With an amount of composure Josh found chilling, Kadjic said, “Whoareyou?Were you sent to infiltrate my operation?”
The baffled silence from Grace’s comm was actually reassuring.It meant Grace had some measure of control over what he said next.
“I’m a narcissistic kleptomaniac,” Grace said, as though schooling someone.“With diagnosed ADHD and undiagnosed borderline personality disorder.Have you not been paying attention?I couldn’t infiltrate a box full of dead frogs!”
“Oh, Grace,” Josh murmured, not sure if his friend would hear him or not.“You are my brother and my best friend and a hurricane with a good heart.I let you down, is all.I should have researched the frogs.”
“I should have known,” Stirling said in his ear.“And Molly blames herself, because she was crushing on some guy and wasn’t paying attention to us that night.We were all a team.”
Before Josh could pass that on, Kadjic snapped—ostensibly to his driver—“Wait, are we at the Decin parking lot?”
“Da.”What followed was a flurry of Russian too quick for Josh’s ears, but Stirling had apparently tuned into Josh’s comms because he murmured, “He’s asking which slip the yacht is in, and how far away they are from it.”
“Where are we?”Josh asked.Tentatively he stretched his body, hoping he could move past the weakness that had gotten him in here and the stiffness that had set in while he’d been curled up in this confined space.Josh had always been much like Grace—unafflicted with either fear of heights or small spaces, but he thought this particular small space might give him nightmares after this.There was no padding in a trunk, and while there was light from the rear lights, it was tinted nightmare red and yellow.The carpet was rough under his cheek, and the surface was hard and unyielding—he could feel bruises forming on his hip from his position.
“You’re in the upper parking lot of Decin,” Stirling said, sounding stressed.“Tell Grace to be ready to help you out.There’s an exchange going on.”
“Awhat?”Josh asked, but at that moment the car stopped and shit got real.
“A WHAT?”LEONdemanded as he helped the last terrified, abused child—theywerechildren, most under sixteen, fuck the monsters who did this to them—into the yacht he’d rented for the occasion.Leon paid very well, and the captain of the ship had instructions to pilot to Hamburg the minute the gangplank was withdrawn.At home, Julia was in charge of fundraising for a number of overseas aid groups, one for missing and exploited children in particular.It had enabled her to recruit volunteers, and the yacht—which was going to be a bit crowded, although not nearly as badly as the one they’d just come from—was full of people armed with blankets, food, clothing, and most importantly, the language skills and diplomatic ties to get these children home.
“An exchange, sir,” Michael said, with such earnestness that Leon felt compelled to keep from laying into the younger man with all of the frustration in his soul.
The cofferdam and the long vinyl hallway attached to it required constant monitoring and pumping—pumping the air in and the water out so the young women could emerge under the slip and, thus covered, make the short swim to the ladder that took them to the rescue yacht’s gangplank.Securing the equipment, installing it, and maintaining it had all fallen under Michael’s wheelhouse, and given that he’d had about six hours to gather everything so he, Chuck, and Hunter could start the work under the yacht, he’d proven invaluable.
Leon could not—would not—dishonor that work by screaming at him like a drunken sailor.
“What, pray tell, are they exchanging?”Normally, they were all mic’d—but normally, on a job this size, there would be two people on comms.Leon had opted out.He’d be speaking in multiple languages to multiple people, and who needed somebody in your ear at a time like that?So hearing that Danny was going out to meet theone goddamned personthat they had all worked so hard to keep him away from was not only a surprise, it was a gut punch to all of their hard work.
And Leon hadpromisedJulia he’d keep her family safe.
He was new to this game—but he loved it.He loved the dedication to righting wrongs, the acceptance that humans were flawed, and the fact that the family looked eagerly for redemption at every chance.
But more than that, he loved the people.His brother’s child, Josh, was as brilliant and as principled as Matteo had been—a shining celestial being.But hopefully Josh would have more time to shine than Matteo’d had.Leon would give his life—his soul—to see that happened.
And Julia….Dear God, she was transcendent.Not merely beautiful—although her beauty left him blind to all else in the world—but as brilliant as her son.As principled.She’d admitted to him once that, unlike Felix, her pedigree was real.She’d graduated from Vassar at nineteen, and when he’d professed admiration, she’d waved it off.“I had nothing to do but study, Leon—it was part of grooming me to be a trophy wife.”
Any man who listened to her speak, saw the wickedness of her wit or the deft competence of her compassion, and thought of her as a “trophy wife” didn’t deserve a wife, much less a trophy.
And that afternoon, as she’d readied for her part to play, she’d called him up and reminded him once again of his one promise to her.
To take care of the family that had cared so beautifully for her and her son.
He had one goddamned job to do, and Danny was proposing awhat?
Literally, as the kids would say,whatin thefucking hell?
Michael stared at him as he tried to put all this into words and then backtracked.In two minutes, Michael had spilled it all.Grace’s abduction, Josh hiding in the back of Kadjic’s town car, Danny’s plan for scuttling the ship, which came with the corollary of getting their own ship thefuckout of the slip before that happened, and, oh, hey, Danny exchanging himself for Grace and Josh before—or was it during or after?—the explosion.
“An excha—” Michael started, but Leon didn’t stay to listen.With a few terse words to the volunteer next to him, he warned her to pull the gangplank as soon as he left, since the last two girls had confirmed that Molly was behind them.With that, he abandoned his post at the hatch, hauling ass down the dock with Michael trotting after him.
In a few terse sentences he told the captain to pull out and head for Hamburgimmediately,because the ship in the dock next to his was about to be scuttled.
Then he hung up and—feeling a twinge of sympathy for a sopping wet Molly, who had just cleared the cofferdam tunnel herself and was climbing onto the dock instead of the ship as she’d expected to—barked, “Come on!”to the two of them.Then Leon shoved his phone away and grabbed the keys to the SUV some of them had taken to the dock that night.Lucius, who had been serving as a lookout near the front of the yacht, joined them as they ran.
“Where are we going?”Michael panted.
“I’m going to the exchange,” Leon told him.“You said the upper parking lot?”
