Page 82 of Ford

The woman turned, walking backward now. And as if reading his mind, “If you run, my men will find you. And they will shoot you before they bring you back to me.”

Oh, honey. It was like a red flag to a bull.

But for Scarlett…

Ford followed the woman out of the building, down the steps, and discovered a black Land Rover waiting at the curb with yet another officer standing at the open passenger door.

“Get in,” the woman said, her brown eyes hard, an edge to them.

Ford glanced at Scarlett, who’d turned white. Then he climbed in and pulled Scarlett in after him.

The woman got in front, another officer at the wheel, and Ford was all eyes and ears for a way to escape as they pulled away from the curb.

Which brought him right back to Scarlett. Because sure, he had no problem bailing out of a moving car. Or leaping into the front seat for a little one-on-two wrestling match. Or even grabbing the wheel and slamming them all into one of those cement pylons, leaving him to climb out and run.

Maybe he was kidding himself because probably none of that would work, but he’d been trained to evade and escape.

Scarlett’s hand tightened on his, and he looked down, saw her reaching for the door handle. He frowned, gave a shake of his head.

They were heading into the city, toward the old Stalin-era buildings, St. Basil’s Cathedral, and Red Square. And, to his memory, toward Lubyanka, the four-story former KGB stronghold where people went in and didn’t come out.

Oh brother, now all the old Cold War stories were rising from the cobwebs of his brain.

This was the new Russia. People didn’t just disappear.

Right?

They drove right past the Kremlin, with the tall red-bricked walls, and for a moment he lost himself inside the surrealism of being at the epicenter of so much history.

And death.

And destruction.

And his sister was caught in the middle of it.

Now, so was Scarlett.

And he’d practically dragged her here. Why didn’t he let her stay behind in Kiev?

If Ham were here, they’d already be out of the car and—

“Saint Basil’s,” Scarlett said, staring out the window at the onion-domed cathedral. “Can we stop here and get a shot?”

He frowned at her. So did the woman in the front seat as she turned around, but Scarlett just smiled.

Oh wait. This was her game. The one her mother had taught her.

Pretend everything was just fine. That her world wasn’t falling apart. That she wasn’t terrified out of her skin.

Don’t think about tomorrow, or even the next hour or minute. Just right now. Pretend not to care, and then she wouldn’t get hurt.

No wonder she didn’t want longer than the moment. Because if she looked past it, she had to cope with the uncertainty of tomorrow, and…

Pretending. Right now, it was simply easier.

Okay. He could pretend right along with her. “We’ll come back after our driver drops us off at our hotel.” Why not play the confused tourist? Who knew why the FSB wanted them?

Yeah, no. This wasn’t going to work for him.