Page 14 of Belgian Betrayal

Once she was satisfied nobody had followed, she got moving, determined to get to her place before they ran into anyone else. At the same time, she altered her course, never heading directly to her hideout, taking longer than it would have to go straight there. She hadn’t survived all those years by being reckless.

Except for the months she’d been with Fearghas in Athens. She’d let herself believe they could live a normal life. She hadn’t received any new assignments since the mansion incident. How easy would it be to disappear into a different life, like her parents had?

Then one day, she’d gone to a local bakery for bread. As she’d walked back to Fearghas’s place, her ingrained sixth sense had felt eyes watching her. She’d made several turns, taking herself away from her destination to be sure.

A man dressed in a white polo shirt, khaki slacks and a matching broad-brimmed hat most tourists wore to protect their faces and necks from the sun had followed her, keeping a safe distance for the first few switchbacks.

The next few turns she’d made had taken her out of his line of sight, but he’d closed the distance a little more each time.

Catya had walked faster, turned quicker but hadn’t been able to shake him. At the next corner, she’d run as fast as she could to the next corner, tossed the bread in the road to the right, then turned left and ran to an alley she’d identified weeks earlier for this exact purpose.

Escape.

While her stalker had lost time chasing down the right road, Catya entered the smaller alley, climbed a fire escape ladder to the second floor of an abandoned apartment building and tried to lift the window she’d worked free with a knife the last time she’d been there. The window was stuck again, heat and moisture having resealed the old paint.

Risking the noise, Catya had pulled out her knife and worked the paint free, her heart pounding, her mind counting the seconds it would take for the man in khaki to realize she’d turned the opposite direction and head her way.

Just when she’d thought the man would find her, the window moved, sliding jerkily upward until it jammed.

A six-inch gap was all she’d managed.

Catya had squeezed through the opening. She’d turned to ease the window back in place and had moved it down three inches when the man appeared at the end of the alley.

She’d ducked below the windowsill in a room littered with broken furniture, disintegrating cardboard boxes and the dust of a decade of neglect. She’d waited several long seconds before daring to peer around the side of the window from her position in the shadows.

The khaki-clad man had his back to her and the building she’d hidden in, walking out of the alley. He’d turned and jogged along the road away from her and her hiding place.

She hadn’t been caught or followed to Fearghas’s place that day, but she’d realized it was only a matter of time before she was.

Catya had returned to Fearghas’s place that afternoon, made love to him into the early morning hours and then slipped out before he’d awoken, taking only her weapons, passports, and the gold necklace Fearghas had purchased for her from a vendor in front of the Acropolis. He’d kissed her there in the moonlight, the backdrop of the Greek ruins seeming like a metaphor for things that stood the test of time.

Like their love?

Fat chance. What man could love an assassin who popped in and out of his life, leaving him to guess when he’d see her again?

Fearghas was better off finding a nice woman who hadn’t killed dozens of people and who came from a family of international spies. He needed a woman who could give him several red-haired children and raise them on a lush green plot of land in the Scottish Highlands.

Catya had boarded the first train out of Athens, not caring where it headed. She’d sent a text message to Fearghas letting him know she’d left so he wouldn’t wonder what had happened to her.

Catya: Until we meet again

She’d hoped he wouldn’t do something stupid like try to follow her and bring her back. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t.

The little girl inside who’d believed in fairy tales and shining knights or princes riding white stallions might have wished he would come and whisk her away. He’d take her to a deserted island where they could live in peace and happiness. No one would find them.

The hardened assassin knew better.

After she’d sent the text, she’d destroyed the sim card inside, knowing he could track her or try to contact her for an explanation. She couldn’t let him follow her. Her life choices made her a target that could extend to him. The decision to leave him had hurt her more than any physical pain she’d encountered before. She’d resigned herself to never seeing him again.

Yet, here he was, holding her hand, his touch filling her heart with equal parts of joy and fear.

For the moment, she held tight, knowing she couldn’t hold on forever. Not if it meant he’d meet the same fate as her parents.

Chapter 4

Fearghas sloshed alongside Catya, his soaked clothing making him cold to the bone. The only thing warming him inside was the hand he held in his. He held her hand like it might be the last time he would get to do it. And it might be.

When she’d left him in Athens, he’d responded to her text with dozens of his own, concluding that she’d probably removed her sim card to keep anyone from tracking her.

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