Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
There was no way…
“What are you talking about? The cat burglar was there?” Alexei snapped at the phone while trying to get his damn heart to slow. It wasn’t Soren.
“Yes. His name is Nick Grant, and he was supposedly at the party where Gabor Kalman unexpectedly dropped dead. The hard drive you are supposed to retrieve was stolen from Kalman that night.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Picture. Do you have a picture of him?” Alexei set the creamer aside, nearly missing the counter entirely, and snatched up his phone.
“I sent what I have about the target to your inbox. It includes one picture. It’s a bit grainy, but I believe it might be from that night.”
Alexei’s fingers were trembling as he frantically tapped and swiped at his phone. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be Soren. There was no way—
The picture was indeed grainy and heavy in shadow, but there was no missing that handsome face, the knowing smirk. It was Soren. The fucking cat burglar was Soren.
His target was the man he’d just slept with.
Fuck.
“I met him,” Alexei choked out. He cleared his throat and pushed on, not wanting Marilyn to suspect there might be a problem, because there wasn’t a problem. “I saw him. At the party. Briefly.”
“Are you taking the contract?”
Clenching his teeth, Alexei continued to glare at the picture of Soren. Could he kill this man?
Yes. Of course. Why wouldn’t he? Soren—or rather, Nick Grant—was a criminal. He’d stolen something important from an arms dealer. Why would he not take the contract and get a lovely paycheck at the end of things? He already had a leg up on the competition. He knew where Soren was staying. What did it matter that they’d slept together twice? Or that they’d had a wonderful dinner?
“Yes,” he growled. “Of course. I’ve got this one. I might even have it wrapped up today.”
“Alexei?”
“Fine. Everything is fine,” he said sharply. He did not want her worrying about him. She didn’t worry about her clients. She sent them work and collected the money. It wasn’t her job to worry about whether her clients were screwed up in the head.
Carrying the phone with him, he briskly walked from the kitchen to the bedroom, the coffee forgotten and utterly unneeded now. He was full of nervous energy and adrenaline. “I need you to dig into this damn contract holder now. It’s one thing to go after an arms dealer, but now I’m supposed to retrieve a hard drive? Something smells.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know yet. Maybe it’s Kalman’s competition, but how do we know that this isn’t CIA or MI6?” Or worse, someone from the Russian SVR, the foreign intelligence arm of the government that replaced the more well-known KGB in the late nineties. He wanted nothing to do with the Russian government or the spy ring his grandfather had run for years.
With a shiver, Alexei shook off the thought. “I want to know who this client is. I don’t want to get stuck in the middle of some government agency war because everyone is interested in what the hell is on this hard drive.”
“I’ll dig into it as quickly as I can. Do you want any details on what is on this hard drive?”
“No! Absolutely not!” Alexei immediately replied. The less he knew about the hard drive and its contents, the better. “I just want to know if I’m going to trip over some sloppy government wet works team.”
“I’ve got it. I’ll tell the client you’re on the job. Maybe see if I can convince him to put off taking the contract wide for a while.”
“Thanks, Marilyn. I’ll check in later today.”
“Happy hunting.” Marilyn ended the call and Alexei stood in his bedroom, staring at the blank phone in his hand. He was going to kill the man he’d slept with last night. The man he’d snuggled.
Fuck. This was turning out to be a really bad day.
Chapter 6
No one was after him.
He clung to that thought even as he briskly walked through the crowded Gare du Nord train station. The encounter with Angel had been a fluke. A coincidence. A wicked joke from fate to try and knock him off his game. A lark to rattle him when a somewhat simple job was already going so horribly off the rails.
No, not off the rails.
He didn’t want to think about anything going off the rails when he was about to catch a train to Brussels.
He’d missed the one that left the station shortly before six a.m. For some stupid reason, he’d opted for a taxi rather than heading down a couple of blocks and catching the metro to the train station. Cutting across the city in a taxi had taken far longer than he’d anticipated, and he’d missed the train he’d wanted. There had been one leaving for the Netherlands a short time later, but Belgium felt like a better option. It would take less than two hours to reach Brussels, and he wanted to be able to quickly return to London or Paris when the time came.