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.All her brothers had tried shooting it, and not to be left out, she’d insisted on trying it out, as well.She was relieved to count eleven bullets in the clip.Alex had to be getting low in his weapon by now, too.On cue, he ejected a clip and rammed a new one into place.She rested against a tree and took several blessedly deep breaths while he extracted the two remaining bullets from the first clip and pocketed them.She knew from experience that he usually had at least two spare clips on his person whenever he was packing a weapon.They were back in business for a little while, at least.Thank God for his paranoia and his associated obsession with preparedness.Hopefully, they would not need their remaining firepower.And.she was wrong.Alex froze abruptly in front of her.She peered over his shoulder and saw a man in a black leather jacket poised beside an SUV, wielding a sawed-off AK-47 alertly.The guy spoke aloud into a wireless earphone device and her jaw dropped as she identified the language he spoke to be Russian.Alex frowned faintly beside her, but she dared not break the silence to ask what the man had said.Alex backed up a dozen feet, placing the crest of the ridge between them and the man below.Alex eased down quietly behind a thicket of weeds and brambles, and she joined him.He lifted away a few leaves to reveal wet, black earth.In the soil, he drew a crude car.He pointed at his own chest and then drew an arc to the left.He pointed at Katie and then drew another arc to the right.He then drew two lines from the stick figures from him and her toward the man.He mouthed the words, “Field of fire,” and she nodded immediately.By flanking the shooter below, the two of them had to be careful not to end up shooting each other.Alex was lucky she’d grown up in a military family and knew about such things!“Shoot when I do,” he breathed.Without any further ado, Alex moved away from her.Lord, she felt naked out here without him beside her.Every tiny sound made her jump, and she felt as twitchy as a marionette on a string.When she deemed that she’d reached the position Alex had drawn for her, she inched forward toward the top of the ridge on her belly, pistol at the ready.Using the largest tree she could find, she stood up and peered out from behind the trunk.The shooter was looking off toward Alex’s position intently.Focused.Had he seen or heard Alex out there? The guy’s AK-47 swung up from his hip to a shooting position as she planted her forearm against the tree trunk to steady it, blew out her breath and lined up the sight on the front tip of her gun barrel with the sights mounted above the trigger.Oh, he was so not getting off a shot at her man.Screw Alex’s signal.Without hesitating, she went ahead and fired.She was sure she’d hit the bastard.Although he staggered, he didn’t go down.The man swung his weapon toward her and raked the hillside with a barrage of automatic fire as she dived behind the tree.Was the guy wearing a Kevlar vest under that bulky jacket?Alex opened fire from across the ridge, and the sweeping gunfire swung away sharply from her and toward Alex’s position.She wasted no time stepping out from behind the tree far enough to take aim and fire again, this time at the man’s head.She missed twice and was forced to duck back behind the tree as he sprinted toward the back of the SUV.She only waited a fraction of a second before swinging out from behind the tree again.The shooter was going to take cover behind the vehicle and possibly take to the woods beyond it.Their lives would be immeasurably more difficult with this jerk and his vastly superior firepower roaming around in the forest hunting them.Alex shouted something in Russian and the man shouted back as she took careful aim one more time on the guy’s head.She held her breath and squeezed off the shot.The man’s legs crumpled and he dropped to the ground.She held her position and scanned back into the woods in the direction she and Alex had come from.She heard Alex crashing out of the tree behind her.She turned in time to see him running fast and low, zigzagging as swift and nimble as a cheetah, toward the downed man.“Come down!” Alex called out in Zaghastani.She stepped out of the woods fully in time to see Alex extend an arm straight out from his body at a downward angle and fire two shots into the prone man’s head.It was brutal.Cold-blooded, even.She could shoot at an armed attacker who could shoot back at her, but she severely doubted she could’ve taken those shots.Alex had just executed that man.Shock and horror roared through her.He crouched, patting down the dead man’s pockets.He straightened, a car ignition fob in hand as she reached his side.“Did you have to kill him like that?” she demanded, appalled to her core.“Get in the car.I’ll drive.”She piled into the SUV as Alex punched the ignition button.The big engine roared to life.He steered the vehicle toward the fresh tracks in the grass at the edge of the clearing and they bumped down a rough driveway of sorts.“Buckle your seat belt,” he ordered without taking his eyes off the path ahead of them.How could he sound so damned calm? Didn’t he care in the slightest that he’d just murdered that man?As she clicked the seat belt across her body, she asked incredulously, “Aren’t you the slightest bit upset that you just executed a helpless man like an animal for the slaughter?”He glanced over long enough for her to reel away from the cold calculation in his eyes.“I never claimed to be a Girl Scout.You knew who I am, what I do, when you signed up for this.Deal with it or leave.”Just like that? “It’s not that simple—” she started.He cut her off sharply.“Yes.It is.This is my life.If you want to be part of it, don’t ask me to change.I can’t be someone else and survive.I have no choice.”She subsided against the cushions.Was it really that simple?“Check the back for weapons,” he bit out.She clambered between the front seats and into the back.She leaned over the bench seat, reaching into the far back to pull up a canvas tarp and peek beneath it.“Two AK-47s, a wooden ammo box and two pistols.I think they’re Makarovs.”Without waiting for him to tell her, she dragged all the weapons forward to the backseat.The ammo box was heavy and gave her more trouble, but she horsed it into the seat, as well.She rejoined Alex, panting.“Who were those men back there?” she finally asked as the SUV burst out onto the main road and Alex stomped on the accelerator.“Russian weapons.The shooter was speaking in Russian.Did your father order this hit on us?”Grimly, Alex fished out his cell phone and punched in a number, one-handed, as he drove.He jammed the phone to his ear and snarled, “I know it’s the middle of the damned night in Moscow.Did you order a hit on me?”It was as angry as she’d ever heard Alex.He listened in silence for a few seconds and then swore under his breath.“Check it out and let me know,” he snapped.“He denied being behind this, didn’t he?” Katie asked grimly.“Bingo.”“Do you believe him?”Alex shrugged.“I think he believes he can still convince me to work for him.If that’s true, he wouldn’t kill me
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