Sea Haven 02 - Spirit Bound

supposed to babysit her.”
    Lev’s face lost all expression, but Stefan ignored his brother’s suspicions. He’d already told him the truth and he might as well finish what he’d started. “I knew they wouldn’t send me on a simple babysitting job and of course, everyone knows the yacht you were working undercover on went down off this coast and that you’re presumed dead. If I didn’t believe it, I figured Ivanov didn’t believe it either. I’ve been here a couple of weeks reconning, but Thomas Vincent officially came into town yesterday. Ivanov was watching me.”
    “So you went after him.”
    “I knew he was using me to find you. I think killing you is a sanctioned hit, but when I reported back to my handler, he acted as if Ivanov had gone rogue and gave me the green light to kill him. If he really went rogue and they lost control of him, they would have put the word out to everyone.”
    “And because they sent you here as bait, you’re certain Ivanov is going to erase you as well,” Lev mused. “How bad did you hurt him?”
    Stefan shrugged. “He was hurt enough that he ran when he could have had the advantage. I think broken ribs, he was having trouble breathing and I cut him some, but he’s a wounded bear now. And never forget, he was trained in the same school we were. He was in Siberia with me. He was a couple of years older and already he had a taste for killing. There was a blizzard, heavy ice and snow with howling winds. Kids were dropping all over the place, the cold killing them before we had a chance to construct any kind of shelter. Ivanov would bend over and watch them die. He liked to see the light go out of their eyes.”
    He had never spoken of that particular hell, the biting, vicious cold, the stinging ice that tore one’s breath from the body and snatched lives from frostbitten, terrified children. He was certain Ivanov had covered the mouths and noses of several on the ground, killing them, rather than trying to save them as most of the others had done.
    “He was brought into the school I was in briefly, when I was a teen,” Lev admitted. “He was a bastard then. A kid died hard one night and everyone knew he’d killed him. He was removed a week later, but it was obvious he was protected by someone high up. Even the trainers avoided a confrontation with him.”
    “Don’t underestimate him, Levi. I’m going to hunt him because he’ll never stop, but when he’s dead, if I’m right about this and it was Sorbacov who sent him, he’ll send another because he’ll always consider us a threat to him.”
    “I’ll deal with whatever comes at us. The local sheriff, Jonas Harrington, knows everyone in town. He’s a shrewd man with a few of his own gifts, so walk carefully around him. He knew me right away, but you take after our mother with your eyes and hair and I doubt he would recognize you. He met Ivanov and if I get word to him that the exterminator is back in town for some wet work, he’ll find him fast.”
    “No local sheriff can handle a man like Ivanov and you know it, Levi.”
    “No, but he has connections we don’t. Let him do the looking.”
    “It’s risky,” Stefan said. “Let him know up front that Ivanov is a straight-up killer. I’ll keep hunting until I run him down. In the meantime, I can’t tell Judith who I am or what I’m doing here until La Roux is in Russian custody and we return the microchip safely to Theodotus Solovyov.”
    “We might want to know what’s on it, Stefan.”
    Stefan scowled at his younger brother. “That’s treason.”
    “It’s self-preservation,” Lev protested. “If Solovyov had requested the list of known agents out of those schools for a reason, wanting to use us as bodyguards, or for something else, Sorbacov would have provided him with the information. Theodotus Solovyov has the highest security classification possible and Sorbacov would have had no choice. We both know how politics are played out.”
    “And it all ends up in the hands of La Roux who figures he can blackmail Sorbacov. La Roux has connections enough in Russia to plan and carry out an attack against Solovyov, he would have no problems trying to blackmail Sorbacov,” Stefan added. “Sorbacov tries to have him killed, probably thinks that he can take him out in the prison and has him arrested on a gun running charge, but La Roux has too much clout.”
    “So you think La Roux released an excerpt, some small thing he had managed to read