Shades of Gray k-6

by Maya Banks

  P.J. snorted and dug into her pocket, pulling out a wad of cash Cole hadn’t even know she’d had on her.

  She tossed the bills onto Kristoff’s desk.

  Kristoff meticulously counted each hundred-dollar bill and then went to a cabinet and pulled out boxes of ammo, setting each onto the desk.

  “Still providing curb service?” P.J. asked.

  “Of course. Can’t have you walking onto the street carrying all that shit. A car will be waiting at the end of the alley. I’ll have Franz take your purchases.”

  “Nice doing business with you, Kristoff. I’ll do my best to make sure you win your bet.”

  His teeth flashed. “See that you do. I’m a very sore loser.”

  CHAPTER 34

  P.J. sat at the small desk in the hotel room typing an email to Katia while Cole lay sprawled on the bed, eyes closed. She doubted he was asleep. She’d known Cole to go without sleep for days when the situation called for it.

  She’d purposely not told him much in the way of details before they’d flown to Vienna because . . . Well, he wouldn’t have gone, and worse, he would have carried out his threat to physically restrain her to keep her from going.

  Brumley hadn’t just become another target, a mission she had to fulfill. He’d become an obsession.

  When she slept at night, she saw him in her dreams. At times, she could feel the knife in her hands, and hear the gurgle of blood as he took his last breath. It was an image that haunted her day and night, and until she made it a reality, it would continue to haunt her.

  She hit send on the email but left her laptop open and her sound up so she’d know the moment a response came in.

  Then she crawled into bed next to Cole and laid her head in the crook of his arm.

  As she’d suspected, he wasn’t sleeping. He turned in to her immediately and wrapped his arm around her body, pulling her in even closer.

  “So is this what you did for the six months you were gone?” he asked seriously. “Hid out in shitty hotels, hung out in back-alley shady businesses with men named Kristoff or befriended hookers?”

  “Basically yeah. I changed hotels every few days. I was always worried Brumley would find me, especially after I made the first kill and left my signature so to speak. He’s not dumb. He had to have known it was me. Especially when his right-hand man showed up the night he raped me with a knife wound to his back, reporting that I’d escaped.”

  Cole let out a string of curses. “I don’t know what pisses me off more. That you got involved in this at all or that you didn’t trust me or your team enough to let us in on what was going down.”

  “Would you drag the team into a personal vendetta, Cole? Really? If you were planning to murder someone, would you really ask the team to back you up? Because no matter how you color it, I’m killing these men in cold blood. It’s not self-defense anymore. I hunted them down and I cut them to ribbons before killing them.”

  He went silent, and she knew she’d made her point.

  “I hate that you’re even involved now. I hate that Steele and the others got involved. It tarnishes KGI as a whole. What happens when Resnick gets wind of this shit? And you can’t tell me he won’t. The man knows goddamn everything. I bet the president is even afraid of pissing that man off because he knows so much.”

  He put a finger to her lips. “Shut up. It doesn’t matter what you want or don’t want at this point, because we’re involved. There’s no going back now. And we aren’t leaving you to do this alone, so just shut the fuck up and deal with it.”

  She smiled and leaned in to kiss him when her laptop beeped, signaling an incoming email.

  She scrambled off the bed and hurried to the desk. Her breath caught when she saw Katia’s response sitting in her inbox.

  Must meet with you right away. Important. Come alone.

  “This is it,” she said to Cole. “She wants to meet right away. Says it’s important and to come alone.”

  “Fuck that,” Cole snarled.

  P.J. held up her hand. “Of course I’m not going alone. If I was, I wouldn’t have bothered to bring you along, so keep your underwear on.”

  He looked slightly mollified, but he rolled out of bed, stuffed the larger handgun in his shoulder holster, slid the smaller pistol in his ankle holster and then loaded a magazine into the assault rifle.

  P.J. armed herself but placed her rifle into a duffel bag and then reached for Cole’s so they could get out of the hotel without their weapons being seen.

  “You drive,” she directed as she threw the bag into the backseat. “I want you to park a block away from Katia’s apartment. I’ll go in, see what she has to say and then be right back out. I’ll need you to watch the building.”

  His lips tightened but he didn’t argue.

  They drove across town, gradually getting into an area that had deteriorated over the years. Many of the buildings were in disrepair and most of the businesses had moved closer to the city center.

  Katia’s apartment was actually a nice place. On the inside. The outside was a crumbling building with graffiti on the walls and iron bars covering each of the windows.

  She had told P.J. that the rent was next to nothing, and with the money she pulled in from servicing her wealthy clients, she could afford to make the inside a palace.

  After instructing Cole where to park, P.J. armed herself and opened the passenger door.

  “Give me half an hour. I don’t know what all she has to say, but if I’m not out by then, come in after me.”

  “I’ll give you twenty,” Cole said bluntly. “She can’t have that much to say. I don’t like this place. I don’t like this whole situation. My gut is screaming like a motherfucker.”

  “Okay, twenty,” P.J. agreed.

  She wouldn’t admit it, but her gut was doing its own bit of bitching. She was uneasy about this whole thing.

  She got out, closed the door and hurried toward the entrance to the building. She wasted five minutes waiting for the service elevator to grind to a halt on the ground floor. She rode it to the sixth floor and got off, making a beeline for the end of the hall where Katia’s apartment was.

  She knocked softly, and the door squeaked open an inch the minute P.J. knocked.

  P.J. made a grab for her handgun and carefully pushed the door open so she could see inside.

  “Katia?” she called softly. “It’s P.J. You here?”

  She stepped inside, gun up and pointed as she swept the living room. The television was on. Some European soap opera. She entered the kitchen and found nothing out of order so she headed for the bedroom.

  The door was ajar and P.J. nudged it open with her toe, staying back before swinging around, gun aimed inside.

  Katia was lying on the bed in a pool of blood.

  Son of a bitch!

  P.J. raced over, reaching for Katia’s neck to try to find a pulse, but drew up when she saw the macabre sight before her.

  The woman was naked, with slashes to the insides of her thighs, under her breasts and one down her midline.

  Her throat was so horribly slashed that but for a small piece of flesh at her nape, she’d been all but beheaded.

  P.J. bent over, nausea so overwhelming that she had to suck in breath after breath through her nose to keep from emptying her stomach.

  On the desk, her laptop was open to P.J.’s last email.

  P.J. touched a finger to Katia’s arm to find it cold and stiff. She’d been dead for a lot longer than when P.J. had received that last email.

  Her blood ran cold. This has been a complete setup.

  It was then she noticed the note lying on the bed, blood smeared over the paper.

  She picked it up and her stomach bottomed out.

  If you have any interest in keeping your teammate alive, you’ll come to me tomorrow morning at ten a.m. Alone. Unarmed. It’s your choice. You or your teammate. If you don’t show, I’ll assume your choice has been made.

  —B

  What th
e fuck? No way they had Cole. It was a complete bluff. Did they think she was stupid? She turned and ran from Katia’s apartment, not bothering with the elevator.

  She flew down the six flights of stairs and burst out of the building, at full sprint as she ran down the street to where Cole was parked.

  But the car was gone.

  Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

  No way they had Cole. No fucking way.

  She yanked out her cell and punched in Cole’s number.

  “Come on, come on,” she said anxiously.

  But it wasn’t Cole who answered. It was a voice she’d heard in her nightmares every night for the last six months.

  “Didn’t believe me?” he asked in amusement. “I have your boyfriend here. He’s pretty pissed. He’ll be lucky if I don’t kill him before you get here, but a deal’s a deal. You for your teammate.”

  “Where?” she croaked.

  “Be watching your email. I’ll provide the location at nine in the morning. Until then, sleep well, P.J. Rutherford. And remember this. If you’re so much as a minute late, your friend here is dead. If you show up with anyone, if I even think you have backup, he’s dead. If I find a single weapon on you, he’s dead. Are you getting the picture now? I have no use for this man. But you . . . You, I have use for. We have unfinished business. Get here on time and follow my directions. Do that and he goes free. Understand?”

  Before she could respond, Brumley cut the connection, leaving P.J. standing on the street corner numb to her toes.

  CHAPTER 35

  P.J. returned to her hotel, packed her shit and immediately checked out. She moved to a hostel across the city, provided a fake name, and paid cash—more than triple the cost of the room so she didn’t have to provide her passport.

  She was a wreck. A complete and utter wreck, and she was so pissed that she knew she had to get a grip or she was going to get herself and Cole killed.

  She didn’t believe for a minute that Brumley was going to let Cole walk away once P.J. surrendered. The dumbass must think she was a complete moron to swallow that line of bullshit.

  The first thing she had to do was call Steele, and it was a call she dreaded with every fiber of her being. But for Cole, she’d do anything. Even if it meant never working for KGI again. And this would likely do the trick. She could only push her team leader so far. He wasn’t exactly known for his understanding.

  He expected you to obey orders without questions and do your job. You did those two things, you got along fine. If not, there was a serious problem.

  She made the call with a huge knot in her stomach. He answered on the second ring.

  “Steele,” he said shortly.

  “Steele this is P.J. We have a situation.”

  Steele immediately became alert. “Give me the rundown.”

  Never one to mince words. He wanted things short and concise and to the point. No unnecessary bullshit and no excuses.

  “Cole and I came to Vienna to follow up on a lead from a contact I made while I was over here. She led me to believe that Jakarta was a false lead and that something big was going down over here. Cole and I planned to check it out because my contact will only talk to me. After we learned what there was to learn we were going to call in the team.”

  P.J. had to hold the phone away from the ear as blistering obscenities poured through the other end.

  “What the fuck were you two doing going off without telling me a damn thing, and furthermore why the hell did you two go alone?” he demanded.

  She didn’t have time to answer his questions.

  “My contact was dead when I went to her apartment. Brumley’s calling card. Brutalized and she had her throat slashed. Just like I killed three of his men. It was a clear message to me. And he left a note saying he had Cole.”

  “Son of a bitch. You went in alone? Without backup? Have you lost your goddamn mind, P.J.? You’re acting like a wet-behind-the-ears rookie recruit and I expected better from you.”

  “Look, we had our bases covered. We went in prepared. Brumley set us up. He got to my contact first, killed her and then sent me an email from her laptop. While I was inside, they nabbed Cole, who was parked a block away waiting for me to come out.”

  “And what now?” Steele snapped.

  “He wants me to trade myself for Cole.”

  “Over my dead body,” Steele said icily.

  “Look, I don’t believe for a minute he’ll let Cole go free once he has me. Which is why I’m calling you. I’m not stupid, Steele, even if you think so. I’ve thought this through. If you and the others get on a plane now you can make it pretty damn close to the time I’m supposed to meet Brumley. Problem is I don’t know where yet. But I have a tracking device I’ll wear so you’ll know how to find me. I need you to get your asses here as quick as possible so we have backup. I can’t wait for you before I go in because I do believe he’ll kill Cole out of spite if I’m so much as a minute late. But if I get there, I can stall for time until you guys make it in. I’ll do whatever I have to do, whether it’s seduce his sorry ass or let him take another shot at me. As long as Cole survives, it doesn’t matter what happens to me.”

  “You aren’t trading yourself for Cole,” Steele said tersely. “Do you honest to fuck think he’d ever be able to live with himself if you did that?”

  “At least he’d be alive,” she said softly. “No one on my team is going down for me.”

  Steele cursed again.

  “How soon can you be here?” P.J. demanded. “I meet him at ten in the morning. I figure it’ll take you guys all night and into the morning to get here. We’ll be cutting it close. I need you there as close to ten as possible. I don’t know what his plans are. He may just kill us as soon as I show up. I’m hoping to play with his ego a bit to buy us some time. Just be here, Steele. I’m counting on you.”

  “We’ll be there,” Steele snapped. “You just stay your asses alive until we kick some fucking ass. You got it, Rutherford? That’s a goddamn order and one I expect you to follow.”

  It was one order she had absolutely no problem following.

  CHAPTER 36

  P.J. didn’t sleep that night. She went through a dozen scenarios in her head, but none of them did any good, because she had no idea what she was up against.

  And the bastard was toying with her. She checked her email repeatedly, hour after hour, and no information came through.

  It wasn’t until eight thirty the next morning that the email popped into her inbox.

  She pounded the table in frustration, because all it said was that a car would pick her up at nine thirty at the Stubentor subway stop.

  With no information to leave for Steele, she was going to have to rely solely on the tracking devices and hope to hell they weren’t discovered before Steele arrived and got a bead on her location.

  She affixed one of the patches to the bottom of her foot, and the other she attached to the elastic she used to pull her hair into a ponytail.

  Praying Steele and company arrived soon, she left her room at the hostel, asking directions to the nearest subway station.

  It was funny that she couldn’t remember any other mission. Didn’t remember how she felt, if she’d been scared, if she’d worried about dying or getting one of her teammates killed.

  The old P.J. had been cocky and self-assured. The new P.J. had a much better grasp of just what could go wrong, and she was certainly more in touch with her mortality and that of her teammates.

  No one was going to die if she had anything to say about it.

  She rode the subway in tense silence, wondering if Steele and her team had arrived, hoping that they’d been able to pick up the signal on the tracking devices.

  The bastards would probably frisk her pretty hard, but her hope was that if they found one of the tracking devices, they wouldn’t even bother looking for a second. And she’d purposely worn a plain T-shirt and jeans because there wasn’t a possible way to conceal anything, and she wanted Bruml
ey to think she’d complied one hundred percent with his orders.

  When her stop arrived, she got off and glanced warily around. She wasn’t entirely certain what she was looking for, but she figured the assholes would find her quick enough.

  And she was right.

  She hadn’t taken more than a few steps off the platform when she felt the barrel of a gun pressed painfully into her back.

  “Keep walking and don’t do anything stupid.”

  The accented voice was an assault to her ears. She wanted nothing more than to let loose and kick the fucker’s ass, but she controlled her rage and walked meekly in the direction he pointed her.

  She was shoved into a waiting car and ordered to lie down on the seat.

  She did as she was instructed and waited an eternity as the car drove for what seemed like forever before stopping again. She waited for the man to open the door and tell her what he wanted. She didn’t want to risk pissing him off this early in the game.

  Patience was the word for the day. Stall. Whatever it took to get Steele and the team in position.

  “Get up and don’t try anything stupid,” the man barked.

  She rose slowly, making sure her hands could be seen.

  As soon as she was out of the car, the man shoved her toward the entrance of what looked to be a damn fortress.

  She cast a quick glance behind her, taking in the wrought iron gate and high security fence, not to mention the armed guards that patrolled the perimeter.

  It wouldn’t be easy, but she had every confidence that Steele would expertly handle whatever obstacles he encountered.

  Her main focus now had to be Cole and making sure he was alive and okay.

  She stumbled up the steps, her leg protesting the strain she was putting on it. Then she exaggerated her limp as they entered the house. The weaker they assumed she was, the better opportunity she had to catch them off guard.

  She nearly groaned when he directed her to a spiral staircase that led to the next level. Noticeably grimacing, she navigated the stairwell at a snail’s pace. She didn’t have to fake the discomfort this time.