by Michele Hauf
Buckling up, he then slicked back a few stray hairs from his brow. “Did you corroborate my story?”
The question didn’t surprise me at all. The man was no idiot.
“You know I did. Fitch checked into the Faction and the princess. But there was nothing more on you.”
Sacha shrugged. “What more do you need to know?”
Other than that he liked seals and had a stone fetish, along with mild OCD?
He was right. I knew everything pertinent. He had one goal, and that was to obtain the information the princess had on her attacker. It wasn’t as if he were a knight in white armor looking to rescue the damsel. No. He wanted her for his own reasons. Valid reasons.
And the few questions that did jump to mind—Why seals? What the hell was in that chloroform? Do you have a girlfriend? You want to do it again?—would never be voiced in this proximity.
“Where do you think she is?” I asked, putting out feelers in this muddle. “Your princess.”
“Not sure.” Sacha wiped the dashboard of more dangerous microdust. “But you know, I was thinking just now.”
I lifted a sly brow, but didn’t comment.
“Now, I don’t really need her. Drive north.”
I shifted into Drive and pulled out of the parking lot. “Why don’t you need her?”
“The princess has become superfluous,” he explained. “I’ve just learned some interesting information about my hired driver. If you know a single thing about the Network, you probably know tons more than she does.”
“I know nothing, only that—” Did I want to give the man the information? Well, it wasn’t exactly pertinent. “I only know that I was part of a bigger network of organized criminals. Was being the key word. Max is dead, and now I’m living the hard way.”
“That your story?”
“And I’m sticking to it.” Traffic was light, so I rolled through the Stop sign and headed north. “You wouldn’t actually abandon the princess if I did have information that could help you?”
He shrugged. The action stabbed at me. Maybe he wasn’t as nice a guy as I had begun to think.
“You still need her to identify your sister. You’re hoping the assassin will not be her.”
“Right.”
“But if we don’t find her, no skin off your back, eh?”
Another shrug. Well, it wasn’t a quick agreement. Maybe he did have a conscience.
My conscience was doing mad gyrations. If she’s out there, you have to get the princess, it yelled. And I had to agree. My initial destination must be altered. I wanted to find Max’s murderer—and I was so close—but right now, there was an innocent woman in far greater need of my interference.
Could I sacrifice my own needs for that of another? Had I ever done it before?
You’re looking to avenge Max; that’s a sacrifice. Of a sort.
“Take the next road,” he said as I neared an intersection. “It’ll place us on a country road.”
“Where are we headed?”
“Can your Fitch locate the Faction with her fancy gadgets?”
“Maybe. You think she can pinpoint where they’re hiding the princess? Damn! Why am I buying into this story?”
“Because you trust me.”
“Did you threaten Fitch?”
“I did. I sent Thom and Jacques in to play thug. But I would have never allowed them to cut her. Promise.”
“That your story?” I wondered.
“And I’m sticking to it. How much do you know about Eight? Did he cozy up to you? Did he…?”
“He did not.” Though I had considered it. Oh! That I had even been falling for the man’s dimples and charm. Is a little hot chocolate all it took to seduce me and bring me over to the dark side? “And it’s none of your business if he and I had.” Besides, I was already on the dark side. Couldn’t get much darker unless there was an eclipse.
“I’d be jealous.”
I fisted the steering wheel. “You can’t be jealous of someone who despises you!”
“Still? Haven’t you at least forgiven me for abandoning you, now that you know I came right back that morning? I had chocolate pastries.”
So he would play the pastry card, eh?
And if I’d known he was running an errand, I would have remained between the crisp sex-scented sheets a while longer. I admit it! I’d fallen that night. Not in love, but maybe in like. But now that I knew better, this girl was not going to succumb.
Not even to big-eyed seals.
“I’m undecided,” I finally said.
“I’ll take that over not forgiving. I can’t pin the Faction’s location,” Sacha said. “If I could, I’d go in there and take them out myself. Unfortunately, both the Faction and I need you. And if they need you, then sooner or later, they’ll get to you, and then I’ll have my chance.”
“So I’m bait?”
I eyed the black Mercedes in the rearview mirror. It tailed me. Where had that come from? Certainly not McDonald’s. And driving on a gravel road headed out of the city? Wasn’t the sort of car one took for a Sunday drive in the country. They weren’t close enough to allow me to see the faces. The Faction? Had Kevin gotten a fix on my location? I hadn’t called him back since we’d left Paris. I’d intended to, until the details started piecing themselves together.
“If I say you’re bait, then I’ve notched another mark against me.”
So he wasn’t denying it. And had I really expected anything more?
“Listen, buddy, you’ve got a long climb out of the negative column before you start scoring points. Why even bother?”
I sensed Sacha leaned across the center console, but my sight remained divided between the road before me and the Mercedes behind me. The silk fabric of his sleeve brushed my hip.
His words were clear and deep, and they hit me like a bell. “Because for one night you gave me freedom from the darkness of the world I’ve become.”
I swallowed and concentrated on the tail in the rearview mirror. Because to even think on that last statement might soften my resolve. He wasn’t playing fairly. The darkness of his world? Where did he get that crap?
And yet, my mind flashed back to that blissfully breathless moment after we’d made love for hours. Both of us exhausted, he nestled close to me, his forehead to my breast and his lips teasing my nipple. He’d said something like, “I’d like to lie by you forever. You make me happy. Haven’t been happy for a long time.”
And I’d thought it was the first time in a while that I’d truly felt happiness, as well.
It had to be the Faction behind us. It was possible to track me using GPS and the cell phone. Fitch did it all the time.
“What are you going to do about them?”
I flashed a look to Sacha, seeing that exhausted lover who’d fallen asleep with my nipple in his mouth. He had sighted the tail.
“Turn me over? Was that the plan?” he wondered. “You draw me out of the city, away from my safety net, and then the Faction pounces?”
I sucked in my lower lip and bit softly. “You expected a Sunday drive in the park?”
He nodded and stared down at his hands, clasped loosely in his lap. “I guess we’re both bait, eh?”
Yeah, but could I make the leap and trust him?
I wasn’t really sure anymore who had done what, where and why. Trust had been taken out of the equation. Instincts were all that mattered. “And instincts made me pull over to the side of the road where an old rest stop had grown over with weeds.
The Mercedes rolled to a gentle stop about six car lengths behind us.
“Sorry,” I murmured, surprising myself I’d even said it. But I had, and I meant it.
Stick to the plan. If the Faction was dirty, I’d deal with that when it came. I didn’t need Sacha to find the princess.
“They’ll take you into custody and turn you over to the authorities. If you’re innocent, you’ve nothing to worry about. I don’t want any trouble, Vital.”
&nbs
p; “You’re going to kiss me off so easily?” He tapped the steel briefcase handle between his legs. “And here I thought we had a thing.”
“A thing?” Yeah, like sex-exhausted mornings in a big comfy bed. “The only thing we have between us is that…gun! Where’d you get that?”
He wielded a .38 mm. “Had it in my case. Put it in my pocket in the restroom. You should have frisked me again. Didn’t Max teach you that? Shouldn’t that be getaway-car-driver Rule Number One?”
“Rule Number One is don’t talk to the driver.”
“Oops.” He made a zipping motion across his mouth with two pressed fingers.
Arsehole.
Over a megaphone, a voice crossed the short distance. I pressed the window button to lower it three inches.
“Send Vital out with his hands up.”
I looked to the man in the passenger seat. He scored points for being handsome, charming, and a damn good lover. The gun wasn’t aimed at me; he had laid it casually across his lap. And he wasn’t talking.
I wasn’t so sure anymore if he really did kill Max. He had no alibi beyond shopping for orange juice and pastries. But he’d intended to kidnap the princess and had almost taken her in hand before the Faction busted that plot. It had been Sacha’s men who brought the princess to Paris from Spain.
And yet, everything he’d given me thus far had been the truth.
Okay, so I had a quibble about handing him over to the Faction. But just a little one. I was in this for Max. And don’t forget it.
Time to get this monkey off my back.
“Ready?” I asked.
Sacha turned the gun handle toward me, an effortless surrender. The quibble grew a little larger. I took it, but didn’t hold it on him; instead, I laid it on the center console, barrel facing his leg. He leaned forward and slid the briefcase onto his lap.
“What now?”
“There’s something I have inside here I think you’ll want to see.”
“What, you carry your last will and testament around with you? I’m not responsible—”
“How quickly you teeter from one side to the next, Jamie. Maybe I was wrong about you.” His jaw pulsed as he punched in the digital combination. “I thought we’d connected that night, but I was a fool. It was just sex. Just…whatever. Time to prove to you, once and for all, how bloodless the Faction is.”
“What are you doing?”
In the backseat, a cell phone let out a jingle. I twisted and retrieved it, and clicked on. “This is Five,” the voice said.
“Tell them to keep their panties on,” Sacha hissed.
“Give us a moment,” I said to Five.
Sacha opened the briefcase and drew out a few papers, then deposited them on the floor by his feet. Just scattered them. Quite out of character for OCD Boy.
“You’ve got thirty seconds,” the unfamiliar voice said. It wasn’t Kevin, which bothered me for reasons I couldn’t touch. He was probably heading the operation from a remote location—but still.
The cavalry was already here. Of course, depending on which side you stood, the cavalry could be either a relief or a very bad thing.
Unsure what Sacha was up to, I snapped, “If you’re waiting for a goodbye kiss—”
I choked at sight of what was revealed beneath the felt board in the briefcase.
Sacha lifted the board and set it on the floor. Below, a series of what looked like explosive devices—wired together and measuring about one foot by two feet—were lifted with care. I’d never seen explosives before, but trust me, the first time you lay eyes on them, you’ll know down to your quivering toes exactly what it is.
Sacha looked to me and winked.
“You insane bastard.”
“It’s insurance,” he said. “But you watch. I don’t think this party is going to end the way you think it should.”
Chapter 18
“Hold off,” I said as calmly as possible, speaking to Five.
Would a loud noise set the explosives off? Doubtful. But it was a visceral reaction to still myself and speak softly.
“Do not fire. We have a complication.”
Sounded as if I were talking to Houston. We have a problem…
“No complications,” Five returned. Shouldn’t Houston be a little more amiable? “Vital walks in ten seconds, or we open fire.”
“No!” I jerked open the door and jumped out. I’m a reactor, remember? It may not have been the wisest move, but I still held a morsel of faith in Kevin.
Abandoning the phone on the seat, I raised my hands near my shoulders and splaying out my palms, I shouted, “He’s wired with explosives! Do not open fire!”
Behind the dark, tinted windows, the big German machine didn’t make a sound, a silent predator I knew could match my BMW kilometer for kilometer. Utter silence filled the seconds. Time that hurt like a mother.
I searched the windows for signs of movement. Sunlight beamed through the moon roof, casting a haze across the driver’s side but allowing me to see through the dark tint. The driver remained motionless, one wrist propped on top of the steering wheel, his sunglasses focused on my car.
“Why are you doing this?” I hissed out of the corner of my mouth to Sacha, but kept my hands high and even offered a weak smile in the direction of the Mercedes.
“My sister is in trouble,” Sacha stated plainly. The weariness of the world tainted his deep voice. Right now, I knew the feeling. “And I’m not ready to die. At least not until I’ve found her.”
“They aren’t going to kill you. The Faction is—” I had no clue anymore whether or not the Faction was bloodless. Who was I but a middleman who never got the details and should have broken that rule years ago.
“We’ll see. Get back in the car, Jamie.”
“No—” Just because he called me by my first name didn’t mean I had to like him anymore.
He held explosives!
It’s not Vital. But I can’t say whether it’s the Faction or the Network; that information just isn’t out there.
Dove’s answer. And yet, I had needed to test Sacha. And right now, he was receiving a failing mark.
“This scenario is unacceptable,” a voice echoed out from the Mercedes. “Ten seconds. Nine…”
My standing here wasn’t doing any good. Dropping my hands, I slid into the driver’s seat, turning off the phone and tossing it in the back.
This needed to end, right here, right now.
“Get out, Vital.” I needed to be a part of the solution, instead of just reacting. “You may not have killed Max, but that doesn’t make you any less dangerous. If you give me info on your sister, I’ll do what I can.”
“No time. Don’t you trust your Faction? Do you think they’d be so stupid to open fire with all the explosives I’ve got in hand? It would rocket the entire car into flames, killing their target—me. As well, such a move would destroy the driver.”
“Five…” echoed out behind us.
They would not open fire. We just watch. The continuing countdown rattled what little concentration I could find. Would Kevin allow them to take me out, too?
The first ping of a bullet to the Bimmer’s hood worked like an electric shock to my system. They were going to take out Vital. And they didn’t care about collateral damage. Maybe I was also on that hit list, but I’d just been too stubborn to believe it.
I believed now. Hot chocolate and dimples. I was such a sucker.
Shifting into gear and turning off traction control, I slammed the door shut just as a bullet skimmed the outer left quarter panel.
“Shit!”
I pulled forward and to the right, then cranked the wheel left and put the hammer down. The car spun. Sacha now faced the Mercedes. I revved, voicing my anxiety with the engine. And then I floored it.
The gravel road made traction difficult, but the Bimmer gripped the loose surface as if she had a death wish. She performed a perfect one-eighty, which I then pushed to a three-sixty. Dirt and dust plumed about us
in a tornado. I headed into another doughnut.
Another bullet pinged some part of the car, but I couldn’t guess which part. Nor would I take the time. My third spin stirred the dust so high I couldn’t see the Mercedes or the road.
“What the hell are you doing, Jamie?”
“It’s called diversion,” I shouted back. “Hang on!”
Instincts told me to spin out now. Hitting the gas, I sped toward the freeway, leaving in my wake, a choking cloud of brown dust. Thrash time. I wouldn’t step on the brake now if you held a gun to my head.
The Mercedes did not immediately follow. Dorothy wasn’t in Kansas anymore. A big bad ground storm tornadoed all about the gravel road.
“Impressive,” Sacha said. He carefully rolled the explosives on his lap into a thick column. “But they’re on us now.”
“Just keep your mouth shut, Vital. That was one of the rules, remember? I’m the driver. I call the shots.”
“And you always know what’s right.”
I wouldn’t dignify that one with a response. Another punch to his jaw is what he deserved. But I’d refrain from the call to aggression until I could get clear of the tail.
“Hang on! I’m gonna put your tonsils up in your mouth!”
Shifting smoothly, the Bimmer climbed beyond one hundred kilometers per hour. I wasn’t familiar with this road, and I hadn’t seen a single car pass in the time we had parked. We were headed away from the suburbs and into stark countryside.
The car gripped and pulled. Just as reactive as myself, but smooth and without a conscience. And what a joy to be without a conscience. Been there, done that. Time to get a clue.
Okay, so I’d gotten said clue. Now to make it work after all I’d done to mess things up.
The Mercedes gained. I stepped up the speed. These windows were not bulletproof. One hit to the passenger side was all it would take to ignite the getaway car like a Bastille Day sparkler.
Sacha, meanwhile, rolled down his window.
I pressed the window control button, stopping the passenger window halfway. “Idiot! What are you doing? You’re worse than a kid! Keep hands and fingers inside the moving vehicle!”
