It was an inane message, but unusual for him. Diana loved Moscow Mules, Chris did not. The message would at minimum tell her something was up, but it never hurt to mention Moscow when one was concerned about Russian terrorists.
Unfortunately, “unable to send” underscored the message in red. Was the trouble on his end, or hers?
Diana was in the crossfire not because she’d brought down a terrorist and an American oligarch, but because she shared Chris’s address.
Because he loved her and had begged her to move in with him.
He should have been smart like Xavier and gotten a new house and put it in Diana’s name. But he’d only purchased this one last summer. And they’d never actually known if Laskin had his and Xavier’s names or if only Mikhail, the man who ran the attack on the lodge, had known.
But of course, Mikhail had known Maxim—had worked with him for decades. Even if Mikhail didn’t tell Grigory the names of the SEALs, he would have told Maxim.
And Maxim had worked on the base for several months doing maintenance here and there. He could easily have been looking for Chris and when he found him, followed him home, and identified Diana.
Chris was already driving too fast, but he pressed the accelerator harder. A mile from home.
When he reached his neighborhood, he slowed. He didn’t bother to drive by the house. No point in letting Maxim see him casing his own residence. He parked a block away and turned to his quickly selected Fire Team.
“We’ll cut through the houses behind mine. Kramer and Burns, you enter at the ground floor.” He handed them keys. “Back door isn’t a slider.”
He turned to Collins. “You’re with me. There’s a small balcony off the primary bedroom that overlooks the backyard. Door is probably locked, but might not be. The lock is cheap, though. Been meaning to upgrade, but there are no steps to the balcony, so I kept putting it off. Also not a slider.”
“You’re certain only Diana is supposed to be in the house?”
He nodded. “Anyone in that house with her is a hostile. She planned to watch the fireworks on TV. She didn’t know anything about the display being targeted. She’s still recovering from surgery and said she’d probably go to sleep after the show, but it’s only a little after nine. She might be listening to an audiobook or podcast. She often does that before bed.”
“Headphones on means she might not hear an intruder,” Kramer said.
Chris nodded. That might be for the best. Maxim could be lying in wait for him, leaving her none the wiser. At this point, Chris had no doubt she wasn’t alone in that house.
He could feel it.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Diana turned off the TV and stretched her neck. The fireworks had been interesting, but the reports of blasts on base had her on edge. Her phone was downstairs charging, so she pulled out her laptop to look for a message from Chris—even a thumbs-up would do—but she knew better than to expect anything. If there was any truth to the speculation, he was busy.
She frowned when she saw the Wi-Fi network was down. Even if Chris had messaged, she wouldn’t see it. Was something up with the cable modem? The TV had worked just fine.
She debated getting out of bed and finally decided to go downstairs and grab her phone. Cellular never let her down.
She was at the top of the stairs when she heard a noise. She paused, and almost said, “Chris? Is that you?” before she caught herself, remembering that would not be a good idea if it wasn’t, in fact, Chris.
She did have enemies. Lots of them. They multiplied by the day as the men she’d exposed as the worst kind of traitors used their wildly expensive PR teams to try to discredit her. It helped, somewhat, that there had been video posted that proved their guilt without a shadow of a doubt, but there would always be those who claimed it was a deep fake.
It wasn’t. Diana had watched in horror with her own eyes.
She slowly inched backward, away from the stairs, afraid to make a noise if she wasn’t alone in the house. Chris would have called out to her, so as not to scare her.
Another sound. From the kitchen. The floor creaked in front of the pantry.
Someone was here.
Another step backward. She kept a gun in the bedroom.
She slowly backed down the hall. Why was the upper floor hall so long? Had it somehow telescoped in the last few minutes?
The unmistakable squeak of someone ascending the stairs sent her to full fight-or-flight mode. The steps were bare wood, but three of them squeaked. Whenever she wanted to be quiet so Chris could sleep in, she skipped those steps.
Chris did the same.
The person on the stairs was definitely not Chris.
Fight or flight?
She knew how to fight, but the person was probably armed, while she wasn’t. Flight was the only option. Maybe she could escape out the balcony door.
But she didn’t even make it to the bedroom before hands grabbed her.
So it was to be a fight.
A shrill scream broke the night air, and Chris launched himself up, over the railing, landing on the balcony with a thud. Collins was right behind him.
He yanked the doorknob. It was locked. He kicked at the glass pane inset in the door, and it shattered. He reached in and flipped the lock, then he and Collins entered, Chris on point. The bedroom was empty, door to the hall closed.
Silence in the wake of Diana’s scream was unsettling. She’d been close. In the hall?
