Page 269 of Assassin

That didn’t sound good at all.

To any of them.

As Marines, they weren’t accustomed to sitting back and letting someone else handle their mess—and that was what this was.

A huge one.

Elizabeth patted her on the shoulder.

“You can do this, Alyona. Something tells me that you need to do this.”

She nodded.

“I know. He’s been the boogeyman for far too long. I just hope I don’t freeze.”

She reassured her.

“The Spiders will be there. Let’s just see what happens,” she said.

Elizabeth made a mental note to make sure the Spiders knew the situation.

“Why don’t you go find your man. He is taking this pretty hard.”

She was aware.

If Alyona was in his shoes, she’d be taking it the same way.

“I think I will. I’ll leave the phone with you so you can get the address to the Spiders.”

She handed Elizabeth the phone and walked out. When she was gone, the Major went there.

“I don’t like this,” Maura said. “I don’t like that she’s having to do this. This goes against everything that I know to be a good strategy.”

Greyson spoke first.

“She needs this. She has to be the one to take him out, since she’s been running from him. We have to give her this chance. She’s strong enough. Trust me.”

Jagger got that, but Alyona looked freaked out. She was a traumatized victim.

Was it a good idea to let that run wild?

No.

It wasn’t.

“And if this goes South and he kills her and escapes?” he asked.

Elizabeth said the only thing she could.

“Then I’m going to be here hunting Alexsandr Dominik with you because he possibly knows everything about us. Oh, and some spiders for dropping the goddamn ball.”

Despite their best judgment, this was now in the hands of a victim.

Yeah, how could this go wrong?

* * * H U N T E R – C R O F T * * *

In Their Private

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