When Gunner saw Striker’s name show up on his phone, he already knew they’d been too late. As much as he didn’t want to answer, he knew he had to.

“Hey.”

“You know why I’m calling.”

“Is there anybody on the inside who can get word to her?”

“Negative for now, but Shiv may have someone.”

“If he does…”

“Yeah?”

“Never mind.”

“Don’t give up on her, Gunner.”

He had no intention of doing so, not that it was any of Striker’s business.

Once Kade arrived in Montecito, he’d track her, and regardless of how powerful an Armenian cavalry she had with her, he’d find her and bring her back where she belonged.

The Armenians never got the credit they deserved. It was as though they’d been expecting her to arrive, and kept the door to embassy wide open.

She was ushered in to the high commissioner’s office without as much as a body search.

“Welcome, Ms. Ivashov,” he said, motioning for her to take a seat.

“Thank you, ambassador—”

“Please, call me Grigor.”

“I assume you know why I’m here.”

He nodded.

“I believe I know where Makar Petrov is hiding.”

“Please, tell me what you need.”

She didn’t need much—money, a cell phone, a computer, and a stockpile of weapons.

He nodded as she spoke, motioning to the various assistants also in the room to collect the items she requested as she outlined her plan.

“We have a team on standby—”

“I work alone. There’s only one thing I need to know.”

The ambassador nodded.

“Dead or alive?”

He smiled. “Most certainly alive.”

“Good to see you, Doc,” said Gunner when his partner walked through the front door of his house and into his wife’s arms.

“Where’s Orlov?” she asked him.

“I can’t answer that.” Doc looked over at Gunner. “There’s a possibility he was headed to the opposite coast. I’m sorry, Gunner.”

Fuck. Orlov hadn’t been after Merrigan at all. It was a ruse to get to Raketa. If she were still on the island, he wouldn’t be worried. There was no way he’d get through the security grid he’d had Striker activate once he and Mantis had left. But she wasn’t on the island. If she wasn’t on her own, she was being accompanied by a team of Armenians, which essentially amounted to the same thing.

“Shiv should be here any minute, and we’ll talk this through.”

What Gunner wanted more than anything was to walk out the door of Doc and Merrigan’s house and begin the search for Raketa. He didn’t want to wait for the MI6 agent to arrive, and he didn’t want to talk anything through, but he had to. He had no idea where she was or where she might be headed. For all he knew, she was already in Iran.

A chill went up her spine when she answered the burner phone she got from the embassy and heard a voice say, “Zaryana.”

She didn’t respond.

“If you want to see your precious mama again, you’ll follow my instructions very carefully. First, you will tell no one what I tell you, or your mother will die. Do you understand?”

There was no way for her to determine who the voice belonged to; it was being enhanced by a modulator. It sounded like a man, but it could very well be a woman calling. “Yes,” she answered.

“Your theory was incorrect. Petrov is not in Iran.”

“Where—”

“Silence. You will listen and not ask any questions. I will be in contact again.”

“Wait—” Raketa knew there was really no point in trying to stop the person from ending the call.

The only thing she knew for sure was she could no longer operate under the assumption that no one had tracked her yet. More likely, United Russia, Petrov, and K19 knew exactly where she was. That they knew she would only listen and do as they wanted if they used her mother as bait, was more chilling than the phone call itself.

The first thing Shiv said when he walked in was how sorry he was about the bad intel on Orlov.

Gunner got right in his face. “I don’t give a shit about Orlov. What I want to know is where Ivashov is. Is that something you can help me with or not?”

“Yes.”

Gunner was ready to choke the man. “Do I need to keep asking, Shiv? Really?”

“We know exactly where she is.”

“How?”

“Grigor Bedrossian’s right hand is MI6.”

Gunner felt Doc’s hand on his shoulder, and it was a good thing because he was ready to go down Shiv’s throat. “You couldn’t have told me that before now?”

“I have to say I agree with him, Shiv,” said Merrigan coming to stand on the other side of Gunner and putting her arm through his.

“There were reasons.”

“What reasons?” Gunner barked.

“It’s no longer a credible threat.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Gunner spat, moving away from Doc and Merrigan. “Just tell me where she is, and I’ll be gone.”

“Wait,” Doc told him. “You’re not going out on this alone. And if you think you’re gonna bully Shiv into telling you where Raketa is, you’re wrong. Remember, it’s MI6 that knows where she is, Gunner. If you want that information, you’ll sit down, shut up, and listen to whatever Shiver wants to tell you. At this point, I doubt it’s much.”

Gunner pulled a chair away from the table and sat. Doc was right. Shiver had the information he needed, and for some reason, he had been withholding it.

“I understand that you were able to make the connection between Ivashov and Petrov.”

“Raketa is his daughter.”

“The woman who Alegria said was also being held by him is her mother.”

Gunner nodded.

“Did she tell you why Petrov took her to Azerbaijan?”

“Not exactly.”

“Gunner,” Doc warned.

“All she told me was that he wanted her to deliver his daughters. In exchange for that, he wouldn’t turn her over to UR.”

“She’s his daughter too,” said Shiv.

“Glad to hear you’re followin’ along.”

Shiver shook his head. “She had no idea why?”

“Nope, but I sure as hell don’t buy that Daddy is missing his baby girls.”

“Trust funds.”

Gunner, Shiv, and Doc all turned and looked at Merrigan.

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” she responded to the unasked question.

It did. When they’d initially determined that Razor’s wife, Ava, and her twin sister, Aine’s father wasn’t Conor McNamara, the identity he’d been living under since before the two girls were born, and was, in fact, Makar Petrov, a black market arm’s dealer who had been thought dead for the same amount of time, Striker had immediately ensured the agency froze McNamara’s assets. Gunner had no idea what the value of the daughters’ trust funds might be, but it made sense that, regardless of their worth, Petrov would want to get his hands on as much cash as he could.

“Who’s the successor trustee?”

Gunner looked at Merrigan, Merrigan looked at Doc, and Doc looked at Shiv.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Gunner asked, incredulous that no one had thought of it before now.

Shiver ran one hand through his hair while he made a call with the other.

Gunner sat back in his chair, wishing Shiver would hurry it the hell up. Why did they need to figure all this out now? Every minute Raketa was out there on her own, brought her that much closer to someone else finding her before he did.

“You were on the right track, Gunner,” said Shiv, disconnecting the call. “But that isn’t the money he’s trying to get to.”

“What do you mean?”

“An officer of the bank where the trusts reside was named successor agent for Ava’s and Aine’s trusts. That money is being closely watched by your justice department.”

“Get to the fucking point, Shiver,” Gunner said between clenched teeth.

“I have my team looking for three other accounts.” Shiv looked at Doc. “You should orchestrate the same.”

That was why Petrov wanted Raketa in the first place, and why he wanted her to bring Ava and Aine to him. It had nothing to do with him wanting her to abduct his daughters; he wanted their money—and hers too.

“You should be looking for four. Or maybe one that has been liquidated recently.”

“Svetlana Petrov?” asked Doc.

“Or Ivashov.”

Doc walked outside to make the call.

Before he could ask, Shiv handed Gunner a burner phone. “She’s in Chicago. There’s a plane waiting in Santa Barbara to transport you there.”

Gunner took the phone from Shiv’s hand.

“You’re welcome.”

“I would’ve thanked you if you’d given me the chance.”

“I saved you the trouble. I know how much of a hurry you’re in.”

“Thanks, Shiver. Sincerely.”

Gunner was halfway down the block when he realized that he walked out without saying goodbye to Doc or Merrigan.

The tail wasn’t a surprise. How good he was, on the other hand, was. She recognized him from the ambassador’s office, but he had to have been trained by another intelligence organization. If she hadn’t remembered seeing him, she might think he was with United Russia. Although there was still a chance he was. There were double agents everywhere.

“Sixty seconds,” Gunner heard through the headset.

“Roger that,” he answered, already in position. He counted down from fifty-nine and when he got to one, Raketa walked out the back door of the hotel and straight into his waiting arms.

He’d anticipated her struggle, but not the vehemence behind it.

“Settle the hell down,” he barked as she tried to scratch his eye out while hurling a slew of Azeri curse words at him faster than he could translate.

“I don’t want to do this, but you’re giving me no choice,” he said as he grabbed her free arm and cuffed them both behind her.

He held her tight as she tried to struggle her way out of his grasp, but she was no match for his strength, particularly in handcuffs. When he felt her fight waning, he took her back inside the door she’d come out of, up the service elevator, and to the room MI6 had booked for him.

He opened the door, went inside, and set her down on the bed. “Here we are again, Zary. We have to stop meeting like this.”

“Don’t call me that,” she spat.

“But you told me you liked it. Remember? You were naked in my arms, and we were professing our love for each other. I’m beginning to think you didn’t really mean it.”

“You didn’t mean it.”

Gunner sat in a chair and pulled it closer to the bed where she sat. He reached out and stroked her face with his finger. “You’re wrong. I meant every word I said.”

She shifted away from his touch. “Right before you betrayed me for the second time.”

“I have never betrayed you. The first time I left you on the island, it was because I believed you’d be safer there. I told you before I left the second time that what I was being called away for had nothing to do with Petrov.”

“You lied by admission.”

He tilted his head. “Omission?”

“You know what I meant.”

“Either way, it wasn’t a lie. I was called away on another matter that was of an urgent nature. I specifically told you I would be back within forty-eight hours. Even as I spoke those words, you were planning your departure.”

“You lied to me about everything. You told me you wouldn’t use sex to get answers from me, but that’s exactly what you did. You told me we’d plan together to go after Petrov. Another lie.”

“No, Raketa. I didn’t do any of those things, and I didn’t lie to you. You, on the other hand, lied about trust. You told me you’d never trusted anyone, but I begged you to believe in me, trust me. I understand now why you couldn’t.”

“Why couldn’t I?”

“The entire time, it was I who couldn’t trust you. I was just too stupid to see it.” Gunner got up and walked to the other side of the room, running his hand through his hair.

It was easy to say things like that out of anger, but he wasn’t angry anymore. He was hurt. Way down deep in his soul, he ached, knowing that he’d been right all along. He’d never find love like his partners had. Maybe it was because he didn’t deserve it. Maybe if he’d tried harder to get through to Lena, he could’ve saved her, even if she couldn’t have ever loved him the way she’d loved Doc. Maybe living his life without love was his penance for all the horrible things he’d done in his life in the name of freedom and ridding the world of evil.

He walked back and unlocked the handcuffs binding Raketa’s wrists.

“If you want to go, I won’t stop you. But first, I want you to listen to me.”

She shook her arms and then nodded.

“I do love you. I know you don’t believe me, but I’m telling the truth. It’s the reason I’m here, the reason I wanted to find you, and the reason I want to keep you safe. I can’t imagine a world without you in it. I don’t want you to have to fight Petrov and United Russia on your own. I want to help you. I want to help you find your mother. That’s why I’m here, Raketa.”

He turned his back to her. “That’s all I had to say. I don’t want you to go, but if you do, I won’t try to stop you.”

He waited a long time after he heard the door of the hotel room close before he considered turning around. He couldn’t bear the fact that she’d left without saying a word.