Page 117 of Critical Mass
Her father didn’t answer. Instead, he stared at Dimitri with an expression Natalie had never seen before—confusion mixed with something that looked like betrayal.
“Dimitri,” her father said. “Why are we turning east?”
The helicopter banked, and through the window Natalie saw they were following the coastline, heading back the way they’d come.
Back toward Norfolk. Back toward?—
“We’re not going to Italy.” Dimitri sounded calm as he pulled a handgun from inside his jacket and pointed it casually in their direction. “Change of plans.”
Natalie’s heart stopped. “What are you doing, Dimitri?”
“My job.” Dimitri spoke to the pilot in Russian, and the helicopter adjusted course again.
Wait . . . they were both in on this.
They’d planned this in advance.
And her father had no idea he’d be betrayed by the very people he’d hired.
A vein popped out at his temple as he scowled at Dimitri and the pilot.
“Whatever you think you’re going to get away with, you won’t,” he barked.
“We’ll see about that,” Dimitri muttered.
“Who do you work for? Volkov?”
Dimitri remained quiet.
Now they were heading directly toward the commercial port—toward the massive container yards and cargo ships Natalie saw in the distance.
“You work for me!” her father yelled. “I trusted you. For five years, I trusted you.”
“You trusted wrong.” Dimitri’s expression remained neutral, professional.
The pieces clicked together in Natalie’s mind with horrible clarity. Dimitri wasn’t her father’s loyal security chief.
He was a spy. A double agent who’d been feeding information to her father’s enemies for years.
“The break-in at my house,” Natalie whispered as she stared at Dimitri. “The car that ran me off the road. The men that chased me in the boat. They were your men.”
“We needed more leverage against your father.” Dimitri shrugged. “We were going to grab you and hold you hostage to make sure we got what we wanted. It didn’t work out.”
“How dare you!” Her father’s voice rose, anger and fear mixing.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know.” Dimitri smirked before gesturing with his gun toward the approaching port.
“What does that mean?” Natalie’s mind scrambled to make sense of his words.
Her father turned toward her. “They have leverage over me. I’ve done things I shouldn’t have done. But I’ve never been a killer, Natalie. You’ve got to believe me.”
“Tell her what you have done,” Dimitri muttered.
Her father’s gaze darkened. “I have turned a blind eye to certain things in exchange for kickbacks. They found out. Used that knowledge to get me to do what they want.”
“Who isthey?” she asked.
His gaze darkened even more. “I don’t know. I never saw any faces. Everything was by phone.”
