Steinbeck glanced at her.“How?”
“I don’t know!”
Stein put a hand on Luis’s bag.“Where?”
“Upper deck.Could be more behind us.”
A short nod, then, “Take Luis.Get on the ferry.I’ll be right behind you.”
Her mouth tightened.Exactly what she’d said to him in Cuba.But—“Fine.”She grabbed Luis’s shoulder strap.“With me.”
Stein peeled off, headed toward one of the stores under the archway.She didn’t look at him, but she guessed he’d find a shadowed alcove, wait to see who they chose.
Probably her.And Luis?—
“I don’t know how they found me!”Luis said, and she glanced at him.
“They might have known where you were all this time.Probably, you were bait.”And it hit her then, right in the chest.They’d beenwaitingfor her.And the voice of Tomas, the Bratva leader, ran through her head:“We’ll see.”
Ithadbeen ridiculously easy for them to escape Sintra.“Let’s go,” she said and picked up her pace, bumping into a couple tourists.“Sorry.”The ferry’s horn blew again, and she urged Luis into a run.
Screams erupted behind them, but she didn’t look back as they cut down the pier, headed for the ferry, pulled up broadside to the dock.
A man stood at the gangway.
“Tickets on board?”
He nodded, and she shoved Luis through the gated entry.Followed, and then turned.
On the boardwalk, Steinbeck had overturned a couple tables and was now grappling with a man.People shouted, backed away from the violence.
The horn blew one last time.C’mon, Stein.
The struggle turned the twinkle lights garish, the music now dying as more people screamed.
Phoenix scanned for the man’s backup.
Yes, there—Boris, running along the upper deck.
Run, Stein!
Except, the Russian Steinbeck grappled with—she wanted to guess Igor, but really, she couldn’t see his face—grabbed Stein around the neck, a sleeper hold.
Don’t—
Stein stepped back, and she knew the move—chin tuck, grab, a knee bend, and the man flew over him.Crashed into more tables and slid to the cobblestones.
“Stein!”
She couldn’t help it.And he probably couldn’t hear her, but he took off running.
So not slow.She’d been wrong about all of it.
The ferry started to pull away just as he rounded the pier, the gangway already up.
“Run!”
She left Luis, ran over to the edge of the ferry, near the pier, and held out her hand.“Jump!”
