Page 4 of Belgian Betrayal

Catya used that moment to run across the rooftop only to find a dead end. No other building adjoined the one on which she stood. A wide street stretched out below. A loud thunk sounded from the other end of the roof as the man pursuing her landed hard, rolled and came up on his feet.

Ten feet below where she stood was a striped awning over the front of what appeared to be an outdoor café.

She had two choices. Face her attacker or jump and possibly face the other attacker on the ground.

Catya turned, fired at the man behind her, spun and stepped off the roof, praying the awning would slow her fall to the ground.

She hit the awning with the flat of her back. The striped fabric held as she bounced once and slid over the side, landing on the ground.

As she rolled to her feet, a man rounded the corner of the structure.

Catya fired, hitting him square in the chest and sending him staggering backward. She looked up in time to see the man on the roof peering over the side, looking for her.

Before he could aim, she fired up at him.

He stepped back, away from the edge and out of her line of sight.

An older model car pulled up to the traffic light behind Catya.

She ran backward, firing up at the roof until she bumped into the car at the traffic light. With her free hand, she reached for the door handle, yanked it open and dove into the passenger seat.

The startled driver shouted in Italian.

Catya yelled, “Go! Go! Go!”

When the man sat frozen in his seat, she lunged over the console and reached down, slamming her palm against the accelerator.

The car lurched forward, the back glass shattering under a barrage of bullets.

The driver held onto the steering wheel in an attempt to control the forward movement as more bullets pinged against the metal roof.

Catya pulled the guy’s foot onto the accelerator and pressed her hand on his knee, pushing his foot down at the same time as she sat up.

She looked back but couldn’t see through the shattered back window. A glance in the side mirror showed the man on the roof dropping onto the same awning and rolling off to land on his feet. He ran after the car, firing his weapon.

They’d gone only half a block. If the driver didn’t go faster, the runner would get close enough the bullets could do more damage than just broken windows.

Catya climbed over the console into the driver’s lap, slammed her foot onto the accelerator and took control of the steering wheel.

She pushed the car faster until they were out of range, only slowing long enough to take a turn. The rear tires skidded sideways across the pavement before they gained traction and shot the car forward.

After several more twists and turns, Catya was confident she’d put enough distance between them and the gunmen.

She pulled the car into an alley, jumped out and ran several more blocks, ducking between buildings, turning left, then right and left again. Out of breath, she slowed to a jog and then a walk, finally ducking into a church garden.

Finding a quiet corner, she leaned against the ancient stonewall and slid down until she sat against the hardpacked dirt.

Only then did she have time to think through what had just happened, from the man who’d come down the stairs to the fact Atkins hadn’t checked in with her or responded when she’d warned him about a man exiting through the rear. Gia Rosolino’s plea. The explosion. And then the two men bent on putting a bullet through her.

With her adrenaline abating, she could feel the pain in her calf. She found a hole in her black trousers. Pulling up her pant leg revealed where a bullet had grazed her calf. Fortunately, it wasn’t any worse than a flesh wound. Already, the blood had clotted, forming a scab over the injury.

Catya dropped her pant leg and shook her head.

What the hell had just happened?

Chapter 2

Catya’s pulse had slowly returned to normal when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out and stared at the cracked screen and the text message from an unknown number.

---