by Maya Banks
Cole gave him his best snarl and told him to get his ass up, but in the end, P.J. was the one to get him moving quickly. She leaned over, whispered something in a low voice and suddenly the man couldn’t get out of the seat fast enough.
He and P.J. settled into their seats and Cole glanced over in question.
“What did you say that made him change his mind so quickly?”
She grinned. “I just told him that I suffered from multiple personality disorder, was deathly afraid of flying and that I had to have you sitting next to me so I didn’t have panic attacks.”
Cole chuckled. “You’re diabolical. I love that about you.”
She shrugged. “Hey, it got the job done.”
“I hate assholes who just assume you’re willing to trade for their shitty-ass seat just because they like your seat better,” Cole grumbled. “Shit like that is why I prefer flying first-class.”
The flight to London was long, and it gave Cole too much time to ponder all the reasons this was a bad idea. His gut was gnawing on him, but he was already in, and there wasn’t much he could do at this point except hope his gut was wrong.
After changing flights in London, they slept for most of the flight to Vienna. By the time they dragged their carcasses out of the airport and got into their rental car, Cole felt like he’d been rode hard and hung up wet.
“Did you email your call girl already?” he asked as they drove toward the hotel.
P.J. shook her head. “I didn’t want to risk her wanting to meet immediately and then getting spooked when it took more than twenty-four hours to arrange a hookup. After we check into the hotel, we need to go see my contact and then I’ll email her once we’re prepared.”
Cole had to admit, P.J. had her shit down. It scared the hell out of him that she had been scouring the dark holes of Vienna in search of an arms dealer by herself when he’d been half a world away going nuts worrying about her.
They checked into a hotel, and just when he would have fallen face-first onto the bed, P.J. was dragging him out the door again.
“I don’t have this guy’s number, but I know where he hangs out,” P.J. said. “I just hope we’re lucky and he can be found. We’ll take a cab. I don’t want to draw any attention by driving right up to this place.”
“What kind of place are we talking about?” Cole asked warily.
The very last thing he wanted was to go into some shit hole unarmed.
“It’s not the Ritz” was all she said as they hopped into the taxi.
She had the driver drop them off at an intersection in a part of the city that immediately raised Cole’s hackles. Hell, it was broad daylight and he was still uneasy.
They walked two blocks then ducked into an alley that smelled like it was a sewer drop. The narrow cobblestone street that fed into the alley was barely wide enough for a scooter to pass through, and the potholes were big enough to be small ponds.
Carved into stone walls that had to be centuries old was a metal door that looked like it had been the victim of police battering rams. More than once. The padlock dangled precariously from the latch.
P.J. gave three sharp knocks, and a moment later a guy who was three times Cole’s size opened the door and stuck his head out.
He had long, stringy hair that hadn’t been washed in at least a week and a jagged scar that curved the entire side of his face.
His eyes glimmered in recognition when he saw P.J., and his stance relaxed.
“I need to see Kristoff,” she said.
“I’ll see if he has time for you,” the bigger man rumbled.
“Tell him it’s important.”
Without a word the guy closed the door, leaving P.J. and Cole in the dank-smelling alley.
“This can’t be a good idea,” Cole muttered. “I was out of my mind for letting you do this.”
“Kristoff will get us what we need,” she said confidently. “Besides, he likes me.”
“Well thank God for that,” Cole said sarcastically.
A moment later, the hulk opened the door and gestured for them to come in.
The inside smelled little better than the alleyway. It was dark and smelled strongly of cigar smoke and alcohol.
P.J. forged confidently ahead and Cole followed close behind her, determined to stick close to her in case it all went to hell.
They went down a long hallway and the hulk stopped at a doorway and opened it, motioning P.J. and Cole inside. Cole breathed a sigh of relief when Hulk remained outside, shutting the door behind them.
Kristoff was sitting behind a desk, smoking a nasty-smelling cigar that made Cole want to gag.
When he saw them, he slid his feet off the desk and smiled in P.J.’s direction.
“So, what brings you back?”
“I need weapons,” P.J. said bluntly. “At least two semiautomatic rifles and two handguns. If you have something small that can easily be concealed, I need two of those too.”
Kristoff studied her intently. “I got word of the three guys you took out. Major players in Brumley’s network. Impressive. He’s got a contract out on you. Offering big bucks to the person who can bring you in. Alive or dead. He doesn’t care.”
P.J.’s gaze narrowed. “Don’t fuck me over, Kristoff.”
He laughed. “I have money. What do I need Brumley’s for? Besides, I have a lot of money riding on you taking him down first. So don’t let me down, eh?”
“About the guns,” she said impatiently.
Kristoff got up from his seat, pushed a button and the far wall revolved, revealing an entire arsenal arranged on the inside wall.
“Take your pick. We’ll talk price after you make your selections.”
P.J. strode to the wall, examined a few of the weapons and then tossed one of the rifles in Cole’s direction. He caught it and examined the M-16.
“It’ll work,” he said.
She then tossed him a handgun.
“I’m assuming these will fire,” Cole said in Kristoff’s direction.
Kristoff immediately bristled. “I sell only the finest arms. You won’t find fault with any of my stock.”
P.J. chose her own weapons then tossed another smaller pistol in Cole’s direction.
“Give us what ammo we need and we’ll be on our way,” P.J. said shortly.
Kristoff lifted an eyebrow. “We haven’t talked price yet.”
“Ten grand for the lot,” she said coolly. “Cash. American dollars.”
“Fifteen. You picked six of my best pieces.”
“You get ten or no deal.”
Cole blinked, impressed with P.J.’s calm. The woman had balls.
Kristoff looked pained for a long moment and then he sighed. “Only because I’m planning to make twice as much when you take out Brumley. But if you fail, I’m coming after you for the other five grand.”
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 physica
lly 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 the 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 b
ackup, 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.”