Found (Assassin's Revenge Book 1) by Tara Crescent Read Free Book Online Page B

team . Each and every one of them hand-picked by either Jean-Luc or myself.  As much as I allowed myself to care about anyone, I cared about the five men and women who were part of this mission. “Who?” I spoke through clenched teeth.
    “Andrei.”
    Andrei. Just nineteen with dirty blond hair that constantly fell forward into his eyes. I’d joke with him about how I was going to get a pair of scissors one day and cut the damn stuff and he’d blush and laugh. “My girlfriend likes it this way,” he’d confess. He’d pretend to huff. “Women.”
    He tried to sound so world-weary, but he was just a kid. Despite everything that had been done to him or maybe it was because of everything that had been done to him, Andrei had had a wide-eyed appreciation for life.
    Indentured slavery was supposedly illegal, but Durov had never cared. Andrei had been taken from Tbilisi in Georgia when he was just thirteen, brought north to Moscow and then smuggled into a brothel in the Middle East. Tall, athletic and blond, he had been popular. He’d been property till a raid had freed him.
    I’d told him to walk away and live out the rest of his life, but he couldn’t do that. He had wanted revenge. I’d warned him that Durov was too well-protected to harm and he’d told me he didn’t care. “Don’t you understand, Mr. Hamilton?” he had asked me, his eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “My life has no purpose if not revenge.”
    I could understand that. My life was similar after all, though I did what I did in atonement, not revenge. So I’d turned him over to Jean-Luc who had trained the kid till he was an operative that I would gladly walk into battle with.
    Now, he was dead.
    “Have you talked to Sasha?” I asked him. Sasha was Andrei’s girlfriend.
    “Yes.” His tone was troubled. “She told me she’s pregnant. She hadn’t told Andrei yet. He’d been too excited about this mission and she hadn’t wanted to distract him with her news.”
    Fuck. I buried my head in my hands. Another child who would grow up without knowing his father. Another innocent victim. Another generation of pain. “What am I doing, Jean-Luc?” I asked him. My voice shook. I was close to tears.
    “Alexander.” Jean-Luc’s voice was steady. “This isn’t an easy road, but we do what we must.”
    He’d meant those words as comfort but there was none he could offer me today.
    I suddenly remembered a detail from last night, before my memories had been consumed with Rachel. “Can you investigate Hassan? The bartender? He speaks English.” We’d done a lot of planning at that bar, secure in the knowledge that we couldn’t be overheard above the din and the football on TV and the loud grumbling of the patrons about everything under the sun. But if Hassan could understand us, I needed to ensure he’d never overheard anything of value. It was important that we checked his background.
    Jean-Luc’s voice tensed. “I did not know that,” he rumbled. “I will look into it.”
    I sighed. “I should talk to Sasha. Do you know where she is?”
    “I’ll have her brought to your house,” he replied. “She wanted to see you.”
    ***
    I’d met Sasha before. She was a tiny little thing. Large brown eyes, long brown hair, a ready laugh. We’d always smile when the two of them were standing next to each other. Andrei had been over six feet tall, and Sasha couldn’t have been an inch taller than five feet.
    She wasn’t laughing now. Her eyes were rimmed with red but when she spoke, her voice was steady. “I always wondered if it would end this way,” she said. She looked and sounded much older than her twenty years.
    “I’m so sorry,” I said quietly. What could I say that could make her feel better about the fact that the man she loved was dead?
    “Every single time, he knew he could die,” she continued, not seeming to hear me. “And you know what, Mr. Hamilton?” she looked at me. “He didn’t care. He was like a flame. He