His arms tighten around me like he’s trying to keep me safe even though the danger has already passed. “I left the Miami Seaplane Base without any clear idea about where I was going or what I was going to do, so I was… distracted.”
His lips thin and for a moment I think he’s going to berate me. “This is my fault,” he says instead, surprising me. “You should never have been unprotected.”
“Stop,” I tell him, pressing my finger against his lips. “It happened. Laying blame doesn’t change that, so let’s just move past it.”
He nips at my fingertip, and I know he really is trying. Niko never would have done something like that before.
He pauses a moment then nods for me to continue. “It was all so busy and chaotic, and I ended up in a quiet street, then a van pulled up and they were on me before I even realized what was going on. I tried to keep my wits about me. To do all the things that have been drummed into me over the years, but they chloroformed me, so I was out of it, and I banged my head when they threw me in the van.”
I can feel the anger vibrating through him, but he stays quiet so I can continue.
“I got lucky,” I explain, silently acknowledging just how lucky. “I was using a burner phone, so I deleted a lot of things from my iPhone.”
He doesn’t ask why, and I’m grateful for that.
“I had it in my hand when they snatched me, and because there wasn’t anything tying me to you or the organization on there, they believed me when I told them they had the wrong person. That and the fact I had the marriage certificate to Zack in my bag and all my ID was in my maiden name.”
Niko is quiet for a long while and doesn’t ask the barrage of questions I expect.
"I'm sorry you had to go through that," he says softly, his fingers gently tracing the fading bruise on my temple. "But I'm proud of how you handled it. You kept your wits about you even in a terrifying situation."
Not what I expected him to lead with.
“I managed to keep my burner concealed.” Yay for dresses with pockets. No man expects that. “I knew they were going to leave me there, but they wanted it to look like I’d wandered into the swamp, gotten lost, and died of natural causes.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat. Why does discussing it make it seem so much more real?
“My plan was to call someone on the burner as soon as they left. Then you turned up, but… I thought they’d come back, so I ran.”
“Do you have any idea who they were?” Niko asks and I can tell from his tone he’s struggling to keep his temper under control. Not that it’s a problem; I know it’s not aimed at me.
I try to wipe away the emotions and think about it clinically. “They were careful not to use names or give anything away. They seemed professional, well-organized; not some random thugs."
I close my eyes and think back. “The van was black, nondescript. There were four men in it. Two in the back with me. Two in the front. They spoke with Eastern European accents, but not one I recognized.”
Pausing to take a breath, I clarify my recollections. “There was a fifth man at the cabin. He was in charge, but I didn’t see much because they put a sack over my head. He said he got a tip-off from someone to be on the lookout for me. He used the word kuchka to describe them, which implies a small group.”
“Or bitch in Bulgarian.”
Huh, I hadn’t considered that, since I recognized the word. But he’s right, they weren’t speaking Russian, which my mother taught me as a child, or Ukrainian which I’ve picked up from Niko during our marriage since both languages evolved from Old East Slavic. Not that any of it helps us at all.
Niko's jaw clenches. "I'll find out who did this," he vows, his voice low and dangerous. “I’ll find out who dared betray me by leaking that you were out there on your own without the benefit of my protection.”
“There’s one more thing I remember, but I have no idea if it’s relevant. One of the men in the van had a tattoo on the inside of his wrist.”
Niko is suddenly alert, his body tense beneath me. "What did the tattoo look like?" he asks urgently.
I furrow my brow, trying to recall the details. "It was small, maybe only an inch across. I only saw it for a second. An insect of some kind, I think…”
He sucks in a breath.
“Oh!” I exclaim, remembering another small detail. “It was red.”
Niko’s snarl makes me jump, though his hands remain gentle.
“Fuck!”
Chapter 25
