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you think I wouldn’t find you?”
    She opened her mouth, closed it. Clenched her jaw. He looked away when tears edged her eyes.
    “Any idea who did this?” He tried to keep his tone dark, dangerous, refusing to allow her sobs past his disgust. The woman obviously wasn’t above playing games with a man’s emotions.
    “No.” Her pitiful tone found soft soil and twisted. He had to admit, everything about her smacked of authenticity.
    Except, of course, her rather telling relationship with an international smuggler.
    “You know you’re under arrest, right? It’ll only help your case to tell me everything.”
    All bravado dropped from her expression and she looked like she might just wail, right there. “My case?” She backed away from him. “I don’t know what you think I did, but I did NOT run away today. Someone let me go. And,” her voice shook and she wrestled it back into submission, “I have no idea, none, nyeto , who did this. Panimaish ?”
    Her Russian vernacular, slightly sarcastic and sassy, seemed completely out of sync with the fierce tremble of her hands. Still, it chipped another crack into his suspicions.
    “My name’s Vadeem. I’d like to help you.” Now why did he say that? He felt like an idiot, holding his hand out to her like he wanted to make friends. Still, the damage was done, and all he could do was muscle up a smile.
    She looked from his hand to his eyes, studying his face with unmasked disbelief. She’d obviously had her share of scrapes for the day. Her eyes looked battered and fatigued. Still, if he’d learned one thing about her, she wasn’t going to shatter in front of him. “Kat Moore, and I still don’t know anything.” She slipped her hand into his. It felt warm, and just strong enough for him to know she fought her fears.
    “Glad to meet—
    The window behind her exploded.
    A million spikes sprayed them as Vadeem threw himself forward. He caught Miss Moore in his embrace and landed on the palms of his hands. They fell back onto the rug. She screamed, her hands clawing into his chest as he held her down. His arms covered their heads, his face next to hers, as he listened to the gunfire of a semi-automatic Makarov chip cement from the wall above the bed.

Chapter 4
     
    Kat leaned her head on the dirty glass pane in the interrogation room. Hard as she tried, she couldn’t shake off the tremor that buzzed like a low hum under her skin. Two stories below, moonlight strafed the street in a long pale strip, and the trees jutted spiny arms into the sky, black skeletons silhouetted in ghostly light. She heard the low murmur of voices outside the door. Hopefully one of them was the soldier who had pinned her to the ground and saved her life.
    So, maybe he wasn’t the menacing thug she’d pegged him to be.
    She put a hand to her face and remembered the rub of his whiskers, recalled his warm breath as he whispered comfort to a stranger and protected her with his own body. She blinked against the burning in her eyes. Nope, after the bullets stopped flying, she’d dubbed him a bona fide hero.
    As if on cue, the man, Captain Vadeem something, stalked into the room. He still looked like a walking menace with his sculpted physique and battle-etched face. He traipsed into the room and tossed a file on the metal table, then turned his chair backwards and sat down, straddling it and leaning over the top.
    She didn’t miss the way her heartbeat revved into NASCAR speed. Why, she wasn’t at all sure—whether because of his grim look, or the way his blue eyes seemed to peer through her, down to her soul.
    “How are you doing, Miss Moore?” His voice didn’t sound at all like he’d nearly been shredded by a battery of gunfire.
    She could only shrug. It seemed particularly ironic that she both began and ended this day in the custody of the Russian militia. She’d stopped asking God to rescue her and moved on to asking why she needed to be rescued so often.
    The captain indicated