think there was an uncle, but I wouldn’t bet money on it. Most people with families didn’t talk about them much when they were around those of us who didn’t have families.”
Leo cut through some kind of beef and filled his fork. “Was there bad blood between you?”
“No. We stayed friends after the ill-begotten kiss. Got in trouble pulling pranks together.”
He thought of the kids on the campus. Imagined what Olivia must have looked like in the uniform. “Did he work for Pohl?”
“There was only one person that I knew who worked for Pohl other than me. And the only reason I knew her was because she’d graduated the year before. She was part of the welcoming committee. Unbeknownst to her or me, Pohl used that connection to force my first . . .” She stopped talking, looked around.
Her first kill. “What happened?”
She put her fork down, grabbed her water. “I didn’t want to do it. I thought I’d signed up to be a spy. Something close to what you do . . . Sasha and Claire. Hack computers to stop bad people from doing bad things. Sip wine in Vienna and bug a mercenary’s room to learn their next victim.” She stopped talking, eyes blinking.
Leo reached out and took her hand.
She smiled, removed her hand, and picked up her fork again.
“Pohl put a gun to her head, told me to take the shot or she’d die. She begged me.” Olivia snapped out of the memory.
“I’m sorry.” Leo couldn’t imagine the pain.
“I was twenty-one.” She took a bite, spoke around it. “I never saw her again after that night. Couldn’t tell you if she was alive or dead. Anyway . . . Did Friedrich work for Pohl? Could have. We competed a lot in school. If I took him down on the mat, he worked hard to pay me back the following week. But that’s how the school worked back then. ‘You’re good, but they’re better.’ There weren’t participation trophies at Richter. You had winners and losers.”
“And Friedrich was a winner.”
“The guy couldn’t kiss, but he knew how to shoot.”
Once Leo realized that Olivia had resumed eating, he joined her.
“And you’re positive it was him in the car in Vegas?”
“Yes. It’s amazing what your brain remembers in times of stress. I saw the long barrel with a silencer, knew it was pointed at me. Our eyes met and I knew I was going to die.”
“That didn’t happen.”
She cleared her throat. “I gave it a good college try.” Olivia reached for her water. “Funny, though . . . I’m pretty sure I saw him in the hospital.”
That stopped Leo’s next bite. “What? When?”
“Early on. After I stopped thinking I was in Atlantic City and before I refused the pain medications.”
“Neil’s team was there.”
“He was in a hall. Looked like any other visitor when they wheeled me to another CT scan. I didn’t recognize him, but I remember him looking me in the eye. Of course, that could have been the medication, which makes more sense. If Friedrich was there and he’d botched the job, why didn’t he finish it?”
Leo shrugged. “Conscience?”
“You already pointed out we don’t have those.” Only she was smiling as she said it.
Leo picked up a piece of bread and soaked up the generous amount of gravy on his plate. “What makes you think Friedrich is going to be in Budapest?”
“I doubt he’s there, but I might be able to lure him in.”
Leo didn’t like how that sounded at all. “What stops him from taking a shot the second he sees you?”
“Charlie said it was a sanctuary for us. Or did he skip that detail with you?”
Leo kept silent and smiled. He was happy to see her cleaning her plate. Not only did she look tired, she looked thinner than when she’d left Colorado. “Must have missed that part.”
Olivia narrowed her eyes and dropped her hand to the table. “You son of a bitch. He didn’t tell you anything, did he?”
Leo wiped his mouth, put his napkin on the table, and shook his head. “Nada. Zip. Wouldn’t even tell us what he had for breakfast.”
He saw the frustration ripple through her and changed the subject. “So this bar—”
“Nightclub,” she corrected.
“Right, nightclub. It’s a no-kill zone?”
She moaned. “I can’t believe this.”
Leo leaned forward on his elbows. “Do you think women are the only ones who can fake it?”
“I’m going to make you eat those words,” she warned him. When Leo looked closer, he saw a hint of admiration in