Page 110 of Mile High Ruin

“A tracking device was sewn into the lining of your bag.”

For a second, I actually wait for him to explain the joke, because the sentence is too ridiculous to belong to my life.

“Sewn into my bag?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I say.

“It transmitted during our descent,” Marek says.

The heat that had been burning through me seconds ago disappears so completely that I suddenly become aware of the cold air against my bare skin.

“You think that’s how they found the airfield.”

His silence answers before he does.

“Yes,” Vadim replies.

Anton remains focused on his tablet, although I can tell by the stillness in his shoulders that he’s listening to every word.

Vadim’s expression doesn’t change. “There, you have the entire story. Now eat.”

That does it.

I fold my arms and glare at him. “If you want to hand me over to the police, then just do it, because whatever this is would be significantly less irritating if you stopped pretending I’m a guest.”

Marek laughs. Not a polite cough or a badly concealed smile, but an actual laugh that he tries and fails to suppress behind his hand.

Anton looks down. His shoulders move once.

I turn toward them. “What exactly is so funny?”

Marek looks at Vadim first, apparently checking whether he’s allowed to answer, and when Vadim gives him nothing, he says, “Nobody is handing you over to the police.”

I frown. “Why is that funny?”

“We’re not going to the police,” he says with a smirk, as if that’s supposed to make me feel better.

“Then somebody might want to explain what’s happening, because from where I’m standing my phone vanished while I was asleep, and the man who owns this suite spent part of last night asking who paid me to get close to him, and now he’s accusing me of being part of the assassination attempt and leading his enemies right to him. And it looks like I’m being held here against my will.”

The room quiets.

Vadim sets his coffee down. “You are staying with me.”

I stare at him, certain I misunderstood. “What?”

“You’re not leaving on your own until we know who put the tracker in your bag,” he says.

“So there’s a why in it today when yesterday you had already decided it was me and decided to pass your judgment,” I say.

“I was wrong,” he says. I’m surprised at his candor, and almost taken aback for a moment, too surprised to be angry.

Then the anger catches up.

“Your solution to suspecting me is to keep me close to you?”

“Yes.”