Page 80 of Echo: Run
"We're choosing each other." His fingers trace down my spine. "The rest we handle as it comes."
I kiss him, slow and deep, pouring everything I feel into it. When I pull back, hunger darkens his expression.
We settle back into the bed, wrapped around each other. The tablet sits on the nightstand, Cross's intelligence waiting for morning analysis. Webb's retaliation is building momentum. The Committee's next moves are taking shape.
But for now, this is enough.
Victoria
London, England
The encrypted phone burns in my hand.
I stare at the message I just sent to Echo Ridge, warning them about Webb's retaliation, and wonder if I've made a fatal miscalculation.
My network is bleeding. I've lost contacts over the past week, more have disappeared. Webb is methodical in his destruction, targeting the information brokers and intelligence sources who feed me data. He knows I'm the leak, knows I've been selling Committee intel to Echo Ridge and anyone else who pays.
He's coming for me.
I should run. Disappear. I've done it before, built new identities, established new networks. But this time feels different. Webb isn't just trying to silence me. He's trying to destroy everything I've built over decades in this business.
A knock sounds at my door.
I freeze. Nobody knows about this safe house. Nobody should be able to find me here.
The knock comes again. Three sharp raps, followed by two, followed by one.
A pattern I haven't heard in years.
My heart stops.
I cross to the door, hand on the weapon at my hip, and check the security feed. The man standing in my hallway is older than I remember—grey threading through dark hair, new lines around his eyes. But the bone structure is the same, and so is the scar above his left eyebrow. His stance speaks to years of tactical training.
Roman Frost—my former MI6 partner, the man I watched die in Budapest a decade ago.
I open the door.
He looks at me with those ice-blue eyes I thought I'd never see again. "Hello, Vix."
Nobody's called me that in years.
"You're dead," I say.
"So are you, according to multiple intelligence agencies." He glances past me into the apartment. "Can I come in? We have a lot to discuss, and Webb's people are closer than you think."
I step back and let him in, close and lock the door.
Roman Frost is alive and standing in my safe house.
Webb's people are hunting me, my network is burning, and the one person I thought I'd never see again just walked back from the dead.
