Anyway, their situation had been totally different. “He wouldn’t have had time to hook up with anybody anyway,” he added.

“Doesn’t take much time to hook up,” Andrej insisted, playing advocatus diaboli as he always did, but with a lot less delight than usual.

Misha snorted. “You know Riley” was all he had to say about that, and it shut Andrej up nice and fast, because, yes, Andrej did know Riley.

He’d been there when Misha had fallen hard, had mocked endlessly when it had taken Misha—who’d never really had to work for it before—a ridiculous amount of time and effort to get in Riley’s pants, because Riley was so goddamn slow to trust. Irritatingly self-sufficient, unapologetically picky, and not capable of giving up as much of his iron control as it took to have sex with a stranger, much less a terrorist who’d put him on the military’s radar.

The chances of Riley making the same mistake twice, getting involved with anybody without double and triple checking their background, were slim to none. Hell, the chances of anybody going to the trouble to convince Riley to make the same mistake twice were practically

nil. Riley was a civilian with no strategic value whatsoever except for his worth to Misha, and that had nothing at all to do with the military.

“Mistaken identity, then,” Andrej said, trying another explanation on for size. “Bad intel.”

“Alien possession,” Kolya suggested, and Misha didn’t have to glance in the rearview mirror to see his smirk, but he did it anyway. No defending Kolya and his annoying habits again, ever.

Andrej, bless his heart, didn’t acknowledge the joke. He merely frowned, mystified. “Fuck if I know how this happened.” He perked up for a moment. “Are you absolutely sure that’s Riley in there?”

“Yes,” Kolya and Misha said in unison, one offended by the implication he’d fucked up a simple (or even not-so-simple) surveillance and the other by the insinuation he might’ve mistaken any one cowboy for his cowboy.

Proving once again he had a healthy survival instinct, Andrej backpedaled hastily, then changed the subject. “Okay, it’s him. Question is, what do we do now?”

And then they were staring at Misha, both of them, with matching expectant looks on their faces. A pair of Rottweilers waiting for orders.

Only Misha needed more than two attack dogs; he needed a whole pack.

They were outnumbered and outgunned, no reinforcements available, and he couldn’t have called them in, anyway, because there was simply no way to get them there in time or to justify taking on what looked like a platoon of legitimate US troops. His father would kill him, and rightly so.

What could they do?

Nothing, Misha thought, and his belly cramped a little with a queasy feeling of helplessness. Right now, they could do jack shit. Their only option was to sit on their asses and wait for an opportunity to present itself.

For the moment, Riley was on his own.