by Bianca Mori
Carson had the grace to look abashed.
"Get to the bottom of this, or I will be most displeased." The screen blacked out before either of them could speak. Peyton watched as his temples broke out in sweat.
"What's wrong?" she asked carefully.
"Nothing." He stood and ran his hands through his hair. "I just—I just need to get to Anja's—I got to check--"
"I'm coming with you."
"No, just—"
She grabbed his arm. "I'm fucking done with waiting. I'm coming with you." He refused to meet her eye so she took his chin firmly between thumb and forefinger. "But you need to tell me what the fuck is going on."
His eyes found hers for one briefly charged moment. "I'll tell you on the way."
Five days ago, after the disastrous argument with Peyton, Carson Varis wandered the streets of Amsterdam. The light was nearly gone, the canals murky in the gray twilight. The fake painting was tucked under his armpit, and as he walked his mind was a jumble of thoughts, a snarl of odd, disjointed statements that could not be resolved into a concrete decision.
He made a fist and slammed it against his thigh. This wasn't like him. This whole mission, from the start, had been a cock-up from the moment he laid eyes on Peyton, in that ridiculous lemon yellow bikini, on that boat to Cosa Imbah'i. His mind flashed back to the stillness of her, alternately milk white and ruddy under the sun, and he groaned as he wondered whether what bothered him about working with her were her actual methods, or how the picture in his mind suffered in comparison.
It was as though his feet led him on even before his mind was aware of the destination. The sky was fully dark by the time he stood in front of the blank, locked backdoor along a nondescript residential street in an ethnic neighborhood. He gave the rhythmic knock that revealed the small window set in the steel, and then the password.
As he entered and spotted Theo Karastis by the basement bar, the half-tangled statements in his head gave way to a clear decision, and he knew what to do.
The pretty young boy sat at the elbow of a brutish faced thug, wheedling in his halting Turkish. The thug stared into his whiskey tumbler with the coiled, tense stillness of a pissed-off gangster about to fuck up some boy band kid's face.
Carson sidled up to them. "Theo!" he cried, clapping a hand to the young man's back. "I've been looking all over for you!" He turned to the thug. "I'm very sorry for interrupting; may I pay for your drink?" Without waiting for an answer he peeled off a bill and laid it on the bar for the bartender to take. "Please, sir, another for my friend here as apologies for my interruption." The gangster eyed him balefully; drained his drink, took the new glass from the bartender, and walked away.
"Hey!" said Theo. "I was talking to him!"
"Listen, you dolt," Carson grabbed his forearm. "I have a proposition for you."
"No. Fucking. Way." Peyton stopped on the street and squeezed Carson's arm so painfully he winced. The rain started up again. "You seriously…?"
"Well, it was a fit! I told him that…that if his girlfriend helped me with this sale, I'd get him a job with the aristocracy–of course I didn't name the countess! All he needed to do was make sure the girl pushed through."
She looked at him like he had two heads. "Why on earth would you make a promise like that?"
"I felt sorry for him, all right? Or at least the girlfriend busting her ass paying off that idiot's debts."
"Carson—!"
"Not now. We need to go."
They were on Anja's street, right across the café where they had watched her for so many weeks. Carson glanced up the garret and a cloud passed over his face. Peyton followed his gaze. Anja's windows were thrown open, letting the sleety spring rains enter. There was a quick glance between them, and then they hurried into the building just as an elderly gentleman left. Past the first landing, they broke into a run.
Carson aimed a kick at Anja's door, but it was already unlocked. It swung from the blow and banged against the wall. They entered, heart hammering at the scene. The flat was turned over, ransacked. The bed had been flipped, the covers thrown off and dumped on the floor. The closets were all ajar and on the floor some items of clothing were strewn about like jetsam in a pier.
"Do you think the mob found out?" Carson shook his head, the toe of his Oxfords nudging the debris on the floor. "That Theo told them and they got to Anja?"
Something was wrong; Peyton felt it in the center of her belly like a blue flame. She walked further in the room, towards the bed.
Something caught her eye: something red and yellow wedged behind the headboard. Gingerly, with nerveless fingers and a heart that seemed to be making a play to escape her chest, she pried it out. It lay in her hands like a dead animal.
"There's a note." Carson had been standing beside her for God knew how long; she jumped when he spoke. He pulled the piece of paper from the painting's frame. He unfolded it, frowned and then handed it to her. "Does this mean anything to you?"
She took it from him with ice-cold fingers and read it aloud.
"Burn, Smiley, Burn."
She dropped to her knees; in her shock she hadn't realized Carson was keeping her up by grasping her shoulders.
It took a few moments for her to find her voice. "We need to find Theo."
Chapter 13
They searched all night. Breaking his promise, Carson took Peyton to Amsterdam's real red light district—not the sex theme park all gussied up for the tourists with live mannequins and shop windows, but the grimy, underground warrens where the women were trafficked from Moldova and the thugs had more than hashish on their minds. It was not a pleasant experience for Peyton at all.
Dawn broke as they finished the last of Theo Karastis' haunts and, with mounting reluctance, Carson took them to the peeling houseboat near the city outskirts, where he had followed the young man so many days back.
They had not even reached the moored boat when blue and red lights ghosted through the icy morning. There was a barricade, an ambulance, a couple of police cars, and a crane. And in the jaws of the crane lay the bloated, disfigured corpse that had once been handsome Theo Karastis.
Carson slipped his hand into Peyton's and gripped it tight.
"She found out," said Peyton, in a voice so rote and mechanical it chilled Carson far more effectively than this non-spring could. "She found out and she killed him."
"We don't know that, Peyton."
"I do. That note. The one we found at her flat." She took a deep, shaky breath. "Roi was the only person who ever called me Smiley, and only when he was pissed off."
"That doesn't mean —"
"Carson!" she said sharply. "Anja knew. She knew the whole project. Carson, Anja is working for Roi to take us down." Suddenly the robotic calmness broke, and her face was filled with a wild-eyed panic. "I…I have to run."
"Peyton, no!" he held her arms. "Gustave—"
She struggled free, splitting her newly healed wound. "I don't care about Gustave!"
"Don't be scared of Roi." He followed her, arms out, gentling his voice as she edged towards the water.
"You don't know him."
"Peyton, we can protect you. I will protect you."
"No, you can't," she whispered. "Gustave can kill me if he wants…if Roi is after me, that'll be the least he can do."
"Peyton, please."
"I'm sorry, Carson," she said, leaning into him and his warmth. Suddenly she bowled into him so that he was lifted off his feet in surprise, and then she turned her shoulder with the pull of gravity and flipped him so that he fell into the water.
There was a splash, and Peyton ran for her life.
Chapter 14
The man stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, which extended the length of the conference room. He stared out the view of Central London in general and the Gherkin in particular, as though he was trying his best to ignore the signed sheaf of papers arranged in precise order on the meeting table behind him. A cloud of bluish smoke wreathed his fac
e.
A door slid open, nearly soundless, and the man tugged his beard before he faced the intruder.
"Mr. Van Der Luyden," he said. His voice boomed and bristled, the studied, artificial cadence of a Great White Hunter. "I am so glad you were able to make the trip."
The pale man's colorless eyes studied the man against the window. "You didn't really leave me any choice. I take it we have an agreement?"
"Absolutely."
"Took you long enough to guarantee the price."
The man's mouth widened against his blonde beard and he gave a gallant shrug. "The markets," he said carelessly. "But that's all balderash now. What's important is I have your money. And the system?"
"If all conditions are certain," Van Der Luyden rubbed an imaginary speck from his lapel, "MR8-73610 is yours."
"Very well." A booming laugh answered him. "But that name though! Rather clinical for something so, well…exciting! Pinpoint, undetectable accuracy…why, I wonder why you would give it away?"
"Not giving," said Van Der Luyden, colorless eyes unblinking as he collected the contract. "No, not giving it away. I've perfected it, and have no use for it now. So I sell. And for the price that you are paying? You can call it whatever you want."
The man smiled as Van Der Luyden left. "I've got just the perfect name."
**THE END**
Scorched Earth
Takedown Book 3
Peyton Riley is running for her life.
She's always been a survivor, but she's never been in a pickle like this. Her boss, the man she had come to fear and respect, and the only constant in her peripatetic and dangerous life, is after her–and it doesn't seem like he intends a harmless catch-up. But he's not the only one looking for Peyton. There's her sometime partner-in-crime and occasional hook-up (it's complicated) Carson Varis. Law enforcement is also interested in her boss's shadowy business dealings, thinking she's the key to unraveling them.
And then there are those dealings themselves. What's her boss up to? Somehow, Peyton doesn't think getting back at a former employee is the worst thing on his agenda…