Point Of No Return

LETTER TO READER

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

PROLOGUE

Sometimes Chet Stryker could still feel Carissa’s muddy grip slide from his. He could still see those brown eyes, stripped of all mystery, pleading with him, could still hear her scream echoing through the chambers of his brittle soul. Tonight, the memory twisted him inside his bedsheets, tightening like a constrictor around his legs, lacing his chest, noosing his breath. Sweat slicked his body, despite the rattle of the air conditioner pumping out breath against the sweltering, polluted Moscow air. He hiccupped, and with a cry that sounded more animal than human, he lurched into a sitting position, ripping himself from the dream, blinking against the darkness.

It wasn’t real. Not real. Still, Chet pressed his hand to his bare chest, his heart jackhammering under his sternum, still smelling the cloying odor of bodies pressing him to the earth, his face ground against the loam of decaying leaves.

He closed his eyes, but of course, that only made it worse. His mind too easily scraped up the image, now twenty years old, of Akif Bashim pushing Carissa to the dirt, holding her there. Hurting her, even as his Ossetian tribesmen made Chet watch.

Taking Chet’s life apart, one blow after another.

“No!” He shook himself out of the nightmare and fumbled for the lamp, knocking over his water onto the carpet, his watch after it. The light switch slid under his sweat-slickened fingers, refusing to turn. He gave up, and for an agonizing, lost moment, fought with his tangled covers. Then, freeing himself, he lunged from the bed toward the bathroom.

He slapped on the light, braced his hands on the sink and simply breathed. One breath in, the next out. In. Out. Breathe.

He turned on the faucet, letting cold water trickle through his shaking fingers. Scooping it up, he splashed it on his face. The shock of the icy water against his skin loosened the last fingers of the dream from his mind, and he blew out another long breath. Stared into the mirror.

Water, caught in his overnight beard, glistened in the mean fluorescence, and his face seemed more brutal than he’d remembered. Or maybe he usually just refused to look too closely. He touched the spiderweb scar on his abdomen, running his fingers along the ridges, touching the hard knot of the scar tissue in the center. Sometimes he could still feel the instant, blinding burn of the bullet tearing through his flesh, see David’s eyes flash with horror. Could hear his own teeth-grinding grunt as he crumpled onto the cement, hands clutched over his wound. Chet had let his partner shoot him without a whimper. Because that was what patriots did when asked to sacrifice for their country, especially while working undercover. At the time, the pain seemed a reasonable cost to help David keep his cover in a Chinese triad.

But no one had told him about the residual suffering, the ache and sometimes sudden, sharp pain. As if the wound still might be healing, deep inside, even after more than a year. Thankfully, most of the time, it just felt numb.

How he cherished numb.

He ran his fingers through the water again and rubbed a thumb and forefinger against his cracked, blue eyes. It eased the sting, albeit momentarily.

Turning off the water, he grabbed a towel and scrubbed his face, glancing again in the mirror. He needed a haircut—should have gotten one before today. His nearly black hair curled past his ears and down his back. It was no wonder Viktor’s groomsmen David Curtiss and Roman Novik looked at him like something the dog dragged in. He wanted to explain that he looked a lot better with the mess tied into a ponytail, that it was a look fashionable with his most recent clients, but now it only seemed a pronounced departure from his once-tidy military life.

Although it had been years since his life had actually resembled tidy.

Still, his cousin Gracie—the bride—deserved better from him. Maybe he’d have time to visit the local barber before the ceremony.

Reaching over, he turned on the shower, running his fingers through the trickles of ice, waiting for it to warm. Sleep would be impossible even if weren’t foolhardy at this point.

The shower refused to cooperate, and he let the water spray as he walked over to the window, pushed aside the curtains and stared down from the sixth floor onto the street below. Its streetlamps pooled luminescence upon Neglinnaya Street, over a mix of ancient Ladas and new Mercedeses.

The sun had just begun to syrup through the cityscape, sliding between ancient buildings occupied by the former gentry of old Russia, gliding the turrets on the corner of the Kremlin walls, over the bright cupolas of St. Basil’s Cathedral and lighting afire the iron troika perched atop the building across the street. Perhaps he’d go for a run. He liked Red Square in the morning, the slap of his feet against the red cobblestones of the parade grounds. Lately, he could even hear the ghosts of the Kremlin whispering, reminding him, in this new age, that the old conquerors still stirred.

Even his friend Viktor knew the past had begun to awaken. No wonder he wanted to escape Russia and move with his new bride to Prague, Czech Republic, to help start Chet’s new security firm. It couldn’t bode well for a former KGB agent to marry an American on the eve of a new cold war era.

Chet pressed his hand to the glass, wishing he could shake himself out of the dread that had kept him awake too many hours into the night.

He’d taken one look at Mae Lund at the rehearsal dinner, dressed in that green evening gown that shimmered under the indulgent moonlight of the terrace garden and turned her beautiful eyes to gems, her long, red hair to fire, and he knew he was in big trouble. He couldn’t let her be a part of his new life.

Not if he wanted them both to survive.

He winced even as he imagined the conversation.

“No, Mae, I’m not hiring you.”

“But, Chet, I’m the best pilot you have—”

“True.”

“And I fly not only planes but helicopters, and I’ve flown in every kind of terrain.”

“Again, true.”

“And you’re desperately in need of a great pilot for your international security team.”

“Painfully true.”

Then, in the agonizing silence, she’d look at him with those eyes that could make his stomach turn inside out and turn his mouth dry, and ask why.

And all he’d manage to growl out would be another cryptic No.

Because how could he tell her that it had taken him ten years to piece his life—his heart—back together after Carissa died?

Or that Mae had somehow put it back together?

Most of all, that he couldn’t risk losing it again?

How could anyone expect Mae to sleep the night before her whole life would be transformed? Everything—her career, her home, even her identity—would change tomorrow.

A pilot for one of the premier security teams in the world. Her dream job.

Mae knew exactly how Gracie Benson, the bride-to-be, sleeping in the other double bed, might feel.

Well, maybe. It wasn’t like Mae was getting married, or even that Chet had the big M on his mind, but Mae had long ago pushed marital bliss from her list of reasonable, even desirable, life goals.

No. She wanted to fly.

And to do it for Chet’s new company, Stryker International Security Management, the one he had just put together in Prague, Czech Republic.

Mae turned over onto her side, punched her pillow and stared at the ribbon of gray light streaming in through the dark velour curtains and across her mussed covers. He had to say yes. If anyone had been born for the job of transportation officer, it was Mae Lund, who’d spent twelve years in the Air National Guard, flying everything she could get her hands on. Somehow, when the army had stripped away her career—punishment for saving the life of an innocent man, which had included sneaking into Russia and hijacking a Russian chopper—they’d also stripped from her the reason to push herself out of bed every morning, and the strength to silence the voices of her childhood that prophesied failure.

Lately, she’d begun to listen.

Still, Mae had tried—given it all she had—to stave the desperation from her voice last night as she smiled at Chet and listed her qualifications.

As if he needed reminding. As if they hadn’t been corresponding for over a year, since they’d met at Gracie’s birthday party in Seattle. As if he didn’t know how flying for Seattle Air Scenic Tours slowly chipped away at her life, one sickeningly sweet, safe tour at a time. She could love the breathtaking beauty of the jagged mountain peaks of Mount Rainier, or the moonscaped lava dome of Mount Saint Helens, without embracing the hollowness of her everyday existence.

“Are you awake?”

The voice came from the other bed.

Shoot, the last thing Gracie needed on the early morning of her wedding was a restless roomie. “Sorry, am I keeping you awake?”