Johnny stole a Kia SUV that sat on a side street. They threw the weapons inside and raced away from the cemetery. Kat’s heart rattled in her chest. The blood on her face was sticky and cold. She wanted a shower and a hot drink. Then she wanted food and a bed.

She also, strangely enough, wanted sex. Badly. Not just sex, but sex with the man at her side. Hot, sweaty, raunchy, toe-curling sex. The kind of sex that made church ladies blush.

She put a hand to her head—the non-bloody side—and wondered what the hell was wrong with her. She hadn’t had sex in so long she couldn’t remember what it was supposed to feel like.

Her last lover had been Sergei, and there had certainly never been an emotional connection between them. Thinking of the times he’d stripped her naked and fucked her while she lay beneath him and pretended she was somewhere else made the bile rise in her throat. She’d thought she’d never want sex again.

She’d thought she was dried up inside. Hollowed out, all the emotion burned out of her years ago. But the emotions welling up inside her right now were anything but dead. Her nipples stood at attention. The sexual sizzle in her body was at an all-time high.

Which was insane considering everything that had happened over the past few days. But it was the rush of I’m alive that came after a near-death encounter, the desire to feel pleasure and know that you really were alive and life was good, even if only for a stolen moment.

They raced through the streets, backtracking and making circles until Johnny was convinced they didn’t have a tail. Then they headed out of the city. After a few miles, they came to a road that turned off the main road. Johnny took it.

“Where are we going?” she asked as the terrain grew rougher and ice lay across the road in spots.

“To see an old friend.”

Kat grabbed the strap over her head as they lurched through a particularly nasty stretch. She wasn’t sure the Kia would make it. But they found smoother road and the Kia kept moving along.

“Is he a hermit?”

“Kind of.” He glanced at her. “How’s the head?”

She reached up to touch the dried blood. “Messy, but it seems to have stopped bleeding. For now.” She chewed her lip. “Do you think it’s wise to go straight to this guy? Maybe we should hide somewhere for the night.”

“There is nowhere. Besides, we’re committed now.”

They eventually pulled up to a beat-up old house with a beat-up old warehouse building looming in the distance behind it. There were no lights on anywhere. Kat’s heart lurched doubtfully.

“Are you sure this is it?” she asked.

“I’m sure.”

She didn’t know how he could be when she was pretty certain he hadn’t set foot in Russia in over a decade. Probably longer.

“Stay here,” he told her as he swung the door open. A shot rang out and the windshield turned into a spiderweb of cracks. Johnny didn’t flinch. He lifted his hands in the air and stepped free of the cover of the car door.

“Hi, Yuri. It’s Viper. I need your help.”

Kat’s heart pounded. She had her hand on the Kalashnikov they’d relieved the cemetery shooter of, but she hadn’t lifted it yet. So help her God, if this prick shot Johnny, she’d go warrior woman on his ass.

“Viper?” The voice didn’t come from the house. It came from somewhere off to the left of the structure. “How do I know it’s really you?”

“Afghanistan, 2002. You were surrounded by insurgents and stripped of your weapons. They shot you in the chest and left you for dead. I found you, patched you up, and carried you to the US field hospital.”

“What is the name I told you to pray for if I were to die?”

“Anna Ivanovna. Your mother.”

There was a long pause where Kat’s pulse thrummed. She had no idea what was going on, but a shape emerged from the darkness and coalesced into a man. He was tall and gaunt and he carried a Kalashnikov of his own. She couldn’t tell his age in the dusky gloom.

The man stopped a few feet away and gazed at Johnny. He still hadn’t put his hands down. But suddenly the man smiled and came over to give Johnny a bear hug.

“It is you, Viper. Son of a bitch—what are you doing in Mother Russia, eh? Have you left your American military?” Yuri’s suspicious gaze slid over to her. “And who is this lady?”

“Kat Kasharin. Former FSB, now a private contractor with Ian Black’s Bandits.”

He’d left Sergei out. She figured that was probably a good idea.

Yuri grinned again. “Ah yes, the famous Mr. Black. He is a good customer.”

Kat reeled. She was racking her brain for mention of this Yuri, but she couldn’t come up with anything. She’d have thought, being in the business she was in, that she might have heard of him at some point. Especially if he did deals with Ian. But what kind of deals?

“We need shelter, Yuri. And I need help, as I said. Weapons, information.”

“Yes, come inside. We will talk about everything.” He tipped his chin to her. “Bring the guns, pretty lady. But don’t think about using them. Not a good idea.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” she huffed. She got out of the Kia and grabbed the duffel. Johnny came and took it from her.

“I can carry it,” she insisted.

“I know. But you’ve been injured and I haven’t, so let me.”

It occurred to her then that they had no clothes. All their bags—with the exception of the backpack Johnny never let out of his sight—had been in the taxi, which had disappeared probably at the first shot. She’d been so wound up over everything that had happened that she hadn’t given their luggage a second thought until now. Everything of importance was on her body—passport, cash—but she hated losing the rest of it anyway.

She didn’t exactly think that Yuri had a department store in his house. That left her wearing bloodstained clothing and hand-washing her underwear.

Johnny put his hand against her back and ushered her up the steps to the house. When they walked inside, she stopped abruptly. It looked like a hoarder lived there. Boxes of mostly unidentifiable junk were piled floor to ceiling. The path through the towering walls of stuff was narrow. She searched the piles for rats, but nothing crawled along those man-made mountains.

“Come,” Yuri said. “It gets better, I promise.”

“I hope so,” Kat muttered.

Behind her, Johnny laughed. “You and me both, babe. Though what I know of him suggests this is a blind.”

“You’re right, Viper,” Yuri called back. “I am an old man who collects junk and lives in filth. No one bothers me.”

He stopped in front of a door in the wall and fished out a key. The door was steel and the walls on either side of it were concrete. A moment later, he tugged the door open and went inside. Johnny pushed her forward.

There were stairs that went down into a basement. Except when she got to the basement, it wasn’t a basement at all. There was another door that stood open—and an elevator waited for them.

Yuri stepped inside and they followed. Kat watched him press buttons, memorizing them as he did so. There was a code, of course. Then they were moving and nobody said anything.

When the elevator came to a stop, the doors slid open onto an underground bunker that was as neat as the house upstairs was messy. Yuri walked over to a bank of computers and propped his rifle against a bench. Then he spread his hands. “Home sweet home.”

“I’m impressed,” Johnny said. “Though I suppose it’s nothing less than I expected from you.”

Yuri inclined his head. Then he looked at her. His gaze unnerved her for some reason, though there was no malice in it. “Your lady needs to clean up, I think.”

“I’m not his lady,” she said automatically.

Yuri laughed. “Of course not. Whose blood is that anyway?”

She touched her face. “Mine. I cut my head.”

“Ah.”

She shot Johnny a look. If he was still uncertain about this guy, if he didn’t want them to be separated, she needed to know. Though a shower would be awesome.

“Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll be there in a bit.”

“You can both go,” Yuri told him. “I have to go back up and check my traps before I lock down the perimeter. You set quite a few of the alarms off coming in. When I return, we’ll eat. You can tell me what the trouble is then.”

Wariness flared in Johnny’s eyes. Yuri noticed and laughed. Then he went over and put his hand on Johnny’s shoulder.

“Is okay, Viper. I work faster on my own and this has to be done for all our safety. Take your weapons with you if it makes you feel better. You saved my life. I don’t forget something like that.” He pointed. “There are living quarters down that hall. A shower, kitchen, bedrooms. Take your pick and get comfortable. I’ll return in an hour.”