The Double Read online

  My hand grabbed hers. She stared at my injured arm in horror, eyes locked on the blood soaking through my shirt, but I nodded. It’s okay.

  And I pulled.

  Pain. Pain like I hadn’t felt since the frozen river, but this was fire instead of ice, blazing up through every tendon, commanding me to let go. But I had Hailey’s hand in a death grip. The engine’s suction tore at her, trying to snatch her from me, but I wasn’t going to let it have her. She meant more to me than revenge, more than my past—

  More than my empire.

  Inch by inch, I dragged her forward across the wing. The engine was sucking in the air so fast there was none left to breathe, and my lungs ached and screamed. I couldn’t hear anymore, the roar so loud that it had gone beyond noise: it was just a battering agony and a total lack of any other sound.

  I stared right into Hailey’s eyes and pulled. The pain in my injured arm doubled, trebled, but the world was whipping past faster and faster, it had to be now. I yelled and pulled—

  And then she was next to me and I wrapped my arms around her. There was no time to say anything, and no way would she have been able to hear me over the engine. So I just looked at her and nodded. Trust me.

  And I rolled us over the front edge of the wing.

  I was praying that my body was heavy enough, and that we’d fall fast enough, that we’d fall out of the engine’s suction before it could suck us in. But as we fell, I could feel us being pulled back, back, the underside of the wing racing past above us. As we cleared the wing, we seemed to hang in the air for a second, the engine sucking us up while gravity sucked us down.

  And then I felt us begin to fall. I hugged Hailey tight to my chest—

  My back hit the pavement, so quick and hard I felt the shock but not the pain. We bounced, spun.... I saw glimpses of red and blue lights, storm clouds, the plane racing away from us... then we hit again and this time the pain lit up one whole side of my body from ankle to shoulder. Another bounce, my stomach dropping away as we rose into the air... and then we slammed down and rolled, over and over, and all I could do was clutch Hailey close and pray she’d be okay.

  We finally came to rest by the side of the runway. I knew I was panting because I could feel my chest heaving, but I couldn’t hear my breath. I couldn’t hear anything.

  I opened my arms and legs, releasing Hailey from her protective cocoon. She struggled to her hands and knees. Moving. Talking, even though I couldn’t hear her. Alive! The cut on her head was bleeding and she was covered in bruises but she was okay.

  That’s when the pain started to hit me. Not just my arm, but my legs, my ribs. There didn’t seem to be anywhere that didn’t hurt.

  I managed to roll over. At the far end of the runway, Ralavich’s plane rose into the air and banked away, rising towards the clouds. Hailey moved into my view, staring up at the plane in horror. Her expression said it all. He got away!

  I took her hand with my good arm and squeezed it. It doesn’t matter, I mouthed.

  I drew her down for a kiss as red and blue lights surrounded us.

  Nothing else mattered.

  Only her.

  Epilogue

  Hailey

  Six Weeks Later

  WE’D BEEN DRIVING for several hours, taking turns. We should have been exhausted after all the traveling: it was mid-afternoon and we’d started our journey the evening before, an overnight flight and then another, much smaller plane to the tiny town where we’d rented the SUV. But we’d never been more awake. We were experiencing the opposite of white line fever.

  We’d just crested another rise and I’d stopped in the road to drink in the view. It wasn’t like I was holding up traffic: we hadn’t seen another vehicle in hours. To our left, snow-capped mountain peaks clawed at the sky. To our right, the ground dropped away towards verdant green forest. And directly ahead, a sparkling river curled and twisted into a deep valley. The air felt different, here: bitterly cold but clean and fresh in a way that made New York air feel like it came from a bottle. It felt so good in our lungs, we had the windows wound down, even though it meant we had to huddle in gloves and thick jackets.

  Alaska, I’d decided, was awesome.

  Somewhere down there in the valley was our destination, but it was still too far away to make out. When we’d organized this over a video call, we’d been unsure if we’d be able to pull it off. It was late November and once the snow came, the track we were following would be almost impassable until spring. But we’d gotten lucky and the snow had held off. We had a week before we’d have to go back to civilization. Long enough for this visit, one that was way overdue. It had been almost two years since my friend Kate had left the New York FBI office for the tiny one in Anchorage, Alaska, with weekends and vacations spent out here in the wilds, at Mason’s cabin.

  We were truly in the middle of nowhere. We’d lost cell phone reception hours ago and there wasn’t a telegraph post or a power line in sight. It was a little unsettling to think that, if we got into trouble out here, no one would find us for weeks or months.

  Of course, really we were safe. If we didn’t arrive, our hosts would come out looking for us. But it made me think how isolated Kate must have felt, doing this journey on foot, with no supplies and no back-up. Of course, she’d had him. Her protector, now her man.

  I looked across at my man. “Last stretch,” I said. “Maybe an hour. Want me to take it?”

  Konstantin shook his head. “I’ll take it. I’m meant to be exercising my arm.”

  I put the parking brake on and we walked around the front of the car to switch drivers. Six weeks on from the airfield, we were both still nursing injuries. We’d been incredibly lucky. The rain that had made the wing so slippery had also saved us: as we’d hit the runway, we’d skidded and slid rather than scraped. If it had been a dry day, we’d have lost most of our skin. Even so, we’d hit the ground hard. I’d cracked two bones in my ankle and still favored the other leg. Konstantin had come off worse: three broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder, but the worst damage was to his arm. Hauling me to safety and putting all that strain on it when it was already injured from the bullet had permanently damaged the muscle. He could still drive and write and pick me up, and physiotherapy was helping, but the doctors had warned that he’d never regain full strength in that arm. When they’d told us, I’d burst into tears.

  But he’d just put a finger under my chin and lifted my head to look at him. “It’s our weaknesses that make us human,” he’d told me. And I’d thrown my arms around him and hugged him close.

  Our hearing had taken several hours to return and it was weeks before the ringing in my ears went completely. One of the first things I’d heard, as I lay in a hospital bed, was Calahan’s conversation with Konstantin, who was in the bed next to mine. Calahan had been muttering and his silhouette on the curtain had its shoulders hunched with embarrassment. I’d had to really strain to hear.

  “... special,” Calahan had told Konstantin. “So you’d better not mumble her mumble—”

  “I won’t,” Konstantin had said solemnly.

  “Or I don’t care how goddamn powerful you are, I’ll—”

  “I won’t,” Konstantin reassured him.

  And Calahan had stomped off. Poor Calahan…. I knew we weren’t right for each other, but I hoped he found someone soon. He needed someone as stubborn as him, someone who could break through all the walls he’d put up and help him lay his pain to rest. She was out there, somewhere.

  Ironically, my mom had come to visit me in the hospital. Her health was much better, after her latest round of treatment, and I’d had a long phone call with her to prepare her for my new face. When she finally saw me, there was a lot of sobbing from both of us. But she finally sniffed and pushed back from me, then shook her head. “Doesn’t matter what you look like,” she told me firmly. “You’re still you.”

  To my amazement, she took to Konstantin immediately, describing him as a gentleman. I’d been worried at f
irst, afraid she didn’t understand what he was, who he was. But when I explained, she waved aside my concerns. “Is he a good man?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said with feeling.

  “That’s all that matters.”

  Konstantin had offered to pay her medical bills, but it turned out he didn’t need to. Word had gotten out about my shopping trip and once people heard that Christina Rogan, one of the best-dressed women in New York, liked to shop at my mom’s boutique, the place had turned into one of those “undiscovered gems” that columnists love to write about. The shop had never been busier and my mom had to take on an assistant.

  Grigory, broken-hearted, had testified against Christina. Without her influence, his loyalties had swung back to Konstantin and he’d refused to answer any questions about his employer. Konstantin hadn’t said anything directly but I knew that had gone a long way towards letting him forgive his former bodyguard. Christina, meanwhile, was going to be serving a long sentence in a federal penitentiary for conspiracy to murder, attempted murder and the drug charges we’d first brought her in on. Grigory’s sentence was looking to be a little shorter thanks to his cooperation. Finally, in a big win for the FBI, the arrest of the assassin had cleared up a whole slew of unsolved murders.

  Konstantin and I crossed over at the front of the car and I kept going towards the passenger side... but Konstantin caught my hand and brought me to a stop, then pulled me back to him. “What?” I asked, startled. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” he said. Those blue eyes looked deep into mine. “Nothing at all.”

  He smoothed his hand through my hair, pushing it back from my face. I’d stopped dying and straightening my hair and it was slowly turning back to its natural muddy brown frizz. He said he preferred it. I was dressing a little more like me, too, within reason. I wasn’t going to stop wearing all the designer clothes, but it was nice to just throw on jeans and a sweater sometimes, like today. I’d even got some glasses with plain glass lenses so that I could wear them again. Mainly for him. In the bedroom.

  We still had both kinds of sex. Slow, romantic, candlelit sessions in the bedroom, teasing each other for hours, and incredible, intense sessions down in the dungeon where he’d bind me and take me, again and again. But the BDSM was even better now we could cuddle afterwards and the romantic sex was even more fun with the occasional bit of kink thrown in.

  The mansion had changed a little, too. My father’s paintings were now framed and hanging on the walls and we’d cleaned up the mess the storm had made of the garden, and restored the glasshouse. I’d insisted on keeping the garden wild, though, as it should be.

  We turned towards the view ahead of us and just stood there, leaning against the hood for a moment. Without looking, we reached for each other’s hands and squeezed.

  He wouldn’t have been capable of this, a few months ago. He wouldn’t have understood just standing and looking at something beautiful, wouldn’t have tolerated the distraction from building his empire. But he’d changed. He walked in the garden, sometimes, not just with me, but by himself, as if he actually enjoyed it, and that was huge. One day, maybe he’d even make friends with the cat.

  He pulled me closer and slipped an arm around my waist. We didn’t have to say anything. We could just sit there and enjoy, in silence, something I’d never been able to do with any man.

  An hour later, we pulled up at the bottom of a path that led up the steep side of the valley. That was as far as the SUV could go: from here on out, we’d be on foot. Two people were waiting for us, one a giant who stood even taller than Konstantin, the other—

  Kate whumped into my chest and threw her arms around me. I’m not tall, but even I was looking over the top of her head. “I’m so glad you made it! We have everything ready. I mean, the cabin’s not big and you’re on the floor, but there are furs and a comforter and I’m sure you’ll be fine, and Mason went hunting, there are venison steaks for dinner, I hope you’re hungry, was your flight okay, sometimes it gets choppy—”

  I was starting to realize that, other than Mason, Kate had been a little short on people to talk to, up here. Over the next week, we were going to get all the hospitality she’d been saving up for two years. I squeezed her tight.

  We loaded up with a backpack each and started up the path. As well as our own supplies, we’d brought a few gifts. A bottle of red wine for tonight and—

  Kate fell in beside me and whispered in my ear. “Did you—”

  I grinned and opened the top of my backpack. The entire top third was stuffed with bags of gourmet coffee, straight from the city.

  Kate squeezed me. “Bless you!”

  Konstantin

  The next day, I woke up to the sound of nothing. Even at the mansion, there was the distant sound of traffic and the faint hum of the air conditioning. Here, there was just silence and it was strangely relaxing. I wouldn’t have believed, a few months ago, that it was possible to just slow down and switch off from my empire, but then Hailey had changed me in all sorts of ways. I felt better. I slept better. And my dreams were only good.

  Hailey didn’t know it, but sometimes, in the garden, when I was sure that no one was looking, I let the cat sit on my lap.

  I was... happy.

  She stirred next to me and cuddled sleepily into my chest. I leaned down and kissed her cheek. I’d deliberately made this vacation all about her: seeing her friends, doing something she’d always wanted to do. Being Hailey, she’d worried that that was unfair. “Isn’t there anywhere you want to go?” she’d asked.

  But there honestly wasn’t. I’d spent so long being completely focused on my work, I didn’t have a bucket list. Or, to be truthful, friends. But that would come with time. We had our whole futures ahead of us. For now, I was happy to be anywhere she was.

  In the hospital, I’d made it clear to Hailey that if she wanted to reverse Christina’s decision and rejoin the FBI, I’d understand. But she’d immediately shaken her head. “I’m not like Calahan or Kate,” she told me. “They were born to be agents. I fell into it. There’s something I’ve always wanted to do more.” And she’d told me her dream.

  Today would be the first step towards realizing it.

  After an enormous, country-style breakfast, we hiked out into the forest, Hailey laden down with her camera gear. Mason led us through the trees without GPS, without even a map. I knew he did this for a living, guiding tourists, and before Kate he’d spent years up here, surviving on his own. But I was still amazed at how well he could navigate.

  When we reached the spot, Hailey lay down on her front and got comfortable, putting her water bottle, snacks and camera lenses all within easy reach. I watched in amazement: it was the first time I’d seen her do it and it was like watching an animal nest. “This is how you used to watch me?” I asked.

  She nodded. “For two years.”

  We stared at each other. She bit her lip. I felt that electric thrill, the one that never went away, the one that made me feel like a teenager. Hailey was good for me. Literally good, the balance to my bad. It was still a turn on but it was far more than that. She completed me, in the same way my mother had completed my father. She tempered me. I might never be good but, with her influence, I wasn’t ruthless.

  “I wish you hadn’t stayed in the distance so long,” I told her. And kissed her.

  She’d asked me, when is it enough? When would my empire be big enough, when would I have enough money, enough power? And the answer was never because I’d been clawing away at the world, trying to fill some void the death of my family had left. But now I had Hailey. She was the answer. I looked at her. This is enough.

  I’d stopped trying to take new territory. The truce between the gangs would remain and New York would continue to have three kings, not just one. It was better, that way. If one person had that much power, it opened the possibility that someone like Ralavich could take over, with no one able to overthrow him. Better that the three of us kept each other in check.
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br />   The FBI preferred it, too. Now that Carrie Blake had seen how Ralavich operated, she’d come to realize that there were worse people who could fill my shoes. When I’d reassured her that I’d stop my expansion, averting a gang war, that had placated her even more... and I had saved her life. Of course, officially she was still working to bring me down. But, as she’d told me at the end of my lengthy debriefing, “Right now, I have bigger fish to fry.”

  It wasn’t just that Ralavich had kidnapped Hailey, or burned down buildings in the heart of New York. He’d tried to manipulate the FBI into doing his dirty work for him. That alone would have put him at the top of their Most Wanted list, but throw in the attempted assassination of an FBI chief and the anger was being felt all the way to Washington. Carrie had been summoned to DC twice, including for a meeting with the State Department and President Matthews himself. Ralavich had gone to ground in Russia and the Russian government was stonewalling, but President Matthews wasn’t taking no for an answer and I had a feeling it was only a matter of time.

  I had mixed feelings about him being brought to justice. I still wanted him dead for what he’d done to my family. But the hatred didn’t consume me, anymore. It wasn’t the most important thing in my life, and neither was my empire.

  Hailey drew in her breath. I followed her gaze.

  I saw the mother first, cautiously sniffing the air and making sure things were safe. Then the father, strong and protective. And then—

  Three bear cubs, each small enough to pick up in your arms, gamboling and tripping over their paws and rolling on the ground. Hailey snapped picture after picture and as I leaned over her shoulder and looked at them flashing up on the screen, I felt my throat go tight. She was going to be an amazing wildlife photographer, one of the greats. It was the details she noticed: the look of gentle chiding the mother gave her cubs as she nudged them for roughhousing, the way the father nuzzled the mother’s neck as the cubs climbed on his back. After a while, Hailey drew back from the viewfinder and just watched with me.