Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I'm borrowing her characters and giving them some guns (again).

Unbeta'd, unedited.

By the time Rosalie steps through the door separating our suites, it's already half past noon.

"I'm going to rip that motherfucker's balls off."

Not bothering to get up from my lazy, full-couch sprawl, I pick my laptop off my stomach and blindly set it over on the coffee table. Mentally preparing myself for the inevitable barrage of sound, my head drops onto the arm, and I call over the backrest, "Who are you talking about?"

See, Rosalie isn't exactly the quietest of operatives. No, she tends to yell and clomp, especially when she's pissed off. Judging by the racket going on behind me, boy, is she pissed off.

Glass bottles clink as she rifles through the contents of my minifridge, and then a second later, there's a loud huff. "How is that even a question, Swan?"

I snort. "You want to de-ball a lot of people. How am I supposed to know who it is this time?"

When she comes around the corner, Rosalie cracks the cap of an amber bottle with some German name, takes a long pull, and plops down onto the brocade couch across from me. Scrubbed pink, her face is absent the layers of warpaint from the last night's dinner, and like me, she's now the picture of casual idleness with messy hair piled on top of her head and slouchy, rolled down sweatpants. The ancient, threadbare, olive drab t-shirt she's sporting looks suspiciously large and suspiciously familiar.

I'm not about to ask her why she's wearing McCarty's clothes.

Nope. No way, no how.

"Seriously," she says, frowning, before taking another long swig. "I bet I used every bit of the hot water to get the feel of that creep off me when we got in last night."

"You and me both." Grimacing, I force myself to sit up and tuck an ankle under the opposite thigh. "I think I'm going need to more soap."

"Or bleach."

As soon as Rosalie kicks her bare feet up on the table, a second door – this one on the opposite wall between my suite and the rest of the team – swings open. McCarty's head pops around the frame, immediately homing in on Rosalie's furniture faux pas, but unlike with me, he doesn't say a word to her. Instead, he just shoots her a wide, enthusiastic grin and brandishes a familiar brown and yellow paper bag. The smell of French fries and cheeseburgers instantly permeates the room.

After last night's bout of haute cuisine, it's absolutely mouthwatering.

Circling the couch, Emmett drops the bag onto the table, motions for Rosalie to scoot, and sits down beside her. "Thought you two might need a little palate cleanser."

"Fuck, yes," Rosalie says, damned near beaming. Before she starts tearing into the bag, she fishes her phone out of her hip pocket and chucks it over to me. "By the way, take a look at that shit."

"Already?" I ask, swiping her code. "That was fast."

Unknown: My beautiful Rose, I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed dinner last night. I cannot stop thinking about you. I can show you so many wonders. You and Isabella must join me at my home next week.

My face screws up into something ugly enough to make Rosalie bark out a loud, out of place laugh. "Right? That son of a bitch tells you he wants to fuck your mou–"

"Throat." My tone is as dry as the desert, and there's no stopping the roll of my eyes.

"Whatever." Rosalie laughs again and then shoves a handful of fries into her mouth. "One minute he tells you that, but the next he's sending me this sappy bullshit. This is not what Spooky said would go down."

"Yes, it is," Alice says, waltzing through the same adjoining door McCarty used moments ago. "Aronov's playing power games. That's what psychos like him do." Rummaging through the bag, she extracts a box of nuggets, tosses me a second one, and then parks on the other end of my couch. "He definitely meant what he said to B, but at the time, he was just trying to shock her into revealing she understood him." She flashes me a row of pearly teeth. "Good job not killing him, by the way."

I dunk a nugget into some European version of sweet and sour sauce and flip her Rosalie's phone. "So… how do we run this?"

As she reads the message, Alice makes a pleased humming sound. "Don't respond yet. Give it until… I don't know, sometime tonight," she finally replies, looking over to Rosalie. "When you do, toy with him. Let him think you're ready to give him anything he wants." Alice's eyes darken and narrow. "But hold off giving a firm yes on Italy until… at least tomorrow, maybe the day after."

"Got it."

Alice's cheeks spread in an abrupt grin, but this one matches the darkness of her eyes and just screams that fucking creepiness she wears too well. When she taps her chin with a shiny black nail and opens her mouth again, I already know I'm going to hate whatever comes out of it.

"Keep going with Bella being the hard ass. Make it seem like she wants nothing to do with him," Alice says, pausing just long enough to stare me dead in the eye. "Aronov's not used to being challenged, especially by a younger woman he really wants to fuck and own. For someone like him… this is foreplay. He's probably already jerking off just thinking about you."

Gross.

"Yeah, can we not talk about that right now?" I level Alice a flat, annoyed glare, pluck out another nugget, and wave it at her to make my point. "I'm trying to eat lunch."

A peal of high-pitched, soprano laughter answers me.

Thirty minutes later, Whitlock finally rolls in. Wrinkling his nose, he eyeballs the empty wrappers and boxes, and then grabs a bottle of sparkling water out of the fridge before dropping down into the other wingback.

Plum-gray shadows ring his hazel eyes, and judging by the creases in his normally pressed uniform of solid button-ups and jeans, Whitlock didn't sleep a lick last night. Shoving a hand through wild hair, he blows out a loud, tired sigh. "That property Masen visited before the restaurant looks to be used for meetings only. No one's living there, at least not that I can tell from surveillance."

"Can you tell how often it's used?"

Whitlock frowns. "Masen and Aronov both were there at least twice within the last week. A few others, underlings from the looks of them, have gone in and out, as well."

Chucking my empty box and sauce into the bag, I ask, "Do you know who owns it?"

Whitlock's features twist into a weird mix of frustration and admiration. "It's currently listed under at least four layers of aliases, all internationals. Whoever set it up was a fucking pro."

"Shit," I mutter, eying the mass of crimson roses still sitting in my foyer by the entry. "Any leads?"

"A few, but nothing concrete." Jasper's shoulders curve, and with a harsh swipe of his face, he slumps back into the cushion. "I'm pretty sure we'll find it's tied to Koshmarin or some of his cohorts. I sent the info to Platt to see what her people can come up with. Dayan, too."

"What about the earlier meeting with that arms dealer out of Iran? Think this was related?"

"Hard to say." He shrugs. "Aronov's a busy guy. He plays on a lot of playgrounds."

My fingers drum a hard, fast rhythm against the armrest as I debate just how bold we want to be. We need info and we need it before we get on that fucking jet. I look across the table to McCarty. "You feel like doing some breaking and entering?"

Emmett's responding grin is positively feral, and a ripple of anticipation crawls across the muscled lines of his chest and shoulders. "Thought you'd never ask," he says. He thumbs over to Alice and then shoots Whitlock a sideways glance. "I'll take Spooky, and while we're there, we'll deposit a few of your fancy electronic toys."

Beside me, mimicking the larger man, Alice uncurls like the little pit viper she is, and her sprite-like features light up. "This should be fun."

Obviously, we have very different ideas of what constitutes fun.

Rosalie and I share a long moment of silent communication before I finally nod. "Okay, we just need to keep it quiet. See what you can find out… and don't kill anyone."

I don't miss the hard line of Whitlock's lips, but he shakes it off before anyone else notices. "I'll work on temporary bypasses for the security system and pull together the floorplans," he says. "Shouldn't take long at all."

McCarty's sharp gaze lands on me. "When are you thinking?"

"With Aronov and his entourage leaving soon, we don't really have the luxury of time or planning."

"How about tonight?"

I don't answer at first, and the hard drum of my fingers slows to a light, steady tap. Shoving off the couch, I pad over to the tall, east-facing windows. Through the thin sliver between the heavy curtains, I watch the steady flow of bundled-up people and passing cars. "I'll go out for a late-night run since I skipped this morning," I say after a moment, and a slow smile curves my lips when I turn. "I'm pretty sure I'll have an audience the second I step outside the hotel. That'll be a few less eyes for you to worry about and give us plausible deniability if needed."

At exactly nine, I tuck my phone into the side hip pocket of my leggings, pull a fleece band over my ears, and step under the warmly lit awning just outside the hotel. Like I'm not quite sure where to go, I take a quick look left and then right, and with a polite smile at the doorman and another moment of feigned indecision, I head northwest, away from Landstraße and McCarty's target.

Like my morning runs, the winter air is frigid, and tiny pinpricks stab my lungs with each breath. When I exhale, clouds of silvery steam pour out of my mouth and swirl into the velvet sky above. Outside the main thoroughfares, it's darker and shadowy, too, even with the lamps and strings of shimmery lights that drape like canopies over some of the streets.

With the compact footprint of the Innere Stadt, I quickly pass by the stately, arced face of the Hofburg Imperial Palace. Buying myself a little extra distance and time, I cut into the adjacent Volksgarten to do a leisurely loop around the gardens. I do the same at the Rathauspark across the street before eventually going deeper into the residential and commercial neighborhoods further north.

I pick up my tail about the time I hit mile four.

As I turn onto a long stretch of buildings and apartments, I glimpse the lines of an older 3-Series. One square headlight glows dimmer than the other, and cancerous rust eats away at the black hood and fenders. It's his speed that gives him away, though. He's too slow – too cautious – especially since the streets are emptying fast.

I see him again when I turn a corner, and then once more two blocks later. This time, when he goes by, a streetlamp shines at just the right angle, aiming its light on an unfamiliar bearded chin hidden inside an oversized hood.

Fuck.

Not what I was hoping for.

And there's no way I can let this guy know I've made him.

My phone buzzes my hip, but now's not exactly the best time or place for me to stop.

Pretending I have no clue what's going on – no concept that I'm being followed or stalked – I keep running, maintaining the slower pace you'd expect from someone jogging at night in unfamiliar territory. When I take another corner, the street ahead is utterly empty. Not a single other person in sight. Thin layers of ice coat the handful of older vehicles parked along the curbs, and other than a few glowing windows here and there, the buildings on either side stand silent and dark.

I spot the BMW a hundred yards in front of me. Like the street, the car's now empty, too, and with each footfall taking me closer, every one of my senses goes on high alert. My heart thumps in a slow, steady rhythm, recognizing the start of the hunt, and my muscles coil for the strike.

A shadow dips into the mouth of an alley up ahead. I tag him at somewhere north of six-foot and packing around two-hundred twenty-five pounds of nothing but muscle. Even with the distance and the darkness, I can tell the guy moves like a fighter, like someone who likes to break faces for sport.

Twenty feet away from the alley, there's a rustle of fabric, and I pick up the glint of shiny steel.

Ten feet away, I take a deep breath.

Five.

A solid mass of muscle slams into me the second my shoe crosses the dip in the sidewalk.

Relaxing into the hit, I let his arms squeeze around me, and I flail like I'm supposed to as he drags me back into the narrow alley. As soon as we disappear between the buildings, he throws me against the wall, and my back and head smack against the brick with a loud thump.

Before I can blink, a hard, meaty fist punches into my ribcage, followed by another in the center of my gut. I fold in half at that, making some kind of appropriately pained noise and plea.

Alright, so it's like that.

The guy grunts something unintelligible as he comes at me again, this time grabbing for my hair and aiming a fist at my face.

I duck, right before he can connect, and throw my forearms up in a rising block against the assault. Faster than he ever saw coming, I spin, ram my elbow into his nose, breaking it with a sickening crunch, and kick his kneecap in with my heel. When he howls and swings again, I dodge a second time and land a hard, staggering blow directly into his windpipe.

The guy instantly chokes and doubles over, but he's a brawler and he's been here before. He's up a second later, and this time, in his right, there's a wicked-looking serrated blade on the end of a pair of steel knuckles.

I have about two breaths to catalogue the man I'm fighting. My initial assessment on size was right. He's a big fucker and while he's slow and probably stupid, he knows how to cause damage with his body. Closely shorn head. Mangled left ear. Dark, squinty eyes that scream for my death. An array of scars and tattoos litter his throat, face, and hands, giving away his Bratva ties immediately. Blood oozes down his chin and into his beard from his broken nose, and when he smiles at me, crimson liquid frames his teeth.

He spits out a wad of blood and saliva and then takes a step toward me, growling a low, menacing, "Ty, yobanaya blyad'."

I roll my eyes. "Yeah, yeah, a u tebya malen'kiy khuy. Now let's go, motherfucker."

His blade sings through the air.

I throw up my forearm in another block, simultaneously jabbing a fast, hard right into his open side, and then like the good girl I am, I shove my knee straight into his groin. The guy buckles with a wheezy, high-pitched scream, but I don't back off. No, I hit him again and again, splintering his ribs in the process. He slices at me in a fit of blind, agonized rage. Pivoting, I catch his knife hand, twist, forcing his arm into an extension, and then slam the heel of my palm into the back side of his elbow to break it. The knuckle knife clatters to the pavement.

Grabbing him by the shoulders, I flip all two-hundred twenty-five pounds of him over my hip. Locking my ankles around his waist, I swing into position behind him and slide my arm under his throat in an iron-clad rear choke. Frantic, he scrabbles at my arm as I begin to squeeze, but I have neither the time nor the patience to choke him out. In a single lightning-fast move, I wrench his head up and to the left, snapping his spine and putting an end to this bullshit.

I stand with an aggravated huff. My ribs ache, my back aches, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a knot on the back of my head where I hit the brick. But at least I won't have any visible damage to explain away.

It takes me all of about thirty seconds to grab the body by the armpits and drag him behind a dumpster in the back of the alley. Noting the map of tats on his hands and knuckles, I take a couple of photos, just to compare when I get back, just to see who we're dealing with now.

Coming out of the alley, I feign nonchalance and peer up and down the empty street, listening for any hint that someone noticed our struggle. Like before, it's absolutely silent. Satisfied, I pluck my cell phone out of my pocket and tap out a quick set of coordinates with a message to Whitlock.

Clean up needed on aisle 9.

Whitlock: Are you fucking kidding me? I'm kind of busy right now. You know this.

Tell whoever to bring a big bag.

Whitlock: Unbelievable. Fine, I'll arrange it.

I contemplate turning back to the hotel, but quash that thought as quick as it hit me. For one, it would be suspicious, but more importantly, the team still needs time at that target, and it looks like I'm a damned good diversion. Before I continue on, I scroll to the message that buzzed my hip right before Boris back there decided to play mortal combat.

The second my eyes hit the screen, my normally rock-steady heart slams against my sternum.

Unknown: Out running again?

Shit.

Muttering under my breath, I jog to the nearest cross-section and duck into a deep alcove in front of a dimly lit pharmacy. When I peek out onto the street, it's still just as quiet, just as dark. At the end, in front of a larger residence, a black and white tuxedo cat silently stalks some unseen prey from the top of a plastered wall. He pounces a beat later, only to jump back up onto the wall, mouse in tow.

Good kitty.

My breathing turns shallow as I stare down at the message again, but there's no way I can get away with ignoring it, so I tap a curt response.

Unknown: Out running again?

No.

Masen comes back almost immediately.

Unknown: Liar.

I have no fucking idea who sent Boris the Brawler, whether it was Aronov or Masen, or one of the other illustrious pieces on this fucked up chessboard. All I know is that Masen is far more dangerous prey than the asshole who just tried to kill me, but fine, I can play this game.

Stalking me again?

Unknown: You want some company?

Depends. Are you planning to kidnap me?

Unknown: Maybe.

Better think hard on that, buddy. I fight dirty.

Unknown: That makes two of us.

Unknown: Meet me at the café on the promenade.

It's closed.

Bring me Starbucks and I'll be there.

Unknown: Done.

As far away as I am, it takes me fifteen minutes just to make it over to the Donaukanal, more to get down to Schwedenplatz. By the time I hit the promenade, my lungs burn from the cold, but a faint sheen of sweat coats my face. Underneath my jacket and thermal, my skin is slick with it, and the ache in my ribcage starts to approach something close to actual pain.

I slow to a jog at the bridge, and when I see Masen's increasingly familiar black-on-black silhouette standing at the edge of the canal, I drop to a walk. He spots me instantly, but then again, it's not exactly a challenge. We're the only two people for at least two hundred yards.

Stopping a dozen feet away, I force my lungs and heart to calm and pretend to watch a low-slung barge sluice through the water.

"What do you want?" I ask.

Masen doesn't answer right away. Instead, his eyes, almost black in the dark, scan me from head to toe, not even bothering to hide the appraisal. What he sees, I have no idea, but after a moment, one arrogant brow cocks as he extends a white and green insulated cup. "Good enough?"

Nodding, I take the offering, and without another word, we make our way up to the café. The place is closed, just like I said it would be, but that doesn't bother him at all. Like he owns the place, Masen flicks the outdoor heater on and flips a pair of chairs off the closest tabletop.

"So," I say, sipping my coffee. Black, strong, and bitter, just like I like it, it's hot but no longer scorching. He had to wait for my arrival, longer than he anticipated, but I'm not sure what to do with that little tidbit just yet. Maybe it means he wasn't the one who wanted to kill me. Maybe not. "Are you going to tell me why we're here?"

Masen's wide shoulders roll in a lazy shrug. "Why not?"

"Bullshit."

"Maybe after living abroad, I miss talking to my fellow countrymen," he says. When he glances over, a small, wry smile plays across his lips. In the cold, those lips of his contrast darker against his skin. They look fuller, too, and for a brief moment, a chill that has nothing to do with the weather skates down my spine. "Maybe I find you interesting."

"Maybe I find you annoying," I pop back. That wry smile breaks into that stupidly attractive grin of his, and a laugh spills out of my mouth before I can stop it. "Why don't you tell me why you work for Mr. Aronov?"

"Why not?"

Taking another sip, I watch Masen, clocking the subtle creasing around his eyes. He's missed another day of shaving, and the stubble softens the angles of his face. His hair is a mess, too, like he's been running his hands through it. "You don't seem like you like it."

He stares at me for just a second, and then gazes up at the sky. "Everyone's got to eat."

Interesting.

Behind me, the heater finally begins to ramp up, and the radiant heat comes off in slow, pulsing waves, buffeting the bare skin of my face and hands. Between it and the coffee, I feel like an ice block gradually melting. "Okay," I say, sliding my chair even closer to the bubble of delicious warmth. "What did you do before this?"

Across the table, Masen's watching me again, his expression as penetrating and indecipherable as ever. "I was in the Navy."

"Yeah?" I make a humming sound, like I'm having to mull it over. "How long were you in?"

"Little over twelve years," he says as he twists the lid off his own cup. A slight breeze coming off the water carries the aroma my way. It's sweet and creamy, nothing like the paint thinner Rosalie accuses me of drinking.

"Well, what did you do in the Navy? Were you on a boat?"

I have to admit, I'm proud of myself for that one. Sailors hate it when you call their ships boats.

Masen's eyes, lighter in the glow from the heater, gleam. "No, I wasn't assigned to a ship. I was on a SEAL team for most of those years, so I did a lot of… different things."

"In other words…" Playing my part, I shoot him a wink and then smirk. "You were kind of a bad ass."

Masen laughs at that, and I've heard enough of his laughs that I can tell it's a real one. "That might be a stretch," he answers after a second, folding his hands neatly in his lap. His voice drops, and this time there's something in his tone that I can't quite name. It's harder, maybe a little solemn. "But I have my moments every now and then."

Tilting my head, I hum again. "How does a Navy SEAL wind up working for a Russian oligarch? Isn't tha–"

"That's a long story," he cuts in. "Not a very interesting one either." Before I can ask or argue, he swaps gears on me, repeating the same question from last night in the hallway. "Are you planning to accept Aronov's invitation?"

My lips mash together. "We still haven't decided."

When Masen replies, this time his voice is soft, barely audible over the lapping water nearby. "I wish you wouldn't."

"You and me both," I say, draining my coffee. "But here we are."

"Here we are." Those shoulders of his dip into another almost-sag, and suddenly, he looks older than his thirty-five years. He looks like Jasper this afternoon. He looks tired.

When I echo my earlier query, my voice matches his. "Why did you contact me tonight?"

He looks over, and our eyes meet. "I wanted to."

I swallow. "Does your boss know where you are?"

One corner of his mouth pulls up, but this smile speaks of something akin to bitterness. "No, and it would be best to keep it that way."

"For you or for me?"

"Both."

Across the canal, a bell clangs, and I automatically turn to look. When I spin back in my chair, Masen's eyes once again find mine, and then they trail down the column of my throat where they fix on the pulse point just above the line of my jacket.

His brows slam down.

"What? What's wrong?" I ask, but the second I swipe my fingertips down my throat and slip through the viscous, crimson liquid sitting on top of my skin and slowly drying - blood from that motherfucker in the alley - I know.

I know that he knows.

"Bella, why are you bleeding?" The softness vanishes, and Masen's jaw ticks. "And while you're at it, why don't you tell me why you're favoring your left side."

Fuck.

.

.

.

Notes:

Russian (transliterated):

Ty, yobanaya blyad': you fucking whore

A u tebya malen'kiy khuy: and you have a little dick

Glossary:

Landstraße: this is the third municipal district, which borders the Innere Stadt to the southeast. The Russian embassy is in this district

Hofburg: located in the centre of Vienna, this is the former principal imperial palace of the Habsburg dynasty

Volksgarten: a public park in the Innere Stadt. It's part of the Hofburg Palace

Rathauspark: park across the street from the Rathaus (or Town Hall)