He wasn’t proud of crying out then, and he was really not proud of the fact that, as soon as the car slid into first gear, Grace had leapt on top of him and yanked the trunk shut on top of them.
And Josh was back in the dark once more, with Stirling in his ear and a furious Grace on top of him.
And neither of them were able to speak above a whisper, because oh fuck, Kadjichad Danny,and if Kadjic had them as well, it was like having a scalpel to Danny’s balls.They were leverage, and they both knew enough about the game to know that leverage over somebody was all you needed to bring them to their knees.
In the town car, the battle raged on, with Kadjic throwing swords and Danny dodging them and parrying with stilettos.
“You are looking older, Daniel,” Kadjic purred smoothly after what had been a weighted silence.“Too old to be a—what was your word?Boy toy?”
“You only need to fear age when you have nothing to show for it, Andres.I’m not anybody’s toy—haven’t been since you tried to gut me in Morocco.How haveyougrown emotionally in the last eleven years?”
“My empire has grown by leaps and bounds,” Kadjic defended, but there was an anger in his voice, a clumsiness that belied his belief in himself.Dannyhadgrown—and Kadjic had no idea how much.But Kadjic was still the same street bully Danny had defied way back then.
“Has it?”Danny asked smoothly.“Has it?This wasn’t your first shipment lost in the last two months, I hear.How’s things coming out of the Middle East?Still up to your eyeballs in opium?What about South America?How’s the cocaine flowing these days, Andrejevic?That used to be your favorite product—still the same?”
“You could not possibly…,” Kadjic said, dismissing him but at the same time, Josh could tell, believing him.
Danny chuckled.“You’ll never know, will you.I could get all of that information from creditable news sources, like I heard about the Rembrandt in the Louvre—”
“That wasyou!”Kadjic charged.
Danny chuckled again.“You think?I’ve got witnesses that say I was somewhere else completely that day.”
“Where?”Kadjic demanded.
“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know,” Danny said.“But it doesn’t matter.Because I wasn’t at the Louvre.Nor in the Middle East or Colombia—”
“Stuttgart?”Kadjic demanded suspiciously.“That tiara in England?”
“No,” Danny said.“But it’s been so gracious of you to allow me free rent in your head.Have you really been chasing me around Europe, hoping to find me with my hand in the till?”
“Are you telling me you’ve been out of the game for the last eleven years?”Kadjic sneered.“You dried out and gave up thieving?”
“Good God, no,” Danny snorted.He paused.“I’m just telling you that you’re imagining things, Andrejevic.Your empire is crumbling around you, and you are blaming an old boyfriend who hasn’t thought about you in years.”
“You lie!”
Josh and Grace both gasped softly, because they could feel the shifting in the car and knew something violent had happened.
When Danny spoke next, his voice was muffled—much as Josh’s was—so probably through blood.“Of course you’re right,” Danny admitted.“I thought about you just the other day.I made an appointment with a plastic surgeon to get my scars removed.”
The next sound was definitely a blow, and Grace whimpered softly in Josh’s ear.
At the same time, Stirling—who had been so silent, Josh had wondered if Kadjic’s men had run a jammer on the car—spoke up.
“You guys still there?”
“Yes,” they both said, and then Grace bumped Josh with his nose, indicating Josh should be the one who spoke.
“Good,” Stirling said.“We’re still tracking you.I keep expecting somebody to jam our signal, but apparently Kadjic’s busy freaking out, so, well done.”
“Danny’s keeping him busy,” Josh whispered.
“Kadjic hasn’t checked for an earwig, but I think it got turned off.”The first time Kadjic had hit him, probably.Danny would leave it off then, and reactivate it when he had reason.
“Where even are we?”Josh asked, because that had been bothering him as the air got colder.
“You’re about half an hour from a little village called Ceský Krumlov—it’s supposed to be charming, but I don’t think Kadjic is heading there.”
