Page 96 of Secret Weapon

Nobody would look for her.

So nobody would find me.

Darla had mummified in the dry heat, papery skin stretched across brittle bones.I hadn’t lingered as I retrieved her ID, and half a day later, I was on my way with a new vehicle and a little more breathing space.

“And you ran all the way to Oregon?”Alex asked.

“Da.I didn’t stop until I reached the ocean.Then I found a job here, and so I stayed.”

“That was one hell of a goodbye.People don’t often leave Blackwood, but when they do, we buy them a gift and Bradley usually throws a party.”

Even as a strangled laugh escaped, I felt the tears prickling at my eyes.“Don’t you make me fucking cry again, you asshole.”

His turn to laugh.“Still want that horilka?”

Did I?The talking, it was strangely cathartic.Was this why people went to confession?To unload their secrets onto a stranger so they could feel lighter inside?Hmm.If I told a priest that I’d pushed a man out of a seventeenth-floor window, would he inform the police?I could just imagine how that conversation with Colt and Luca would go.Well, it should have been a straightforwardsplat, but he landed on an ornamental lamp post and the spike at the top pierced right through his chest.

“I’m undecided.”

But a traitorous tear rolled down my cheek, and I cursed under my breath as Alex wiped it away with a thumb.

“This is embarrassing,” I muttered.

“It’s normal.Dasha, you couldn’t even grieve properly.You’ve been bottling all this up inside for four years.”

And Alex was making everything spill out.

“I hate you,” I mumbled, but I still let him wrap me up in his arms, and it felt weirdly nice.Like being hugged by a wall.Safe.Which was dumb because I kept myself safe.Trust no one, that was my motto, but maybe I could stay here just for a minute or two?

Or not.Alex’s pants vibrated, and he cursed too.

“Somebody wants you,” I said.

Somebody other than me.

He loosened his grip and pulled the phone out of his pocket.Sighed when he saw the message, so presumably it was from Emmy.That was the type of reaction she tended to elicit.

“You have to leave?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you going?”

“California.Huntington Beach.”

“I went there once.”

Not with Rad, but with Vik and Artem.One of the rare jobs that had actually been fun.We’d stayed in a nice hotel, and one day, Vik decided we’d all take surfing lessons.He’d fallen off the board more than Art, which had irked him to no end.Then we’d kidnapped our target—a troublesome politician’s equally problematic son—and returned him to the fatherland, and the fun had been over.

“Emmy wants you to go there again.”

“What?”

“She thinks you’d be an asset on this job.”

I wriggled free of Alex’s embrace.“Well, she can’t just order me around.I have a life here.Obligations.”

Alex let me go, but he kept hold of my hand.“What if I saidIwanted you to come?”

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