Lover’s debt four spy-stories Complete and unabridged ThirTeen years in The field. Two classified kills. - The widow’s gambit - The loyalty trap - cairo shadows lover’s debt Ovi Pulp An Ovi Magazine Books Publication 2026 Ovi Project Publication - All material is copyright of the Ovi magazine & the writer C Ovi eBooks are available in Ovi magazine & Ovi eBooks pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi eBook please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, printed or digital, altered or selectively extracted by any means (electronic, mechanical, print, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author or the publisher of this book. Lover’s debt - Lover’s debt - The widow’s gambit - The loyalty trap - Cairo Shadows Ovi Pulp Four spy-stories complete and unabridged Ovi Pulp Lover’s debt - Lover’s debt p 7 - The widow’s gambit p 23 - The loyalty trap p 32 - Cairo Shadows p An Ovi Magazine Books Publication 2026 Ovi Project Publication - All material is copyright of the Ovi magazine & the writer C All the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Ovi Pulp An Ovi Magazine Books Publication 2026 Ovi Project Publication - All material is copyright of the Ovi magazine & the writer C Lover’s debt Lover’s debt The envelope arrived on a Tuesday. Unmarked. No postmark. Just a single sheet of heavy stock paper and a photograph so crisp it could have been cut with a razor. The man in the image was lean, dark-haired, late thirties, caught in the amber glow of a hotel room in Geneva. His arm was draped around a woman, twen- ty-five, maybe... laughing; her head tilted back, a string of pearls caught mid-swing against her collarbone. They were both undressed from the waist up. The man’s name was Alec Sheridan. Senior Case Of- ficer, SIS/MI6. Thirteen years in the field. Two clas - sified kills. One commendation from the Joint Intelli - gence Committee. Ovi Pulp He picked up the phone anyway. * * * * * * * * * * The safe house was a butcher’s shop in Gdansk, long shuttered, the floor still sticky with old fat and older secrets. Alec Sheridan stood at the window, breathing through his mouth, watching the Baltic fog roll off the Motława River like a second skin. Three days since the envelope. Two since his chief, a woman named Calder who chewed nicotine gum and trusted no one, told him he had forty-eight hours to resolve the leak or resign. “You don’t get to resign, Alec,” she’d said, not look- ing up from the file. “You get to fix it. Or we hand you to the Poles and let them decide what ‘fraternization with a hostile intelligence asset’ means.” “She wasn’t an asset,” he’d said. “She was a diplo- mat’s daughter who liked bad wine and worse men.” “She was Yuri Volkov’s daughter,” Calder had snapped. “And Volkov is GRU. Which makes her a goddamn honeypot, whether you came inside her or not.” He hadn’t told Calder that he’d seen Katerina Volk- Lover’s debt ov twice since the Geneva hotel. Once in Vienna, once in a café in Vilnius. Both times, she’d paid in cash and left a lipstick kiss on his coffee cup. He’d kept the cup in his locker at Vauxhall Cross like a lovesick idiot. The back door of the butcher’s shop groaned. Alec’s hand went to the Glock 19 tucked under his apron; the apron was part of the cover, a sad nod to the shop’s former life. He didn’t draw. Not yet. A woman stepped through the doorway, shaking rain from a charcoal trench coat. Katerina. Her hair was darker than he remembered, pulled tight into a knot, and the pearls were gone. In their place, a thin scar ran from her ear to her jaw, new, barely healed. “You look terrible,” she said, with the faintest trace of a Moscow accent. “Have you been sleeping in a slaughterhouse?” “It’s a butcher’s shop. And yes.” She smiled, and for a moment she was the woman from Geneva, careless, warm, a little drunk on Chasse- las and the audacity of touching a British spy in a ho- tel room with no jamming equipment. Then the smile faded, and she reached into her coat. Alec brought the Glock up. “Slow.” Ovi Pulp She stopped, hand half-extended. “I’m not armed, Alec. I’m bringing you a gift.” She pulled out a folded piece of paper, damp at the edges. “The name of the man who took that photograph. The man who’s been blackmailing both of us.” He didn’t lower the gun. “Both?” “My father found out about Geneva two months ago. He didn’t send the photo. Someone else did. Someone who wants him to think I’m still working for London. And wants London to think I’m still work - ing for him.” She tossed the paper onto a butcher’s block between them. “His name is Dmitri Sarkisian. He runs a private intelligence firm out of Tbilisi. He’s ex-GRU, ex-Kremlin, ex-everything except greed. And he’s been feeding my father disinformation about Brit- ish assets in the Caucasus in exchange for money and the occasional compromising photograph.” Alec stared at the paper. The name meant nothing. That meant everything. “Why would Sarkisian blackmail you?” he asked. “You’re Volkov’s daughter. You could have him killed with a phone call.” Katerina’s jaw tightened, the scar pulling white. “Because I’m not just Volkov’s daughter anymore. Lover’s debt Six weeks ago, I started working for the British. Not through you. Through a cut-out in Helsinki. I’ve been passing my father’s operational traffic to London for a month. Sarkisian found out. He wants me to stop. The photograph was his first warning.” Alec lowered the Glock to his side. The fog outside the window had thickened into something almost sol- id, pressing against the glass like a held breath. “You’ve been running an agent operation against your own father,” he said slowly. “And you didn’t think to tell me.” “I didn’t think you’d believe me.” “I wouldn’t have.” He picked up the paper, mem - orized the name, and burned it with a Zippo over a drain. “But I believe you now. Because if you were lying, you’d have brought a gun.” * * * * * * * * * * The plan was simple, which meant it would go wrong in at least three ways. Alec and Katerina drove south out of Gdansk in a stolen Fiat, the engine coughing like a dying smok- er. Sarkisian was in Warsaw, attending a “trade con - ference” at the Marriott. In reality, Alec knew from Ovi Pulp Calder’s last burst transmission, he was meeting a Rus - sian FSB colonel to sell a list of CIA covert action officers in Ukraine. “We don’t kill him in the hotel,” Alec said, threading the Fiat through a forest of birch trees, the headlights cutting weak tunnels through the fog. “Too many cam- eras. Too many witnesses.” “Then how?” “We make him an offer he can’t refuse. The photo - graph. The negatives. In exchange for your safety and a guarantee you walk away from both sides.” Katerina laughed a hard, sharp sound. “You think a man like Sarkisian honours guarantees?” “No. But I think he honours fear.” Alec glanced at her. “The fear that his FSB contact will find out he’s been playing both sides. That he sold the Ukrainians the same list he’s selling the Russians. That he’s not ex- GRU. He’s just ex-loyalty.” She was quiet for a long moment. Then: “How do you know about the Ukrainians?” “Because I’m not just a lovesick case officer, Katya. I’m the one who bought the list from him six months Lover’s debt ago, under a false flag. He doesn’t know it was me. But if he finds out, he’ll know his game is over.” The Fiat’s engine coughed again, then settled into a rough idle. Alec pulled over onto a muddy shoulder. The forest around them was silent, no birds, no wind, just the drip of rain from the birches. “You’re playing a very long game,” Katerina said. “I’m playing the only game. Now put your seatbelt on. We’re going to walk into the lion’s den, and I need you to look like you’re terrified of me.” She raised an eyebrow. “That won’t be hard. You smell like raw pork.” * * * * * * * * * * The Warsaw Marriott’s lobby was all marble and muted jazz, the kind of place where money went to pretend it had taste. Alec had swapped the butcher’s apron for a tailored navy suit, Calder’s people had left it in the Fiat’s trunk, along with a forged Polish dip- lomatic passport and a set of lockpicks he hoped he wouldn’t need. Katerina walked a step behind him, her hand resting lightly on his elbow. To any observer, she looked like Ovi Pulp a nervous mistress. In reality, she was counting the se - curity cameras, four in the lobby, two in the elevators, six per floor. Sarkisian’s suite was on the twenty-seventh floor. Alec had expected a private floor, maybe a blocked- off corridor. Instead, the door was a standard room number, 2714, with a peephole that went dark as they approached. “He knows we’re here,” Katerina murmured. “I’d be worried if he didn’t.” The door opened. The man standing in the frame was not Dmitri Sarkisian. He was younger, harder, a slab of neck and shoulders in a black polo shirt. His right hand rested inside his jacket. “Mr. Sheridan,” the slab said. “Dmitri Sergeyevich will see you now. The lady stays here.” “The lady goes where I go.” “The lady stays here.” The slab’s hand didn’t move, but something in his posture changed—a slight shift of weight to the balls of his feet. Former Spetsnaz, Alec guessed. The kind of man who could kill you with a hotel phone book and feel nothing. Lover’s debt Alec looked at Katerina. She nodded once, almost imperceptibly. She had her own plan. He just hoped it didn’t involve dying. The suite was larger than Alec’s entire flat in Lon - don, a living room with floor-to-ceiling windows over - looking the Palace of Culture, a wet bar stocked with vodka and Georgian wine, and, in the center, a leather armchair occupied by a man who looked like a retired ballet dancer. Dmitri Sarkisian was fifty, slim, silver-haired, with the kind of face that belonged on a wanted poster or a perfume ad. He was reading a newspaper in Russian, and he didn’t look up when Alec entered. “You’re late,” Sarkisian said. “I expected you yester - day.” “I was busy not getting killed by your blackmail.” Sarkisian folded the newspaper precisely. “Blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer ‘commercial persuasion.’ Sit down, Mr. Sheridan. You’ve come to offer me something. Let me guess what it is.” Alec remained standing. “The photograph. The neg- atives. All copies. In exchange for Katerina’s file and a written guarantee you’ll never contact her again.” Ovi Pulp “Boring. I’ve heard that offer three times this year. Try again.” “How about this?” Alec stepped closer, close enough to see the fine tremor in Sarkisian’s left hand—early Parkinson’s, maybe, or just too much stimulant. “You give me the file, and I don’t tell your FSB contact that you’ve been selling the same intelligence to the Ukrain- ians. And the Poles. And a private security firm in Du - bai that doesn’t exist on any map.” Sarkisian’s smile didn’t waver, but the tremor stopped. “You’re bluffing.” “I don’t bluff. I just lie very convincingly.” Alec pulled a small voice recorder from his jacket pocket and placed it on the wet bar. “This contains a conver- sation between you and a man named Hakan Özdemir, conducted six weeks ago in a sauna in Helsinki. In it, you describe, in some detail, how you’ve been running a triple cross against Moscow for the better part of a decade. The FSB will hear it in twenty-four hours un- less I walk out of this room with Katerina’s file.” For a long moment, the only sound was the hum of the minibar. Then Sarkisian laughed. A genuine, belly-deep laugh that made Alec’s skin prickle. Lover’s debt “You think I don’t know about the sauna?” Sarkisian said, wiping his eyes. “You think I don’t know Özdemir works for you? Mr. Sheridan, I’ve known about your little recording since the moment you pressed ‘record.’ The man in the sauna wasn’t me. It was an actor. A very good one, I’ll grant you. But an actor nonethe - less.” Alec’s blood went cold. He kept his face neutral, but his mind was already racing through the implications. If the recording was worthless, he had no leverage. No exit. No plan B except the Glock, and that would get him killed before he cleared the holster. “So we’re at an impasse,” Alec said. “No,” Sarkisian replied, rising from the chair. He was shorter than Alec had expected, but there was a coiled tension in his shoulders, a predator’s economy of movement. “We’re at the part where you realize you’ve already lost. Katerina was never my target. You were.” The door behind Alec opened. He didn’t turn. He didn’t need to. He heard the soft tread of her foot- steps, the whisper of her coat, and then her voice, close to his ear. Ovi Pulp “I’m sorry, Alec,” Katerina said. “But my father sends his regards.” * * * * * * * * * * The betrayal hit Alec like a blade between the ribs, not the sharp shock of surprise, but the deep, grinding ache of something that had been a long time com- ing. He’d known, on some level, since the photograph. Since the hotel in Geneva. Since the first time she’d laughed at his jokes and meant it. You don’t survive thirteen years in this business without learning to recognize the smell of a trap. But you also don’t survive without learning to set a few of your own. “I know,” Alec said quietly. Katerina froze. “What?” “I know you’re not working for London. I know you never were. I know the cut-out in Helsinki was a ghost, and the operational traffic you’ve been passing was disinformation fed to you by your father to see how much of it ended up on my desk.” He turned to face her. Her eyes were wide, the scar on her jaw standing out like a wound. “I’ve known for three weeks.” Lover’s debt “Then why...” she started. “Because I needed you to lead me to him.” Alec nodded at Sarkisian. “Your father’s not here. He’s in Moscow, safe behind the Kremlin walls. But Sarkisian is his hand. His knife. And I needed to find out how deep the blade went.” Sarkisian had stopped laughing. His hand moved to- ward his jacket, but Alec was faster. The Glock was out, the safety off; the muzzle centered on Sarkisian’s forehead before the older man’s fingers touched the fabric. “The file, Dmitri. The real one. The one with the photographs, the transaction records, the names of every British asset your network has compromised in the last eighteen months. You’re going to give it to me, or I’m going to put a hole in your head and tell the FSB you tried to defect.” “You wouldn’t,” Sarkisian whispered. “This is a ho- tel. Twenty-seven floors. Cameras everywhere.” “The cameras are off,” Alec said. “I had a friend in the security office. She’s very good with electronics and very angry about the last time a Russian intelligence front tried to recruit her husband. Now. The file.” Ovi Pulp For a long moment, no one moved. Katerina stood frozen, her hands half-raised, her face a mask of con- fusion and something that might have been regret. The slab in the polo shirt was still in the other room, probably wondering why his earpiece had gone silent. Then Sarkisian smiled. Not the laugh this time. Something smaller. Something almost respectful. “You’re better than they said,” he admitted. “The file is in the safe. Behind the painting of the horses.” He pointed to a large oil canvas of a Cossack caval- ry charge. “The combination is my mother’s birthday. November 12, 1944.” “You’re lying,” Alec said. “Your mother was born in 1948.” Sarkisian’s smile flickered. “You really are good.” “No. I just read your file.” Alec stepped to the paint - ing, pulled it aside, and found the safe, a small black box, no bigger than a shoebox, embedded in the wall. He didn’t bother with the combination. He slapped a small magnetic charge against the door, stepped back, and triggered it. The safe popped open with a dull thud. Inside: a memory stick, a stack of photographs, and a manila