Page 85 of Unhinged

Like she’s done this a thousand times. I watch the flex of her fingers as she loads a clip, her gaze focused on the task at hand.

“You’re more comfortable around guns than I thought.”

She doesn’t look up. “That’s rich,” she says, her eyes finally twinkling at me. “Coming fromyou.”

The table between us is a graveyard of stripped-down weapons and scattered docs. Forged passports. Burner phones. She crafts identities so easily it’s almost disconcerting.

I don’t like it. It’s a not-so-subtle reminder that she can disappear again at any time.IfI let her.

I won’t. I fuckingwon’t.

I sit back, my arms crossed, studying her. “You know,” she says, in that voice that weaves around me like magic, “If you keep staring at me like that you’ll burn a hole through my skull.”

I snort. “Maybe I’m trying to make you stay put.”

Maybe I’m not lying.

Her lips twitch in an almost-smile. That damned mouth of hers. Always ready to fire back, sharp and dangerous.

“Afraid I’ll run?” she taunts, her eyes sharp.

“No,” I lie, my voice cold and flat. “I know you’lltry.”

I know it.

A comfortable silence stretches between us. She flips a passport closed and slides it across the table to me.

“Paris exit route. Clean as it gets.”

“Excellent. Rafail will appreciate this.”

Her eyes flash hard for a second before she can help herself. She still doesn’t like doing what Rafail asks.

She moves to the next document without waiting, like it’s the normal state of affairs to move from one person’s escape to the next.

“So does…does Polina ever see her mother?” She doesn’t meet my eyes when she asks, but I note the way her voice wobbles and she swallows hard, as if nervous.

“Yeah, Ekaterina Romanova owns a place in Moscow, though their family is firmly established in The States, too.” I pause. It isn’t justhermother. She’stheirmother.

“Oh.” She continues to arrange paperwork without saying much else. But I know this bothers her.

“Do you want to meet her?”

She looks up at me, her eyes wide in surprise. “Me? Meet her?” Her cheeks flush pink.

“Well, she’s your mother. I think it’d be natural for you to want to meet her.”

She blinks, her eyes wide, and swallows hard again. “Right. Yeah, I—well it makes me nervous, you know? But I—yes.” She lifts her chin up. “Yes, of course I want to meet her.”

Standing, she walks across from me, sashaying her sexy hips from side to side. I can’t help it. I land my hand across her ass, the noise going off like a gunshot.

“Hey!” but the flush in her cheeks speaks more than her objection.

My phone rings with a call from Rafail. “Gonna fill him here on what we found, okay?”

Nodding, she bites her lip. “Please do.”

“And I’ll see what I can do about you meeting your mother.”

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