nikolai Markov’s unwavering stare, she raised the canister and took a long drag.

  Long seconds later, her drum-tight lungs expanded. A rush of welcome oxygen—smoky and bitter, but tasting like heaven—poured into her burning chest.

  She closed her eyes and allowed herself another hit. Normally she concealed the inhaler and her reliance on it like the weakness it was, the chink in her armor. At the moment, she didn’t care who knew, as long as she could breathe.

  The rise and fall of sirens, ever louder, pulled her out of it. Nikolai was checking the two huddled forms at her feet. The man he’d karate-chopped appeared to be either unconscious or dead. Nikolai had probably broken his neck.

  His clinical detachment sent a shiver scudding down her spine. Was there anything remotely resembling a soul buried beneath that brutal efficiency? Any flicker of regret for the lives he might have taken?

  Suddenly Skylar didn’t want to know the answer.

  Avoiding his curious gaze, she tucked away the inhaler and struggled into her coat.

  “We’d better get out of here,” she told him, edging back from the fire’s incandescent roar toward the welcome coolness trickling through the open door.

  “Indeed.” Nikolai glanced toward the door. He seemed to be listening with his eyes, probably gauging the sirens’ distance. “But not
that way. Come along.”

  Gripping her arm, he tugged her toward the inferno. She dug in her heels.

  “What are you doing? The way out is behind us.”

  “As are your friends’ MVD comrades,” he said coolly. “Whose acquaintance, I presume, you would prefer not to make.”

  Damn straight she preferred to avoid them—and they weren’t the only ones. When he propelled her away from the blazing heat into the temporary oasis of the bathroom corridor, she pulled free and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “We’ve come to a dead end, Mr. Markov,” she said coldly, “in more ways than one. This corridor is a death trap. There’s no way out. And even if there were, you can believe I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  His eyes narrowed, sweeping over her defensive pose. A shadow of wariness flickered across his guarded features. Yet he remained impassive, as though the deadly inferno weren’t blazing just yards away, the smoke thickening every second.

  Outside, a megaphone squawked, releasing an impenetrable burst of Russian. Undoubtedly this was the fire brigade, trying to ascertain whether anyone was still alive down here. Soon they’d come shouldering in to find the unconscious militsia—if they weren’t a pile of ash and charred bone by now.

  Despite the fierce heat, an uncontrollable shiver raced over her. Soon she could be a pile of ash and charred bone herself.

  Nikolai Markov puffed out a breath.

  “I suggest we defer this fascinating discussion for later.” A gleam of amusement surfaced in his gaze. “Besides, I thought you were going to call me Nikolai.”

  Driven to her limits, she felt her icy composure fissure. Anger and hurt flowered in her chest all over again.

  He’s turned you in. You won’t be seeing him again.

  “What I’m going to call you is a bastard,” she said harshly.

  Coolly he inclined his head. “That would be an accurate assessment.”

  “Then get the hell out of my way before we both fry!”

  Nearby loomed a pair of bar stools, probably for staff use during smoke breaks. Pivoting away from Nikolai, she gripped one and dragged it toward the high window. It was the only way out that didn’t open onto the street, debouching in the midst of the arriving authorities.

  He slipped past her, a wraith in the swirling smoke, and relieved her of the awkward weight.

  “Stand back,” he told her.

  Rather than waste time arguing while the building burned down around them, she complied. Beneath the wool coat, her back was slick with sweat, the air uncomfortably hot, almost searing her lungs.

  “For God’s sake, hurry!” she choked.

  Handling the weight effortlessly, his slim frame fired into motion as he swung the stool. With a crash, it punched through the glass. A welcome burst of air, icy but deliciously fresh, flowed through the stifling corridor.

  With swift efficiency, he swathed one forearm in his black wool overcoat and cleared jagged shards of glass from the frame. Snow swirled through the window. Behind her, the fire roared.

  She glanced back to find tongues of flame creeping along the walls and ceiling, and cried out in alarm.

  Suddenly he was there beside her, his light touch urging her toward the window.

  “Ready to go?”

  “My God, yes.”

  She sucked in the Arctic air and balanced the stool beneath the window.

  “Careful of the glass.” His deft hands gripped her waist to steady her as she climbed onto the rickety furniture. His breath licked her ear like a tongue of fire. “And be careful outside, Skylar. It’s best if we’re not seen.”

  She knew it was ten kinds of crazy, but the sound of her name on his lips steadied her nerves. He wasn’t who he claimed to be, which meant he’d outright lied to her. And he was probably still lying to her. But ever since she’d arrived in this isolated Siberian outpost and people started trying to kill her, Nikolai Markov had been the only man she’d met who was trying to protect her.

  Unless that too was a lie, and he was using her as a pawn on the geopolitical chessboard to advance his own agenda. She needed to get away from him, far away, until she figured out what game he was playing.

  She didn’t trust him. But for now, until she reached the relative safety of the train, he was the only ally she had.

  Resolutely, wary of the broken glass glittering like fairy dust as the fire roared behind her, Skylar gripped the window ledge and climbed into the frigid darkness.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Pin: An action that prevents an opposing piece from moving.

  Skylar curled her hands around her mug and took a bracing swallow. Beneath the acrid bite of good French coffee, the golden burn of bourbon coated her irritated throat and washed away the bitter residue of smoke. The warmth spread through her shivering body, pushing back the icebox cold of the safe house where Nikolai Markov had driven her after they crawled from the burning wreck of the nightclub.

  Hugging her knees to conserve body heat, she curled tighter on the bearskin rug that passed for furniture in this opulent, seemingly abandoned dacha, miles from anywhere in the Siberian taiga. She’d been shivering in the car even with the heater roaring at her feet as Nikolai piloted the Niva fast and silent through a warren of narrow, ice-choked roads. Shivering in the taut silence of suspicion and secrets that vibrated between them, the utterly cold and ruthless lines chiseled into his elegant features as he gripped the wheel.

  His black eyes remained shuttered and impenetrable, even when she broke the silence to ask where they were going.

  “Someplace safe.”

  “What do you consider safe?” she murmured.

  But he didn’t respond.

  She was completely, terrifyingly dependent on an enigma to keep her safe.

  He’d refused to return to the hotel, where he claimed more MVD militsia would be lying in wait. Which meant she didn’t even have access to her mobile phone. Neither ICSI nor the Embassy would have a clue what had happened or where to find her.

  Until she got out of Khimgorod, the formidable protection of the U.S. Government had been stripped from her. The sum total of her resources now consisted of the clothes on her back, the modest cache of rubles, credit card and diplomatic passport zipped into her neck pouch, and the inhaler in her coat pocket.

  Not to mention the North Korean purchase order for VX nerve agent tucked under her waistband.

  The creak of cedar floorboards kicked her heart into overdrive. But she forced herself to get a grip. She’d been skating near the jagged edge of panic ever since the nightclub. Just like in the chemical lab at Edgewood where she’d worked in full protective gear on countermeasures for sarin and soman and VX, she needed to keep her cool or she’d start making stupid mistakes.

  The new arrival was only Nikolai—her so-called protector—returning from his latest patrol of the premises. Dark and supple as a panther, he circled the flickering hearth of the gas-powered fireplace. Pausing before the window, he parted the curtain a fraction of an inch to peer into the swirling snow.

  For the hundredth time since they’d arrived, she checked her wristwatch. She didn’t want to miss her train—her ticket out of this nightmare she’d stumbled into.

  Considering how long they’d driven to reach this little hideaway, they should stay out of sight for another hour. Then they could head for the train station.

  Another hour alone and isolated in the Siberian taiga, in the midst of a raging blizzard. Alone with this beautiful Russian who lied to her and had killed a man as casually as swatting a fly.

  Nervously she cleared her throat. Nikolai twitched. Evidently he wasn’t quite as preternaturally calm as he appeared.

  She wasn’t certain whether that made her feel better or worse.

  Let sleeping dogs lie, Skylar. Her mother’s long-ago voice whispered in her mind. Sabrina Rossi had taught her to tiptoe around Dane Rossi’s dangerous business and his hard-eyed associates.

  But caution hadn’t saved Sabrina
in the end. She’d fled her powerful husband and his Mafia connections, and tried to take eight-year-old Skylar with her.

  Twelve hours later, Sabrina Rossi was dead.

  Convulsively Skylar shivered. Beyond a doubt, she needed to tread warily with Nikolai. If he wanted her dead, she’d be stiffening in a shallow grave right now. Meanwhile, he was her last chance to get answers from anyone in Khimgorod, before she got the hell out of there.

  She wasn’t about to squander that chance.

  Uncurling her legs, she crossed to the open expanse of the stainless-steel kitchen where a coffeepot steamed on the granite-topped island. Beside it rested a North Face backpack containing the dacha’s only supplies. When she’d gone through the contents, she’d found a first aid kit, thermal blanket, trail mix and bottled water, and an alarming quantity of spare magazines for his pistol.

  Not to mention the real essentials—a foil-wrapped bag of Indonesian coffee and an extra pack of Gauloise cigarettes.

  Clearly Nikolai Markov had come prepared for any contingency.

  Evidently he’d rented this place as a safe house. The entire setup smacked of a procedure he’d made habit. She devoutly hoped the two of them were the only ones who knew it.

  “More coffee?” she called.

  Stirring, he let the curtain fall. “Thank you.”

  She topped off both mugs with the steaming brew. No cream or sugar to speak of, as they hadn’t made the cut for essential items in his pack. But the coffee was Kopi Luwak—an exotic and highly exclusive blend, smooth and rich as nectar. Evidently one of the little amenities her bodyguard couldn’t do without.

  At least they had that much in common—a passion for top-end coffee.

  With a wry smile, she reached for the bourbon, another necessity that had made the cut. Only the best for this discerning customer.

  “No bourbon for me,” Nikolai murmured beside her, making her jump. The man moved so quietly he was unnerving. As she gripped the bottle, his hand closed lightly over hers. “I never drink while I’m working.”

  “I can’t argue with that.” Beneath his touch, her hand tingled as though she’d slid her fingers into an electric current. She stared down at his slender hand, long and supple as a musician’s against the cuff of his Armani jacket. The face of his Rolex gleamed, its dizzying array of hands and dials an enigma.