She felt wretched about everything. Except him. David was the only right thing in her life now. He was also the only wrong thing in her life. Everything sucked balls. Sucked giant balls.

Her sobs died down to some rough hiccups, and she blew her nose. She splashed some water on her face, but she still looked like utter shit. “I’m so sorry,” she said when she emerged from the bathroom.

He was looking out of the balcony, but not in a “how about this view” way. “Get your things together.”

She slumped. Nothing was going to get better. She didn’t even care anymore that she absolutely one hundred percent knew that he was about to tell her to run again. She took a deep breath and wrapped up their uneaten kebabs, shoved them in the plastic bag the hotel had left in the closet for dirty linen, stole the small bottles of Korres shampoo and soap, and slipped into her sneakers again. She rolled up her skirt, blouse, and bra, and shoved them all in the bag.

Grabbing her purse, she turned back to him and waited. A siren erupted in the silence, and a car squealed to a halt.

“Yup, they’re here for us. We gotta go.”

She just shook her head and let him gather his phone and cash. “Come on,” he said, grabbing the shopping bags he’d brought in with him. “Stairs.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

This was exactly what he’d been worried about earlier. There were a million evade and escape routes in the city, and only one in the hotel. The fucking stairs.

He was slightly concerned that Molly wasn’t really reacting to anything after her crying jag. He figured she was due for that, but now she just seemed resigned. At least she was functioning. That was all he needed right now.

He opened the door to the stairwell and peered down. It was clear. “Follow tight,” he said. They made it down one floor when the lower door burst open. Two tactical cops came through with their weapons up. Weird for European city cops. But he wasn’t waiting to find out what their rules of engagement were. He shoved his bags at Molly, who took them with zero reaction. The stairwell was wide enough that they didn’t see him until they rounded a corner.

He suspended himself using the two stairway railings and planted both feet in the chest of the first cop. He propelled himself forward so fast the cop fell back on his partner. They both tumbled down the steps. A gunshot from one of the men blasted into the concrete wall. Shit. Now the other cops would know where they were. His heart rate barely elevated as his SERE training kicked in. Survival, Escape, Resist, and Evade. Right now he was only there for the escaping. “You okay?” he asked Molly, without taking his eyes off the stunned cops.

“Sure,” she replied, almost breezily.

“Stay right at my back and be prepared to run, okay?” He leapt over the still-prone guys on the floor, and turned to hold out a hand. She ignored it, mainly, he guessed, because she was carrying all the bags now. Couldn’t be a gentleman right now because he definitely needed his hands free.

He contemplated for a second taking a gun from the cop, but given that any crimes involving guns in Europe carried huge sentences, he opted not to.

He peeked through the small round window in the door and saw nothing. He was about to open it when a door burst open a few floors above them. Losers. They took the elevator up. He grabbed Molly by the waist and propelled her through the door. “The kitchen,” he said, indicating with a nod. “Go.”

They ran together until she dropped back for him to check the kitchen. It was empty except for a guy chopping onions. He looked as if he was about to say something, so David held up his hand and smiled. The well-trained hotel worker smiled back.

They ran for the rear exit. It was clear. He took the bags back and grinned. “Smile sweetheart,” he said. If you were looking for a fugitive, your eyes automatically drifted to anyone who looked out of place: shifty, nervous, anxious to be away. So, true to his training, they ambled out of the small passageway and blended immediately with the evening throngs of people commuting home or looking for somewhere to eat.

Dusk had fallen, so it was much easier to merge with the crowd and act like tourists. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw more cops scanning the crowd, so he widened his smile and tried to shrink an inch or two. He was tempted to get her to put on the shawl, and to put on his own baseball cap, but there was no point unless he was sure they’d been identified. May as well save the makeshift disguise until they needed it.

“Where are we going?” Molly asked, as they walked slowly among their fellow pedestrians.

“For the time being, along any street that has the most tourists. Then we have to think about hunkering down for the night. Somewhere no one will find us, and I’m not sure another hotel is an option.” He had to call someone. Once they were safe and hidden.

“I know the ideal place. A place I worked at a few years back,” she said with an unexpected touch of enthusiasm in her voice. “It’s slightly illegal, but I doubt we’ll get caught. Now the more I think about it, that seems right up your alley.” She was smiling. What a freaking incredible woman. They were basically being hunted by Russian and Greek officials, and she was making a joke.

“Not so much anymore, sweetheart, but bending rules I’m okay with.” He cast a thought at Mal, who would have virtually got a hard-on at the thought of being able to do something totally illegal. “I’m in your hands. Lead the way.” He wondered what she had in mind, but didn’t see the benefit of questioning her about it when there were hundreds of people around.

She led him through the streets of Monastiraki, gradually away from the crowd, past Hadrian’s library, and up into what looked like a residential neighborhood. The streets were so small and windy that they would be able to spot someone coming easily. The occasional dog barked as they walked past its home, constantly moving upward, leaving the humidity of the streets below, feeling the lightest breeze as the air got a little cooler.

Finally a street gave way to a dirt path, with a fence on one side and a bare hill on the other.

“We are on the trail to the Parthenon. The other side of the fence is the agora. The marketplace of ancient Athens. It’s all mostly ruins now. But if you can get me over the fence, I can take you to our room for the night,” she whispered.

That he could do. “Stay here, let me do a little recon.” He went searching for the lowest, or least well-maintained part of the fence. Really it wasn’t a great security feature, more a vague discouragement of entering after hours, he suspected, when he found a brick post that was pretty easy to climb over.

He easily boosted her up, so she could jump down on the other side, and then followed by using the post as a fulcrum to swing his legs over the fence. Easy.

“This way. Be careful of the tortoises, there are a lot of them here.” She took his hand and led him into the darkness. Through undergrowth, across stone floors and small wooden bridges, until he saw the very top of a huge temple lit with floodlights looming ahead of them.

Really?

She ran up some shallow steps to the base of the temple. It was in much better shape than the other temples he’d seen in Athens. “It’s the temple of Hephaestus,” she breathed, sounding as if she was in awe. “Take your shoes off.”

He complied, watching her slip off her own sneakers. She almost danced up the broad stone steps of the temple and disappeared inside.

Molly couldn’t believe she was breaking the rules like this. It’s true, she had a pass—probably somewhere in the suitcase she’d left at the hotel—that allowed her into the archaeological sites, where tourists couldn’t go. Now with the authorities on her tail, she wasn’t entirely sure her pass would make much difference anymore.