A Pair of Jacks (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) by Blaze Ballantine

Yuri’s head. I think he must have died at the first hit, but he was holding a gun on me. When Ranger’s hooves came down, he fell and the gun went off. That sent Ranger into a fury, he kept stomping him over and over.”
    “Shhh.” Jack comforted her, and then stiffened when he heard a sound in the underbrush. He shoved Marie behind him, leveling the gun in the direction of the noise.
    Reno burst into the clearing with sweat pouring from his long run. “Where’s Marie? I stopped in the barn and Yuri’s dead. He’s shredded. Honest to God, I almost lost it. There’s blood everywhere and no sign…”
    Marie rushed to him, wrapping her arms around him as he crushed her against his chest. She could feel his heart still racing. “Oh, girl,” he groaned, pulling her face up, so he could look at her. “You okay?”
    Marie nodded, laying her head back against his chest, clinging to him like she might never let him go again.
    “Where’s the other one?” Jack threw a hard look at his brother as if to make sure he was truly okay.
    “Didn’t make it.” Reno glanced down at the Russian on the ground. “Looks like you’re the lone survivor, comrade.”
    The wounded man shot Reno an insolent smile. “I’m not your comrade, cowboy.”
    “Still, you’re going to talk to us like we’re old friends, Viktor.”
    The Russian’s eyes widened at the mention of his name. “I know nothing. You are American cops. You have to give me my rights. I want a lawyer.”
    Reno chuckled. “Oh, yes, Sergey lived long enough to tell me his name. And yours.”
    With a gentle push, Reno moved Marie back from his embrace so that he could squat down to look at the tourniquet on the Russian’s leg. “Looks like you’ve lost a lot of blood. You need to be taken to a hospital. Probably need to be flown out pretty quickly if you want to have a chance of making it.”
    “I know nothing,” Viktor insisted, squirming around on the ground to get distance from Reno.
    Reno leaned over to put his hands on the knot of the tourniquet. “Of course, if I loosen this just a little…”
    “No!” Viktor yelled, slapping his hands over the wound and pushing himself even further away. “I will tell you what I know. What does it matter, anyway? Yuri can’t kill me from hell.”
    Jack moved closer, cradling the rifle in his arms as he leaned over to hear Viktor’s words. Reno sat back on his heels, giving the man some space. Marie held her breath, waiting for what she would hear.
    The Russian wearily dropped his head back against the pine needles. “It was your handler, Marie Maxwell. He sold you out.”
    Marie stepped over to the man, steadying herself by putting a hand on Reno’s shoulder. “I don’t believe you. Xavier would never sell out. He wanted a higher political position. He worked hard to have a perfect track record.”
    “He had no choice,” the Russian explained, looking at her through half closed eyes. “Yuri found out about his wife. She was Russian. Born here in America, but her parents were KGB. They were part of a deep cover operation to put agents in foreign countries as sleepers until they were needed. I doubt she knew about them herself.”
    “That would have showed up when he was vetted for his job at GSA. He would have never been allowed to run the organization with that sort of liability,” Marie protested.
    Viktor shook his head back and forth against the ground. “That’s what Yuri did for him. He wiped the records clean in Russia and America. He was much more powerful than anyone knew. Xavier didn’t ask for this favor. Yuri did it to have control over him. Once the files had been altered, Xavier had to keep quiet. Yuri made sure that Xavier would look guilty no matter how it went down. He would have been prosecuted along with his wife and her family. Do you see what I’m saying?”
    “But why would Xavier set me up in Paris to try and capture Yuri? That makes no sense.”
    The Russian’s eyes snapped open