Gunner sat in the seat across from Shiver and opened the window shade. There was nothing to see given what they were flying over was a desolate as Death Valley.

“Anything?” Shiv asked.

Gunner shook his head.

“Once we land, we’ll do a proper interrogation.”

He looked into Shiv’s eyes and saw amusement. “You’re an asshole.”

“And you just told me everything I need to know. How long has it been going on?”

“There isn’t anything going on.”

“Don’t lie to me, you bloody bastard.”

“You wanna tell me you never kept another MI6 agent warm on a particularly long and lonely op?”

Shiv grinned. “You know I have, and so does Doc.”

Gunner shook his head. “Fatale was above your pay grade.”

“Fair point, well made. Although it wasn’t for lack of trying on my part.”

Merrigan “Fatale” Shaw was a former MI6, now married to Kade “Doc” Butler, and the managing partner of K19. The woman had been one of the best in the business, but semi-retired after she and Doc got married. Now they had a baby boy, and her husband behaved like she was the first woman in the history of the universe to give birth.

“I’ll interrogate her,” he told Shiv.

“You’ll have plenty of time to.”

“What’s that mean?”

“The two of you are going dark until we find Petrov and see this mission through to the end.”

“Back up. I am not going underground with Ivashov.”

“You are.”

Gunner studied Shiv, trying to determine how serious he was.

“Where?”

“You’ll be under the MI6 protection.”

That could be just about anywhere, other than the US, since there, they wouldn’t need it. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“There’s a safe house in the Cotswolds where I think the two of you would be very comfortable.”

“I’m not a bodyguard.”

Shiver raised an eyebrow.

“I’m no longer offering those services. Onyx can take this assignment.”

“What assignment?” asked Raketa, coming out of the private room.

“We’re taking you to a safe house outside of London.”

“No.”

Raketa’s response was so abrupt, Gunner raised his head and their eyes met. “The hit United Russia has—”

“I’ve decided to return to Moscow.”

Gunner scrunched his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

Raketa raised her chin and squared her shoulders. “My words were clear.”

“They’ll kill you,” Gunner muttered, still studying her for any sign of what this might really be about.

“I have something they want. They will not kill me.”

Gunner stood. “What?” he asked, taking a step forward so he was directly in front of her.

“That is not your concern.”

“I risked my life to get you out of Baku. You’re not going to turn right around and walk in front of a firing squad.”

Raketa put one hand on her hip and then lowered it as though she was about to argue his point but changed her mind.

“You assumed I wanted to leave the Old City.”

Gunner was ready to throttle her. What in the hell was this about? He spun around to get Shiv’s take, but the man had left the main cabin. He turned back around and got closer still, so he was right in her face.

“Explain yourself,” he seethed.

Raketa tried to take a step back, but there was a seat directly behind her.

“You came to me asking for help,” he said, still incredulous that the tack she’d decided to take was to return to Moscow, not that he believed that’s what she was really going to do.

Even as close as he was, leaving her little room to look anywhere but at him, she refused meet his eyes.

Gunner took hold of her arm and pulled her in the direction of the privacy room. She tried to wrench free, but he tightened his grasp, led her into the room, and locked the door behind him.

“One more chance, Rocket Girl. Tell me what this is about.”

She hated the tone of Gunner’s voice as much as she loved it, especially when he called her Rocket Girl.

He was angry, and he had every right to be, but that didn’t mean she could risk telling him the reason she wanted to return to Baku, or even that she intended to.

This was an op she’d handle on her own because if it failed, she’d never be able to forgive anyone who had been a part of it.

Raketa shook her head when she realized he was still waiting for her to respond.

“You’ll tell me eventually,” he said as he walked out of the room and locked the door. Somehow she knew, like the door of the apartment on Petrov’s compound, that the lock he’d thrown was intended to keep her inside.

“What the hell?” Shiv asked when Gunner came back into the main cabin.

“You heard her. She’s going back to Russia.”

“Do you believe her?”

“Not even a little.”

“What is this really about, Gunner?”

“My guess is her behavior has something to do with the person who is still being held by Petrov.”

“But she won’t give her up?”

Gunner shook his head.

“I need to know what happened between the two of you.”

“Why?”

Shiv folded his arms but didn’t answer.

“Nothing.”

The MI6 agent raised an eyebrow.

“We were together the same night I killed Lena.”

He nodded his head slowly, his eyes boring into Gunner’s as though he was trying to read his mind.

“But you have feelings for her.”

It wasn’t a question, not that Gunner would’ve answered if it had been. How he felt about anyone or anything was no one’s business. Did he care about Raketa? Obviously he did, to a certain extent, but beyond that, even he didn’t know.

There was something that stirred in him every time he saw her, and got worse if she was near. He wanted her like he’d never wanted another woman. Part of him wished he weren’t so drunk the night they’d spent together, so he could remember more—more than how it had felt to sink deep inside her. He hated that the other events of the day had marred him finally being naked and alone with a woman he so often caught himself fantasizing about.

Raketa was planning something, and like he’d just said to Shiver, he guessed it related to the person Alegria had told them about at the compound.

Perhaps if he could figure out Raketa’s connection to Petrov, he could also determine who that person was.

No theory he’d come up with thus far made any sense. When Petrov was reported killed and disappeared from the face of the earth, believed to be at the bottom of the Caspian Sea, Raketa was a child. He’d reappeared in the States as Conor McNamara, married multiple times, and fathered two twin girls. There was no intelligence indicating that Raketa had ever worked for him or been associated with McNamara in any way.

Onyx was unable to make a connection between her and any of the people working for Petrov either, including the bodyguard who had been posing as his latest wife.

There had to be a reason why Petrov abducted her from their last op, but it seemed that until Raketa told him what that was, it would remain a mystery. For now, she remained locked in the privacy room, which was laughable given they were on an airplane. It wasn’t as though she could decide to walk away.

“That’s quite a conversation you’re having with yourself,” said Shiv, still studying him.

Gunner shook his head, stood, walked to the back of the plane, and put his key into the outer lock of the door. He didn’t bother to open it; Raketa would know what he’d done and could come out if she chose to, although he predicted he wouldn’t see her again until he either joined her or the plane landed.

“We’ve been cleared to fly directly to London,” said Alegria from the cockpit.

Gunner nodded. It would be harder for Raketa to stage an escape once they were on UK soil, but harder still if they traveled all the way to the US.

“I’ll go underground with her, but not in the Cotswolds,” Gunner turned and said to Shiv.

“Where, then?”

“The East Coast.”

“Be specific, Gunner,” said Shiv, smirking.

He walked away without answering because Shiv knew damn well where he was headed with Raketa.

He was taking her to a place almost no one knew existed. Kade, Razor, and Mercer did, but they were more than business partners; they were Gunner’s best friends. Shiver knew about it too, but only because Gunner had needed the kind of help that only the MI6 agent could give him.

Raketa would be the next person to see the compound he’d spent the last couple of years constructing for his retirement.

There would be no way she could fall asleep, regardless of how much she needed the rest.

Gunner would be relentless; Raketa knew this. She had to craft a story more plausible than her intention to return to Moscow, but her brain wouldn’t play along, and it was because she was mentally and physically exhausted.

Having Gunner so close didn’t help. He’d had this effect since the first moment her eyes met his.

There was nothing soft about the man—every inch was rock-solid. At five feet, ten inches and in near-perfect physical condition herself, there weren’t many men who made Raketa feel petite, but Gunner did. It wasn’t just his height—he had to be at least six feet, five inches—it was the girth of his torso as well as that of his extremities.

She’d heard stories from other Russian agents, detailing what he was capable of when it came to hand-to-hand combat. He could snap a man’s neck without breaking a sweat, and hurl someone weighing three times as much as she did through the air like a rag doll.

Raketa knew he wasn’t much older than her, maybe two or three years, but the life he’d led was etched on his face. The scowl he wore was ever-present, intimidating even his colleagues.

She’d seen his compassion, though. When he held her in his arms the day they both believed she was dying, his eyes had softened as had his voice.

“Rocket Girl,” he’d murmured, holding her close to him.

As dangerous as the situation they were in had been, he still radioed for a medic, something she couldn’t say she would’ve done if their situations were reversed.

She hadn’t fallen in love with him that day, nor had her fantasies about him changed all that much. He was the main reason she’d accepted the assignment to escort the woman who’d try to murder her that very day, to Moscow.

The minute she’d heard the K19 team was on the woman’s detail, she’d immediately accepted. That she and Gunner were on opposites sides of the op hadn’t mattered. All she’d wanted was to be near him.

If she was being honest, he was the main reason she’d decided to leave Russia permanently, essentially signing her own death warrant. Once he’d agreed to help her, she knew he’d keep her safe. Just like, somewhere in the back of her mind, she’d known he’d come for her in Baku.

If he’d arrived twenty-four hours earlier, before she heard the wail of the woman who haunted her dreams, she would’ve gladly followed him to the ends of the earth, even if it had meant she simply worked by his side. That would’ve been enough, no matter how much her body craved more.

She’d known he was drunk the night they’d spent together, just like she’d known he would likely not remember making love to her. Later, when they slept, just resting her head on his chest and feeling his powerful arms encircle her had given her a sense of peace unlike any she’d ever known.

What would Gunner do once the plane landed? Would he hand her off to one of the other K19 operatives? If she somehow managed to escape and returned to Baku, would he forgive her for putting his life at risk only for her to return to the place from which he’d rescued her?

It wasn’t as though she had a choice. If the woman whose cries she heard was who Raketa thought she was, she’d never be able to rest until she got her away from Makar Petrov.

Raketa startled when Gunner came through the cabin door, just like she had earlier. She sat up, brought her knees to her chest, and clasped her arms around them.

“We’ll be landing in London soon. We won’t be leaving the plane.”

“Why not?”

“Because London isn’t our final destination.”

Raketa waited for him to divulge more information, finally realizing he had no intention of doing so.

“Are you taking me to the States?” she asked, feeling sick to her stomach.

Gunner nodded. “Unless you want to brief me on what your real plans are.”

“I told you I am returning to Moscow.”

“And I told you I know that isn’t the truth.”

“United Russia will negotiate my release,” she said, refusing to look at him.

“They’ll kill you, and you know it. And don’t bother telling me that you have something they want. If that were the case, you would’ve told me that weeks ago when you asked me to help you defect.”

Gunner sat in the chair by the bed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees like he had earlier.

“Shiver suggested we let MI6 interrogate you.”

Raketa almost smiled. She knew Gunner would never allow that. If anyone interrogated her, it would be him or someone else from K19. Even then, it certainly wouldn’t be traditional. He had other ways of getting information out of her, and they both knew it.

“Who will be my handler?”

Gunner smirked. “Me.”