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Anyhow, back to a problem that was more up my alley, and easier to solve too. Namely, how to get the kid out of the apartment. Aside from that one day with the fire alarm, we hadn’t seen him outside. What kind of existence was that for a child?
The baby monitor had given us certain useful pieces of information, such as the fact that there were two guards on duty inside the apartment whenever Kaylin was home alone. There appeared to be a security office off the foyer, but when Kaylin carried the monitor around, we saw the men in the kitchen, in the living room, even in the nursery. She didn’t seem comfortable near them.
When Cesare was home, the two upstairs guards left, confirming that they weren’t there to keep intruders out; they were there to keep Kaylin in. A man stayed in the downstairs lobby twenty-four-seven.
Another fun snippet: when Kaylin went to the Starlight Lounge, Cesare rarely accompanied her. He preferred to stay home. Did he look after his son? Oh, no, he’d hired a babysitter for that, although she didn’t spend much time with the kid either. No, she was too busy sucking Cesare’s cock and, on one memorable evening, riding him like a low-budget cowgirl. Ana had watched the show from the roof of the building next door. When Matteo began crying, Cesare just muted him. Father of the year, right there.
So, we had a logistical challenge.
Option one involved sneaking past the guard in the lobby, incapacitating the two guards in the penthouse, and getting Kaylin, Matteo, and Cricket out of the building before anyone raised merry hell. Issues? The fire door that led to the street was alarmed, and the parking garage was monitored by cameras. We could attempt to bypass them, but following the sprinkler malfunction, several residents had kicked up a fuss, and the maintenance company was running regular system checks in an attempt to placate them. The alarms were tested every Thursday afternoon, which added a spanner to the works if we wanted to go with option two.
Option two was similar to option one, except we’d create a distraction at the Starlight Lounge and pick Kaylin up there. We’d have two fewer guards to take out at Belgravia Place, but we’d still have to deal with Cesare and the babysitter.
Option three was a variant of option two, but we’d wait for an evening when Cesare went to the cabaret or, better still, somewhere else, and left Matteo alone with the babysitter. But we might be waiting a long time, seeing as Cesare seemed quite taken with the girl’s oral abilities. His dynamic with Kaylin was very different. More of a master/slave relationship.
Option four would be riskier, both for us and for Kaylin. That would involve more force—storming the building and silencing anyone who got in our way. I wanted to avoid that if possible.
Sofia was studying the building’s schematics. “What if we put something in the water?”
“Wouldn’t work. I bet most of the folks who live in Belgravia Place only drink the bottled stuff.”
“From the wilds of Scotland with the cap screwed on by a genuine mermaid,” Sky added.
“And then flown three thousand miles to be served by a regular maid who gets paid a couple of bucks an hour.”
“Okay, what about gassing them?” Fia suggested.
“Takes too long. Someone would call 911 while they were woozy.”
“Is that a bad thing? We could dress up as EMTs. Nobody’s gonna question a first responder on an emergency call.”
“Where would we get an ambulance?” Sky asked.
Dasha paused before she bit into a maki roll. “Easy. You just call 911 and they send one for you to borrow.”
I knew she was kidding—it was a reference to the day we’d tangled with a group of terrorists who’d done exactly that. But her delivery was deadpan, and deep down, I suspected that Dasha in her pre-Blackwood days might well have made the call. Her morals were even shakier than mine.
Sky fixed her with a hard gaze. It was like an antelope trying to stare down a lion.
“Are you serious?”
Dasha gave me a sideways glance. “No.”
Then she bit into her maki roll and half the filling fell out. When I laughed, the glance turned into a glare, but the conversation had sparked a thought. Getting into the apartment would be our biggest challenge. We’d considered having Ferdinand work his magic on one of us—probably Dasha because she was the tallest—but the dog was a sticking point. Even if Dasha could pass a cursory inspection by the concierge and the guard, Cricket would know she wasn’t Kaylin, and little dogs could be every bit as protective of their homes as bigger ones. Plus the kid might sense there was something wrong. I mean, I’d be upset if Dasha picked me up, so I couldn’t blame him, but a chorus of crying and barking wasn’t conducive to a stealthy escape.
We needed a more subtle approach.
And now I had a new idea. One that would require teamwork and audacity, but which also had the potential to sow confusion in the aftermath.
“Hey, what do you think of this plan…?”
23
DASHA
It was a reasonable plan. I could grudgingly admit it. And different from the jobs I used to do, but in a good way. The General had been focused on speed and budget—get in, do the job, and get out, all as cheaply as possible—but Emmy placed a greater emphasis on doing the job well. If that took slightly longer, then so be it, although I knew from experience that her people could move fast when they needed to. Blackwood’s Special Projects team catered to the luxury end of the market, a master tailor versus fast fashion.
Plus she took a refreshing approach to staff well-being. The guys with guns weren’t our biggest enemy, she said. Burnout was. If we enjoyed our work—not the actual assassination parts, clearly—then we’d be able to do it for longer. People over profits, that was her approach, although I imagined she was charging Nico handsomely for our services. A team of eighteen didn’t come cheap.
