He was clearly pleased to get to share this. But then, he wanted Xavier to know exactly why he was here. Wanted to draw out Audrey’s pain as Xavier watched.
“She and I fell in love, but we knew her father would never allow it, so she came up with a plan that she would be abducted. Eventually, her father would pay the demanded ransom, and she and I would disappear together. But instead, her father was turning traitor against Russia and used a potential alliance with the US to pressure your government to rescue her.”
“Katerina didn’t want to be rescued,” Xavier said. “She wanted the ransom money. When I told you we were betrayed, Audrey, I didn’t say the full truth. It was Katerina who betrayed us. She shot Forsythe and Adams before we knew what was happening. She turned her gun on me. Chris and I fired at the same time. We both killed her. Her bullet landed in my shoulder at the same time she took one in the chest and one in the head.” He glared at Mikhail. “Not in the belly. From the look of her, she was at least six months pregnant. Also worth noting, Katerina was only fifteen years old. She was a fucking child.”
Oh good lord. No wonder Xavier was tormented by that op. He’d had to kill a pregnant girl to survive. Fifteen.
Mikhail was slowly dragging her backward, deeper into the woods.
Her heart ached at the nightmare Xavier and Chris had been through, watching the hostage they were trying to rescue kill two team members. Being forced to kill her.
Katerina would have killed Xavier next if they hadn’t.
The truth had probably been buried. Did her oligarch father even know? Would he believe his daughter—a fifteen-year-old child—had planned her own abduction so she could demand a ransom and run off with her lover?
Did he know a man in his own employ was the one who’d taken her?
She assumed not, given that when he’d sent his henchman to exact revenge, he’d sent the true villain who’d seduced, then abducted his daughter.
“This is why the three mercs who were captured said you were unstable. You were more obsessed with taking Xavier and me than in getting out of the forest alive.”
“I wanted Flyte too,” the man said.
“You left the forest immediately, didn’t you?” Audrey said. “You were hiking toward Forks before the helicopters were even in the air.”
“I needed to call my men in the RV to pick me up before the idiots who let men with paint pellets take the lodge reached them first.”
“But there were only three men in the RV,” Xavier said. “Who was the hanged man?”
“He’s the one who stole the master gate key from the camp host and changed the lock while the other three kept the cop busy. He had his own car and met the team in Forks after they’d been kicked out of Mora Campground. They then caused a mudslide to keep the local police busy.”
That was the final piece. After Mikhail killed the rest of his team, he’d had a car no one knew about to move freely about the peninsula.
“And then you waited for ‘your’ body to be found so you could return to the forest and wait for me here?”
“Yes. I knew you’d be back. When your car was in the shop, I put a tracker on it. I knew the moment you drove through the gate. All I needed was to get into position.”
Mikhail continued to pull her backward up the path, stumbling here and there on roots. His grip was on her throat, so she couldn’t let him drag her, or she’d end up strangled.
She looked for an opening, a way to slip from his grasp so Xavier could take a shot.
“Did you know I’m the one who shot you with the nail?”
The hand at her throat tightened. “I suspected.”
Audrey tried to keep her focus, even as her air was constricted. Her brain searched for ways to escape. He’d taken her bare-handed, which meant the hard object at the small of her back was probably a gun.
One of his hands left her neck, and she realized he might be reaching for it. She elbowed him in the ribs, a hard jab that triggered a surprised grunt.
The hand on her throat squeezed again, harder now. She went all in, elbows, heels, and a sharp head butt. She had four unrestrained limbs, and he was distracted by Xavier and his gun. Mikhail said something in Russian that she was certain was an insult.
She struggled to breathe while flailing, kicking, jabbing. He caught one arm, but couldn’t contain the other without releasing her throat. She worked her hand between their bodies and grabbed his balls and squeezed.
He released her neck, and she used the leverage from her hand on his junk to push off him, attempting to fling herself away, but he grabbed at her, pulling her back. She kicked him in the knee and dove to the side.
Mikhail caught her foot and shifted, crouching low to keep her between him and Xavier. She was on hands and knees, trying to get away while he dragged her back by the ankle.
She hung her head down, looking between her arms, trying to figure out how to kick with her free leg, when she saw him pull his gun.