“Do you think Ivan knew his hunter?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you get? For making a kill, I mean. A non-botched one.”

He shrugs. “An executive position somewhere. A hefty lottery win. Who knows?”

“How do you know you won’t just end up with a bullet in the back for your effort?”

“You don’t,” he says hollowly. “But it doesn’t matter. Because you believe in it so much . . . you’d do it even without the reward.”

I lean over, cover my face. Steps sound across the floor. And then he’s kneeling beside the chair and clasping me tightly by the hands.

“You were supposed to be safe here. As soon as we figure out the passport thing, we leave.”

“To go where?”

“The Australian bush. The Maldives.” He brushes my hair from my forehead. “I’ll build a hut. You’ll dive for oysters. Or a rain forest in South Africa. Where the biggest thing we’ll worry about is getting worms under our skin.”

“That’s so gross.”

He laughs softly.

I look at him. “And they wouldn’t find us there? In the jungle?”

He’s quiet.

“Does it even matter where we go?”

“We’ll move around. But right now, we just need to get you to the underground or wherever Claudia and Piotrek can keep you out of sight until we get those passports.”

“Us, you mean.”

“They may not trust me. They probably won’t. And they’ll be able to protect you right now better than I can. Much as I hate to admit it.”

“You’re a very convincing liar,” I whisper.

“Because I’m telling you the truth.”

My gaze settles on his lips. “I want to know something.”

He looks up at me.

Courage fails. “Can I have the first shower?”

I lock myself in the bathroom. By the time the spray hits my hair, my face has already crumpled. I slump against the fiberglass wall.

My name is Audra Ellison. I am in a country I do not remember, with a man I barely know and who, by all accounts, I should not trust. My only tie to real answers has just died because of me. Does that make me an accomplice to murder? Am I naïve for wanting to believe Luka—not because he says he’ll protect me but because having no one to trust is worse than the thought of dying? I thought yesterday I had never felt so alone. But now, in this tightening knot of pretenses, I feel more alone than before.

No wonder I wanted to forget it all. Given the choice, I’d go back and forget these last five days and wake up in a hut on some beach, none the wiser.

But despite the fact that I can’t imagine another day like this—let alone a year or an entire life . . . I also can’t imagine dying without answers.