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Blaine wasn’t used to this particular feeling in his chest. Like someone had cracked it open with a palm to his ribs and scooped out the insides, leaving a disturbing breeze in its wake.
Claudia hadn’t met his eyes once in the car, despite his furtive attempts to engage and snag her attention. She might very well never look at him again, and the thought of that anger being the last thing between them. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Make it right, Blaine. Make it right.
But how? Pavlichenko pulled the car over to a small rest stop on the highway. Searing Blaine with a look, he said, “I’ll be right back.”
He climbed out of the car, ambling slowly toward the squat gas station service center. Blaine turned to look at Claudia, who glared out the window, brows furrowed.
“Let’s talk.”
“No.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Claudia, this shit is complicated.”
Her eyes narrowed further.
“I didn’t know how to tell you. And to be honest...” Words failed him. To be honest, he’s thought about getting the fuck out of the FSB—like Filitov did. He wanted to run away with her and just sit in the bliss of her gaze. But none of those things had space inside this car. Not when Pavlichenko might have it bugged. “I’ve never had to admit I’m a hitman.”
Claudia scoffed and resumed her stony silence, but after a few moments she cracked. “How can you do it? I just don’t get it.”
Blaine let his gaze drift to the service center. Inside, Pavlichenko leaned against the wall on a pay phone. Always using untraceable methods. “It’s a job. Like anything else.”
“It’s not like anything else, don’t even try to normalize it.”
He shook his head, jaw clenching. She’d never understand. And maybe that’s what he needed to keep ahold of, in case he started thinking crazy thoughts about how someone like her and someone like him might ever have a chance together. “It gets normal, trust me. No matter how much you don’t want to believe it.”
“Don’t you have any remorse?”
“Like I said, doll. It’s a job. You do as you’re told.”
Claudia’s eyes narrowed. “You’re killing innocent people!”
He looked back at her, narrowing his eyes. “Trust me, they’re not innocent.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Most of the people I’m sent after have their fair share of sins.” He clenched his jaw, watching the door of the service center. Hoping Pavlichenko would take a while. At least long enough to wipe away some of the vitriol between them. “And maybe in that sense I’m just the angel of death.”
Claudia was quiet a moment. “And my father deserves that? He should die for a handful of amorphous sins just because someone, because Pavlichenko decides it so?” She scoffed. “Bullshit.”
Blaine softened. “Listen, I don’t get involved. Like I said, it’s my job. People have their reasons. We all do stuff like this in our own ways.”
“Oh, please.” Her voice was rimmed with knives. “Who else kills people like you do?”
A sneer crossed his face. “Your father, for starters.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“You think he’s innocent?” He swung to look at her, searing her with a look. “Before his exile, his men took part in the massacres across the Balkans. Nobody’s hands are clean. He just pull the trigger differently.”
Claudia clamped her mouth shut but her nostrils flared.
“I’m not saying he deserves it,” Blaine added after the silence grew lethal. “I’m just saying he is equally as guilty, no matter which way you slice it. You might be his daughter, but I’m sure you don’t know the half of what goes on behind his desk.”
“Yeah, well, it seems everyone likes to leave little Claudia in the dark, huh?” She laughed bitterly. “Since I clearly can’t understand the way the world works, let’s just keep me out of the loop so the real men can handle the important shit.”
“Claudia—“
“No, Blaine. It’s fine. That’s how the world works for you. I’m just glad I’m seeing it now, because that’s not the world I want to live in.”
Blaine clenched his jaw, studying the service center. Maybe Pavlichenko could come back now. “It’s not like that—”
“Oh, it’s not? Well it seems to me I’ve been passed around between a whole slew of men who seem to think they run the world and all the information in it. You’re part of it. When you ask me to trust you, really what you’re saying is I don’t deserve to know what’s really going on. And that’s fucked up.”
“Claudia, it’s not like that.” His voice came out gruff. She was all wrong—and her misperception bothered him more than he could properly understand. “I ask you to trust me because I’m trying to get you home safe. I’m trying to protect you and care for you, because if anything happened to you I’d lose my shit.”
Her green eyes glinted hard. “Oh yeah, I’m sure you’d care if something happened to me. Care about me today, kill my dad the next. Just a day in the life of Blaine, is that it?”
He sighed, massaging his temples with thumb and forefinger. “You’re upset. I get it. But you should know that there are some things even I don’t know about. You’re not the only one in the dark. I follow orders, you know.”
“A dirty cog in the fucked-up wheel,” she spat. She crossed her arms again, sliding her gaze back to the window.
He let her words hang in the air. She was right, after all.
“Are you still going to do it?” Her voice broke. “After all this?”
He steeled his jaw, looking back toward the service center. “I can’t answer that.”
She scoffed, and then sniffed. “Fucked up, Blaine. You’re fucked up.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. Can’t argue with you there. Pavlichenko emerged from the service center and he turned to face her. “I’m going to get you home safe. I promise.”
“Why, so I can bury my dad?”
Her words cut through him like a jagged shard of glass. He settled into his seat, staring out the windshield, jaw flexing as he corralled his kneejerk reactions. She was being unreasonable, irrational; but she had every right in the world to talk to him that way. Pavlichenko arrived at the driver’s side and slid into the car, whistling softly.
“Ready to continue our fun family trip?” His smile unsettled him. The car roared to life, Pavlichenko’s whistling the strange soundtrack to whatever lay ahead; making his stomach plummet, like the pressure shift before a thunderstorm.
***
A FEW HOURS LATER, Pavlichenko pulled up to a non-descript warehouse on the fringe of Dubrovnik. The car clicked off, leaving them in a bloated silence.
“Here we are,” Pavlichenko said, tossing smiles at them both. “Shall we?”
Blaine pushed his door open, boots scuffing on the gravel parking lot. He caught Claudia’s eye from over top of the car—she couldn’t have looked more miserable. He headed for her but she hurried to keep up with Pavlichenko. She trusts him over you now.
Pavlichenko headed for the plain metal door. He held it open, ushering the two of them inside.
“Blaine, you’ll be coming with me.”
Claudia swiveled to look at both of them. “And where am I going?”
“Oh, we have a space reserved just for you,” Pavlichenko said, that sneer returning. He signaled to a guard just inside the entrance of the doorway and pointed to Claudia. “Take her to the cell.”
Blaine stepped forward. “Let me take her.”
“Nyet, lover boy.” Pavlichenko scoffed. “You and I need to have a chat.” Glancing at Claudia, he said, “Don’t worry, they’ll take extra good care of her.”
The tone in his voice set his blood pumping. “I insist.”
Pavlichenko narrowed his eyes. “Denied, and that’s an order.”
Blaine turned to watch the guard lead her away, down a narrow hallway. “Claudia, I’ll come check on you as soon as I can!”
She didn’t respond—not that he expected her to—and ran a hand through his hair.
“Getting awfully close to the devushka, aren’t we?” Pavlichenko lifted a brow, jerking his head in the opposite direction from where Claudia went. “Come to my office. We have some things to sort out.”
Blaine steeled himself, furtively scoping the surroundings as Pavlichenko led him through a hallway comprised of scaffolding. The majority of this warehouse was empty, or littered with scraps of cranes and cars. Cavernous ceilings yawned open and upward, tiny birds nests dotting the dark steel beams crisscrossing the open air.
As with all things involved with the organization, the warehouse was a front, simply a holding bay for whatever was needed according to the ongoing arrangements. Drug deals, arms deals, trafficking—all the shady underworld source of money for the FSB. Blaine knew little beyond the scope of his immediate assignments; and usually, he preferred it that way.
Until the past week, at least.
Pavlichenko crossed a threshold, into a real cement-block hallway. At the end of the hallway, he pushed into a small office. A simple desk was pushed against the far wall, a swivel chair in front of it. A filing cabinet and a closed laptop. Nothing else.
Pavlichenko shut the door behind Blaine and locked it. He reached behind him and pulled out a gun, cocking it as he brought it up to Blaine’s temple.
Blaine stiffened. “What are you doing?”
“I need to know who you work for.” The cold barrel of the gun pressed against Blaine’s temple and sweat prickled across his shoulders.
“I work for you.” He scoffed. “Who the fuck else would I work for?”
“Don’t lie to me.” Pavlichenko pressed the gun harder against his head. “Why do you have the girl?”
“It was a last-minute tactical shift,” he said, his words tumbling out clipped and forced. “I’d been having trouble locating the King. His security was tighter than I bargained for. So when news broke that his daughter had been kidnapped here in Croatia, I jumped at the chance to track her down. With her as a bargaining chip, I could access her father.”
Pavlichenko relaxed slightly. The pressure of the gun eased from the side of Blaine’s head. “Go on.”
“I traced her to the cruise ship. I got on the list posing as a trade minister. I bid on her and won, and then we escaped off the ship a few days later.”
He lowered the gun. “Why were you at Filitov’s hideout?”
Blaine sighed. This was the part that was hard to explain. “I needed guidance. After the escape off the ship, I wasn’t sure what to do with the girl. Being with her for so long clouded my judgment.” He paused. “I’d only heard of him hiding out there, I wasn’t sure.”
“But you knew.” Pavlichenko opened the barrel of the gun, spinning the chamber. “You knew where he lived which means you hid it from us.”
“I didn’t hide anything.”
“Well, at any rate, you led us right to him, so I should be thankful for that, at least.” Pavlichenko chuckled. “So maybe we’ll call it tit-for-tat? Hm?”
“What do you mean?”
“We have eyes on us, Blaine.” Pavlichenko set the gun down at the edge of the desk and clasped his hands behind his back, leveling him with a look. “Our people want to know why you showed up at the house of a defector. Now, I’m willing to let the official story be that you went there to finish him off yourself. You went there to take care of business, as a way to prove yourself to the GRU.”
Blaine blinked, furrowing a brow. “The GRU? Why would they get involved?”
“The Kremlin was getting inpatient,” Pavlichenko said, sniffing. “They’re very interested in removing the last traces of the Slavonian royal family, hence the eyes on your every move.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Your question is not worth answering,” Pavlichenko said. “All you need to know is this: the Kremlin wants Zvonimir gone, and I assured them that you’re committed to your assignment. They’ll be pleased to hear of your initiative in exterminating Filitov’s house by your own hand.” He speared him with a look. “Understood?”
“Understood.” So his job was safe—but at what cost? The King’s life was still on the line.
“And as for your—ah—slip.” Pavlichenko waved his hand in the air as though dismissing the idea. “I can see why you might get distracted. Claudia is very beautiful. I wouldn’t mind taking a crack at her myself. I’ve always wanted to fuck a Princess.”
Blaine stiffened, fists balling. “No.”
Pavlichenko’s smile turned into a sneer. “No?”
“She’s off-limits.”
“Have you forgotten who you are?” Pavlichenko slammed his fist on the desk. “Your loyalties are askew, Blaine Andreivich. Bring them back in line, or I’ll shoot you myself.”
“She and I survived a wild week. It’s natural for me to feel protective of her. She’s an innocent in this, and she doesn’t deserve anything more than what she’s had to live through.”
“An innocent?” Pavlichenko scoffed. “She’s the Princess of Slavonia. Her father is a traitor to the Russian people. She, by matter of blood, is also a traitor.”
Blaine gritted his teeth. “She doesn’t deserve any more trauma. My plan was to send her back to her father anonymously, and then complete the mission as originally planned.”
Pavlichenko ran his tongue over his teeth, scowling at him. “Fine. But it plays out like that—and only that. You let the girl go. You do the job. And everything is fine.”
Blaine jerked his head into a nod. “Exactly.”
Pavlichenko nodded, narrowing his eyes. “Good.” He strolled to the desk, opening the top drawer. He revealed a stack of papers and handed them to Blaine—a passport clipped to a few legal documents, his license, and a bank card. Relief stormed him—at least he had a lifeline, now. Options.
“We’ll let the girl go soon,” Pavlichenko said. “But first, we must attend to one more matter.”
Blaine’s belly cinched. This could be literally anything, and if he knew anything about his shadowy boss, it was that he liked his surprises.
“Follow me.”
He led him out of the office, back down the hallway, and toward the main area of the warehouse. It smelled like bleach and electrical fires in there, a highly unsettling combination. Pavlichenko whistled and a few burly men appeared, like they’d been waiting.
Pavlichenko shouted a gruff command in Russian and then tossed a forced smile at Blaine. “Our friends from the GRU will take it from here.”
Blaine balled his fists as the three stocky men approached him, faces neutral. The hair on the back of his neck stood and he knew—this was a beat down. A message; Pavlichenko making his point.
He couldn’t defend himself against the three brutes—but he’d go down trying.
Blaine rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and hunkered down for a fight. When the first man swung, he dodged it and landed a solid punch in his gut. Then the second guy came around, catching him in the neck, and from there it was a desperate lurch to protect himself.
The hits came fast and hard. And then a blow to his head.
Darkness.