Page 117 of Ford

“I don’t know. He has a visa and papers, so…maybe none. But Coco…” She shook her head. “I’d give anything for a computer. I don’t have his cell number, but I can contact him by email.”

“Ford has a cell. He used it to call Ham, our contact in Ukraine. He’s the one who is setting up our transport in Kazakhstan. He could send the email.”

“Maybe we should let him in.”

Scarlett smiled. “I’ll get him.”

She got up and eased out into the hallway to go after the man she loved.

And RJ leaned over onto the bench, drew her knees up, cradled her face in her hands, and resisted the painful ache to do the same.

York stepped back in time every time he entered a Russian hospital. And not just because the smells brought him back to the antiseptic odor of Betadine and chlorine bleach, but whenever he closed his eyes, he opened them again to the sight of Tasha’s body, bloodied on a ratty gurney, the docs trying desperately to pump life back into her veins.

The cold had slowed her death, turned her body into an ice cube, and when York found her, he’d hoped desperately that modern medicine might do miracles. Modern Russian medicine. It was like walking back seventy years to an era of thick needles and soda bottles for IV containers.

Still, he couldn’t erase the stench of her blood being warmed, his own bile eating at his throat as he watched her body turn from blue to gray to pale white.

But all the same, lifeless.

A moan emerged, drawing him from his memory, and he let out a long breath, sat up, and pushed to his feet.

“You okay?” He walked over to Kat and put his hand on her leg, squeezed.

She lay pale and broken under layers of wool blankets, an IV running into her veins, another for morphine. Her red hair fanned out over the pillow, an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. Her eyes butterflied open, rolled once, then closed.

“You’re in a hospital. You had surgery to remove the bullet.” He moved in close to her ear. “I told everyone you were my girlfriend, so don’t start babbling and turn me into a liar. And I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t die.”

She made another sound, and this time her eyes opened longer. Her mouth moved under the mask, and he leaned down to hear. “I’d never be your girlfriend.”

He grinned. Squeezed her leg again. “I wouldn’t date me either, sweetheart.”

She whispered something else, and he moved the stupid mask away.

“RJ?”

“She and her brother escaped to Kazakhstan.”

“No visas…”

He recognized the panic in her eyes as he replaced her mask. “I know. I was thinking about that.”

A lot.

In fact, it wasallhe could think about—how RJ was going to get past border control. Maybe her brother had a plan, but he seemed to be making up their so-called rescue as they went along. And why couldn’t he have left well enough alone? York had had it in hand.

Maybe.

Okay, so the Bratva had put a snag in his plans, but he would have figured it out.

Would have kept his promise to RJ to get her out safely.

I could find you when this is over.

Why he’d said that, he didn’t know—all the emotion boiling up to spill out of him, maybe. The chaos of the moment.

The way she was looking at him, so much trust and worry and—

Shoot. He said it because she’d broken through something and made him feel again. Made him ache and groan, and like an awakening limb prickly with feeling, he realized just how numb he’d let his heart become.

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