SHE was about to be pickpocketed. Sergei Kholodov watched with an experienced and jaundiced eye as three street urchins thrust a bunch of newspapers into the face of the foreign girl. Or woman rather; he judged her to be in her early twenties. With her straight teeth and hair and bright red parka, she was definitely American.
She’d been standing in front of St Basil’s Cathedral, gazing up at the swirled onion domes with a map forgotten in her hand when they approached her, speaking urgently, pushing the papers. He knew how it went. She obviously didn’t. She laughed a little, took a step back, her hands batting the papers, and smiled. Smiled. She had no sense whatsoever.
The kids must have seen that. If it was apparent to him, standing twenty metres away, it had to be utterly obvious to them. She’d been chosen for that reason; she was an easy target. They kept the papers close to her face, surrounding her. He heard her laugh again and say in clumsy Russian, ‘Spasiba, spasiba, nyet …’
Sergei’s eyes narrowed as one of the urchins darted around and slipped his hand into the pocket of the girl’s parka. He knew how quick and quiet you could be when you slid your hand into someone’s pocket, grasping fingers reaching for the solid leather bulk of a wallet, the comforting crispness of folded bills. He knew the thrill of danger and the satisfaction—mixed with scorn—of a successful lift.
Suppressing a sigh, Sergei decided he’d better intervene. He had no great love of Americans, but the woman was young and clearly had no idea she was about to be parted from her cash. He strode quickly towards her, the tourists and hucksters parting instinctively for him.
He grabbed the kid who’d had his hand in her pocket by the scruff of his worn and dirty sweatshirt, watched with grim satisfaction as his feet pedalled uselessly through the air. The other kids ran. Sergei felt a stab of pity for the one he’d caught; his friends had been quick to abandon him. He gave him a little shake.
‘Pokazhite mne.’ Give it to me.
‘Spasiba, spasiba,’ the boy protested. ‘I don’t have anything.’
Sergei felt a hand, gentle yet surprisingly strong, on his shoulder. ‘Please,’ the woman said in badly accented Russian, ‘leave him alone.’
‘He was stealing from you,’ Sergei replied without turning. He shook the boy again. ‘Pokazhite mne!’ The girl’s grip strengthened, shoving his shoulder. It didn’t hurt, but he was surprised enough that his hold on the boy loosened for a mere second. The street urchin made good use of what he surely knew was his only chance at freedom. He kicked out and connected with Sergei’s groin—causing him to swear—and then ran for it.
Sergei drew in a deep breath, forcing himself to block the pain that was ricocheting through his mid-region. He straightened and turned to the woman who had the gall to stare at him with a particularly annoying brand of self-righteous indignation. ‘Satisfied?’ he queried sardonically, in English, and her eyes—a startling shade of violet—widened in surprise.
‘You speak English.’
‘Better than you speak Russian,’ Sergei informed her. ‘Why did you intervene? You’ll never get your money back now.’
She frowned. ‘My money?’
‘That kid you were so kindly defending was pickpocketing you.’
Her expression cleared and she smiled and shook her head. ‘No, no, you’re mistaken. He was just trying to sell me a newspaper. I would have bought one too, but I can’t read Russian that well. They were a little overeager,’ she allowed, clearly trying to sound fair, and Sergei could not keep the incredulity from showing in his face. Could someone really be so naive? She frowned again, noticing his expression. ‘You know that word?’
‘Yes, I know that word, and a few others besides. They weren’t overeager, lady, they were conning you.’ He arched his eyebrows. ‘You know that word?’
She looked startled, and a little offended, but she let it go, shaking her head wryly. ‘Sorry. I know my Russian’s awful. But I really don’t think those kids were up to any harm.’
Sergei’s mouth thinned. ‘Check, then.’
‘Check …?’
‘Check your pockets.’
She shook her head again, still smiling, still naive. ‘Honestly, they were just trying to—’
‘Check.’
Her eyes flashed indigo and for a moment Sergei saw something under the sweetness, something powerful and raw, and he felt a flicker of interest. Maybe even of lust. She was quite pretty, with those violet eyes and heart-shaped face. With that bulky parka he couldn’t see much else. Then she shrugged, smiling in good-natured defeat, and spread her hands. ‘Fine, if you want me to prove it to …’ Her voice trailed off as she reached into her pockets, and Sergei watched the emotions flash across her face. Confusion, impatience, uncertainty, disbelief, outrage. He’d seen the progression a thousand times before, usually from afar with a half dozen twenties in his fist.
Except, he realised as he watched her closely, she wasn’t outraged. Hurt, maybe, by the way her eyes darkened to the colour of storm clouds, but then she shook her head again in that accepting way of hers that both annoyed and affected him and shrugged. ‘You’re right. They took my cash.’
Why was she so good-natured? ‘Why,’ Sergei asked in as reasonable a tone as he could manage, ‘did you keep cash in your pocket?’
She pulled her lower lip between her teeth, and his narrowed gaze was drawn to that innocent action. Again he felt that flicker. Her lips were full and rosebud-pink, and something about the way she nipped at them with those straight white American teeth made his middle clench. Or maybe lower down. Irritation and interest, annoyance and attraction.
‘I’d just been to the bank,’ she said, her tone one of explanation rather than defence. ‘I hadn’t had time to put it away—’
She’d been standing staring at St Basil’s with a map dangling forgotten from her hand. She’d had plenty of time. But why should he care? Sergei asked himself. Why should he bother even having this conversation? She was just another American tourist. He’d seen plenty of those over the years, from the first ones who goggled at the pathetic obscurity of an actual Russian orphan to the ones who judged with an assessing eye and brought in an army of therapists and psychologists to make sure no child was too damaged. As if they had any idea. And then of course tourists like this woman, who swarmed Red Square and gazed at the Kremlin and the GUM department store and all the rest as if everything were no more than a bizarre and rather quaint antiquity, rather than a lasting witness to his country’s heart-wrenching history. He had no time for any of them, and certainly not for her. He’d already half turned away when he heard her soft little exhalation of dismay, no more than a breath, as if she wouldn’t allow herself any more.
Sergei turned back. ‘What?’
‘My passport …’
‘You kept your passport in your coat pocket?’
‘I told you, I’d just been to the bank …’
‘Your passport,’ Sergei repeated, because he honestly couldn’t believe someone would actually keep their cash and passport in an unzipped coat pocket while they walked across Red Square.
She smiled ruefully now, acknowledging his incredulity, accepting it even. ‘I know, I know. But I was cashing my traveller’s cheques and they needed ID—’
‘Traveller’s cheques,’ Sergei repeated. This got better and better. Or worse and worse, depending how you looked at it. He’d thought with the advent of computer banking those cheques had become obsolete. ‘Why on earth were you using traveller’s cheques? Why not an ATM card?’ Much simpler. Less chance of being stolen. Unless, of course, you kept the card in your coat pocket, with the pin number kindly attached with Sellotape to the back, as this woman probably would. Just to help a thief out.
She lifted her chin, and he saw that flare of indigo again. ‘I prefer traveller’s cheques.’
Now he was the one to shrug. ‘Fine.’ And he would have turned away, he would have turned away so quickly and easily, if not for the way her smile faltered, her lips trembling, and he saw desolation cloud her eyes to a grey-violet, the long lashes sweeping downwards to hide the sorrow he’d already seen there. He felt a painful twist in the region of his heart, a kind of raw emotion he didn’t like feeling, hadn’t let himself feel in years. Yet somehow with one sorrowful look she hadn’t even wanted him to see, he felt it. And it made him furious.
Hannah knew it had been rather foolish of her to carry her cash and passport in the front pocket of her coat; she got that. She would have put it away in her zipped purse except she’d become distracted by the beauty of St Basil’s, its colourful domes piercing the hard blue of the sky. And, she acknowledged, she’d been thinking about how today was her last day of travel, how tomorrow she’d be back in upstate New York, opening the shop, taking inventory, trying to make things work. And while she’d known it shouldn’t have, the thought gave her a little pang of—sorrow? Regret? Something like that. Something she pushed away, didn’t want to feel.
And now this Russian … assassin was looking at her with daggers in his ice-blue eyes. Hannah didn’t know what he did for a living, but the man was seriously intimidating. He wore a black leather coat over black jeans, not exactly the friendliest of outfits. His hair was a relatively ordinary brown but it was cut very short and framed a face so coldly arresting that Hannah’s heart had near stopped in her chest when he’d approached her.
And now this … the last of her money gone. Her passport gone. And her flight back to New York left in five hours.
‘What?’ the man asked brusquely. He’d turned back to her, impatience and irritation evident in every taut line of his well-muscled body. The man radiated lethal, barely leashed power. Yet still he’d turned back, even it seemed as if he’d done so against his will, or at least his better judgment. ‘You know you’ll need to go to your embassy, don’t you?’
‘Yes …’
‘They’ll help you,’ he explained to her, slowly, as if she had trouble understanding her own language. ‘They can issue you a new passport.’
‘Right.’ She swallowed. ‘How long does that usually take, do you know?’
‘A few hours to fill out the paperwork, I should think.’ He arched an eyebrow. ‘Does that inconvenience you?’
‘It does, actually,’ she informed him, managing a wry smile despite the panic plunging icily in her stomach. She was starting to realise how awful this really was. No passport. No money. Missing her flight. In Moscow.
All bad.
‘Perhaps you should have thought of that when you wandered around Red Square,’ the man returned. ‘You might as well have hung a placard around your neck declaring you were a tourist, ripe for the taking.’
‘I am a tourist,’ Hannah pointed out in what she thought was quite a reasonable tone. ‘And I don’t know why it’s got you so worked up. It’s not your money, or your passport.’
The man stared at her, his expression turning from fierce to something close to bewildered. ‘You’re right,’ he said after a moment. ‘There’s no reason for me to be worked up at all.’ Yet he didn’t turn away as she’d half expected him to, just kept staring at her as if she were a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve.
‘In any case,’ Hannah said, ‘I don’t mind that they took my money.’ Well, she wouldn’t have minded, except that it was the only money she’d had left. And as for the passport …
She lifted her chin, staring the man down. Sort of. ‘They need it more than I do, and at least now they can buy food—’
‘You think they’re going to buy food?’
She shook her head. ‘Don’t tell me they must be buying drugs or something awful like that. Even children who live on the street need to eat, and they couldn’t have been more than twelve—’
‘Twelve is plenty old on the street,’ the man informed her. ‘And food is easy enough to score, just steal from a fruit and vegetable stall or wait out in the back of a restaurant. You don’t use money to buy food. Not unless you have to.’
Hannah stared at him, surprised by his knowing tone, discomfited by the fierce light in those ice-blue eyes. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘And thanks for helping me out. If you hadn’t come along—well, if I hadn’t interfered, maybe I’d still have my money.’ And her passport.
The man jerked his head in a semblance of a nod. ‘You’ll go to your embassy?’ he asked, sounding almost as if the words—the concern—were forced from him. ‘You know where it is?’
‘Yes.’ She didn’t, but she wasn’t going to give this man any more reasons to think her an idiot. ‘Thank you for helping me out.’
‘Good luck,’ he said after a moment, and, nodding her own farewell, Hannah turned and started walking across Red Square.
Now that she was no longer dealing with that man and his forceful presence, the panic lodged icily in the pit of her stomach was becoming heavier. Icier. She swallowed, squared her shoulders—just in case he was watching—and strode towards the other side of the square. She’d look at her map then, and figure out where the American Embassy was.
Two hours later she’d finally reached the window in the consular department of the American Embassy, only to be rather flatly told that she had to report the theft to the Moscow Police Department, fill out a form, and bring it back to the embassy before she reapplied for a passport.
‘Reapply,’ Hannah repeated, not liking the word. She’d been hoping—praying—that they could just give her some sort of stamped form, like a get-out-of-jail-free card that would let her on the aeroplane. Get her home.
The woman behind the window looked at her without a flicker of sympathy or interest. To be fair, Hannah told herself, she probably heard this kind of sob story all the time. And it wasn’t her job to help Hannah, just give the information. Still, Hannah had to swallow past the lump in her throat as she explained, ‘But my flight leaves tonight.’
‘Reschedule,’ the woman said. ‘It will take days to get a passport, and after that you have to reapply for your entry visa.’
An entry visa? ‘But I’m leaving.’
She shrugged. ‘Your Russian contact will have to vouch for you.’ She passed a paper under the window and Hannah stared at it, saw the hundred-dollar fee for a passport application.
‘My contact is just a hotel,’ Hannah said, desperation now edging her voice. ‘I don’t think—’
‘Talk to the police,’ the woman advised. ‘You must do that first.’ Already she was looking over Hannah’s shoulder, indicating that the next person should come forward.
‘But—’ Hannah leaned forward, flushing as she spoke in a whisper ‘—I don’t have any money.’
Still no sympathy. ‘Use the ATM. Or a credit card.’
Of course. That was the normal, expected thing to do. Except she didn’t have that much money in the bank to withdraw, and she’d cut up her credit cards after seeing the bills her parents had racked up before their deaths. Maybe not the wisest decision, but now that she’d finally paid the bills off she’d been determined never to be in debt again. The woman must have seen something of this in her face for she said, a touch impatiently, ‘Call someone, then. In America. They can wire you money.’
‘Right.’ It was finally sinking in just what kind of trouble she was in. ‘Thank you for your time,’ she said, and fortunately her voice didn’t wobble.
‘Any time,’ the woman said in a bored voice, and the next person started forward.
Hannah walked slowly outside; there was a chill to the spring air now, and the sky had darkened to a steely grey.
She was really trying hard not to panic. She normally wasn’t a panicker, tried to see the best in everything and everyone.
Only now it was getting dark and she had no money, no passport, no options. She could call a friend, as the woman had advised, but Hannah resisted that option. She’d have to reverse the charges of the telephone call, and then explain her awful predicament, and then whomever she called—and no names sprang readily to mind—would have to drive fifty miles to Albany to wire the money, and that money would have to be hundreds of dollars at the very least. Passport fees, hotel stays, food, perhaps even another plane ticket. It could be thousands of dollars.
She didn’t have friends with that kind of money, and she didn’t have that kind of money either. She’d used the last of her own savings to fund this trip, knowing it was foolish, impulsive, everything she never was. Except maybe she was foolish, and stupid even, as that man in Red Square had so obviously thought, because if she had any sense at all she wouldn’t be standing on the steps of the American Embassy, people and traffic streaming indifferently, impatiently all around her, with no place to go, no idea what she could do. Nothing.
She swallowed the panic that had started in her stomach and was now steadily working its way up her throat. She wasn’t completely lost. She had a little money in the bank, enough to give her some time—
And then?
‘There you are.’
Hannah blinked, focused in the oncoming dusk, and then stared in surprise as the man from Red Square strode towards her, his leather coat billowing blackly out behind him, a scowl on his face. He looked like an avenging angel, his blue eyes blazing determination and maybe a little irritation as well. Still, she could not stem the unreasonable tide of relief and gratitude that washed over her at the sight of him. A familiar face.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I wanted to make sure you’d sorted out your papers.’
‘That was very kind of you,’ she said, cautiously, because three months of travel had taught her to be, if not cynical, then at least sensible. ‘And unnecessary.’
‘I know.’ The corner of his mouth quirked very slightly, so slightly that it couldn’t be called a smile in the least. Yet still the sight of it made Hannah feel safer, and stronger, even as she felt a shiver of awareness. He was, she acknowledged, a very attractive man. ‘Did you get your passport sorted?’ he asked and she shook her head.
‘No. I got a form.’ She waved the paper half-heartedly. ‘Apparently I’m to go to the police department and file a report there.’
‘They’re all disorganised.’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘Or corrupt. Usually both. It could take hours.’
‘Wonderful.’ Her plane left in three hours. Clearly she wasn’t going to be on it.
‘Do you have any money at all?’ the man asked abruptly and Hannah shrugged, not wanting to admit just how much trouble she was in. ‘A little,’ she said. ‘In the bank.’ But not enough to pay the passport fee, and a hotel, and meals and other expenses besides. Not nearly enough.
‘A credit card?’
He must have been speaking to the woman in the embassy. Or maybe he just knew everything. ‘Um … no.’
He shook his head with that rather contemptuous incredulity she was coming to know so well. ‘You embark on international travel, to Russia of all places, without even a credit card, and clearly no savings?’
‘Put like that, it does sound pretty stupid, doesn’t it?’ Hannah agreed. She wasn’t about to explain how she hadn’t wanted this trip to send her into debt, or why she was wary of credit cards. ‘It was just,’ she explained quietly, ‘this trip was kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.’
He looked sceptical. Of course. ‘Really.’
‘Yes, really. You have that disdain thing down pat, by the way. I don’t think I’ve been lectured to so much since I was in elementary school.’
He let out a little bark of laughter that surprised her, it was so unexpected. She smiled, glad that he seemed to possess a sense of humour after all. ‘I am simply surprised,’ he said, his expression turning stern once more. ‘Have you been travelling long?’
‘Three months.’
‘And you have not encountered problems before this?’
‘Not as big as this. I was charged double at a restaurant in Italy, and a train conductor was really rude—’
‘That is all?’
‘I guess I’m lucky. Or at least I was.’
‘I suppose,’ the man said, ‘I shouldn’t even ask if you have travel insurance.’
Now that hadn’t even crossed her mind. Hannah managed a grin. ‘Nope.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Nope, I shouldn’t ask, or nope, you don’t?’
‘Take your pick.’
One tiny corner of his mouth quirked up again, and Hannah felt her heart skip a silly beat. He was intimidating and stern and even a little scary, but he was also incredibly good-looking. Sexy, even, especially when he smiled.
‘Were you planning to stay in this country long?’
‘Actually, my plane leaves—’ she checked her watch ‘—in two hours.’
He stared at her, eyebrows arched in incredulity. ‘Today is your last day?’
‘Apparently not. Mother Russia is insisting I stay a little longer. I need an entry visa as well as a passport.’
The man shook his head, clearly rendered speechless by her predicament. Hannah could hardly resent his incredulity. She’d really been rather foolish. And she could have so easily prevented this, as this man had pointed out. A credit card, a zipped pocket, a little more savoir faire.
‘You must,’ he finally said, ‘at least have some friends who could wire you some money.’
‘Well, not exactly.’ He arched one eyebrow, the gesture saturnine and unbearably eloquent. ‘I live in a small town,’ Hannah explained. ‘And it would be difficult to wire—’
‘No one can help you out when you are desperate? I thought small American towns were full of do-gooders. Everyone knows everyone and is willing to help each other out.’
‘I think you’re thinking of Mayberry,’ she said, naming a fictional town in a 1960s television programme where the sun always shone and people ambled down to the drug store for an ice-cream soda.
‘So your town isn’t like that?’
Hannah didn’t like what he was implying. What did he have against her, anyway? Just that she’d been phenomenally stupid and left her passport in her pocket? He seemed bent on a mission to discredit and disillusion her. ‘I just have to think about it,’ she said evenly. ‘And who to call.’ Who could and would drive the distance, both literally and figuratively. Ashley, maybe, but with her move and new job she was just getting on her feet financially.
‘And while you’re thinking …?’ He glanced around at the darkening streets, the steady traffic.
‘I’ll figure something out.’ She could fetch her bag from the hotel, find some place cheaper. It was a start, at least. ‘Why do you care, anyway?’ Hannah eyed him, his close-cut hair, his icy eyes, the overwhelming breadth of his shoulders under all that black leather.
The man’s eyes narrowed even as his lips twitched. ‘Don’t worry,’ he told her dryly. ‘I have no intention of enacting any of the options that are undoubtedly racing through your terrified mind. Let me introduce myself properly.’ He slid a wallet from the inside pocket of his coat—of course he’d keep it there—and from it extracted a crisp white business card.
Hannah took the card warily, for, although she wasn’t generally a suspicious person, she still had sense. No matter what this man thought. She wasn’t going to trust him. Yet, anyway. She glanced down at the card, her eyes widening slightly at the words printed on it in stark black ink. Sergei Kholodov, CEO, Kholodov Enterprises, and an address of an office building in Moscow’s centre. She handed the card back to him.
‘Impressive.’ Of course anyone could print up a fake business card, even an expensive-looking one like that. This man could still be a drug dealer or a slave trader or who knew what else. She folded her arms across her chest, conscious of the chilly wind ruffling her hair and cutting through her parka.
‘I can see you’re not convinced.’
‘I’m not sure why you’re here.’
‘At least you’re finally showing some common sense,’ he remarked dryly. ‘To tell you the truth, I feel a bit responsible for the theft of your things.’
‘Why? I was the one who forced you to let that little boy go.’
‘You didn’t force anything,’ he told her a bit sharply, and Hannah suppressed a small smile that she’d actually pricked his pride. It made him seem more approachable, if such a thing were possible. She wasn’t sure it was.
‘Sorry,’ she said, her lips twitching. ‘I distracted you then from your manly effort.’
He didn’t like that either, judging by his scowl. ‘I could have come over sooner,’ he told her. ‘I saw what those kids were doing.’
‘You watched?’
‘I waited a moment too long,’ he clarified. ‘And in any case, you don’t have many options.’
That was certainly true. ‘I’m still not sure how that affects you,’ Hannah said.
‘You can stay the night at my hotel. In the morning I can help you sort something out with the police and the embassy.’
He made it sound so simple. Maybe there was a get-out-of-jail-free card after all. ‘That’s very nice of you,’ Hannah said at last. She still felt uncertain, even suspicious. It seemed too easy. Too nice. For him, anyway. ‘What hotel?’ she finally asked as her mind considered and discarded non-existent possibilities.
‘The Kholodov.’
‘The Kholodov?’ It was one of the most luxurious hotels in Moscow, and way, way out of her budget. And he, she recalled from the card, was Sergei Kholodov. That Kholodov.
Now his mouth kicked up at one corner, and even though it still wasn’t really a smile it transformed his face, lightening his eyes, softening his features, so Hannah felt a sudden blazing bolt of awareness ignite her senses. When he smiled he really did look amazing.
‘You’ve heard of it.’
‘Hasn’t everyone?’
He shrugged even as his mouth quirked a little more, revealing a surprising dimple. The assassin had a dimple. She felt another bolt of awareness, as if her senses had been struck by lightning. It wasn’t, she decided, an unpleasant sensation. Not at all.
‘So,’ he said, ‘you might as well stay there.’
Hannah hesitated. She believed in the best of people, wanted to believe in the best in him. She just didn’t want to be even more foolish than she’d already been. ‘It’s very nice of you to offer—’
‘If you’re worried about security, you can take a taxi yourself to the hotel. I’ll pay for the fare.’
‘You don’t—’
He arched an eyebrow. ‘You don’t have any money, do you? And trust me, it is no trouble. I have empty rooms. I have plenty of money. And,’ he added, glancing at his watch, ‘I have things to do. So make up your mind.’
When he put it like that, it sounded sensible. And surely her best option. ‘Okay,’ Hannah said at last. ‘Thank you.’
‘I told you, it is no trouble.’ Sergei stretched one arm out towards the street and within seconds a taxi cab had screeched to a halt in front of him. Sergei dismissed it, and the next one he flagged as well, explaining tersely, ‘They’re both unmarked. You’ll feel safer in an official taxi, with a meter.’ His consideration for such a detail touched her.
Finally a legit taxi pulled to the kerb, and Sergei opened the door. ‘The Kholodov,’ he told the driver, handing him a wad of rubles. He glanced at Hannah. ‘I’ll phone and make sure they’re expecting you. We can get your bags sent over later. Is that sufficient?’
Sufficient? It was crazy. Yet she understood what he was asking, that he was taking these measures to make her feel safe, and she appreciated it more than she could put into words. He’d saved her, quite literally. ‘Thank you. I don’t know what to—’
‘Go.’ He practically pushed her towards the cab, and then slammed the door as soon as she’d slid into the seat.
‘Say,’ she finished in a whisper as the cab sped away into the darkness and she wondered if she’d ever see her saviour again.