Page 65 of Lay It Bare

Rei looked up from the webpage he was reading. Lisa was gesturing at the TVs. A group of men at the lobby level were going into the stairs instead of taking the elevator. They didn’t look like service personnel. Rei grabbed the controls and replayed the tape back a few moments.

That wasn’t a key they’d used to get into the staircase, those were lock picks. A few more men were getting into the elevator. They had an air to them. A sort of expectant body language.

Rei scanned the rest of the feeds for the staircase. He could see the entrance to Richard Reevesworth’s condo, both front and back. No one was approaching yet. The security Reevesworth kept at all times was still standing guard.

Rei grabbed his phone, dialing his master.

The phone rang. And rang. It went to voicemail. The men were still climbing the stairs. “Master’s not answering.”

Lisa started to stand. “They may have taken him already. Get in the bedroom, now.” His voice brooked no disobedience. Rei started to his feet. On the screen, some of the men were still climbing the staircase but others were getting off the elevator on floor eight.

Their floor.

Lisa reached into the cushions of the couch, pulling out a collapsible steel baton and a gun.

“No guns,” Rei hissed.

Lisa raised his eyebrows.

“Even if you beat them, you’ll die in custody,” Rei spat. “No police.”

Lisa growled between his teeth. “My job is to keep you alive.”

“Like the Merchari will keep me alive either.”

Lisa’s lips curled back in anger. “Knives. Now.” He headed towards the front door. “We kill them inside.”

Rei raced for the kitchen, his fingers finding the third number on his phone.

A voice answered almost immediately. “Vast.”

Rei opened the drawer with the cooking knives. There were only two. Most of Sevastyan’s gear was locked away. But the key to the safe in the bedroom was right there beside the knives, one of Sevastyan’s habits. If he needed a weapon, he might need it before he got the safe open. So he kept them together.

“Four men are in the service stairwell approaching the flat where you are,” Rei spat. He handed Lisa the knives and darted into the bedroom with the key. “Two more on floor eight, about to enter unit two. There might be more.”

“Who is speaking?” Ellisandre’s voice came through. At least it sounded like they were walking.

“No one,” Rei said. “I’m no one. Don’t let them have Jun.”

In the bedroom, he dropped the phone without hanging up and jammed the key into the safe. Out in the living room, the door buzzed and clicked. Rei’s breath quickened. The safe clicked open and he grabbed an army knife. The sheath was still over the blade.

“There you are,” a voice called from the living room. “Come out. Now.”

It didn’t sound like Lisa was fighting. If the men were Merchari, which they almost certainly were, they’d be looking for Rei. Almost everyone who knew of Sevastyan knew of his slave.

Rei slid the knife down the back of his pants and stepped out of the bedroom, dropping to his knees into the slave pose that was required, hands on his thighs, eyes down. From the edges of his peripheral vision, he saw Lisa was kneeling similarly. It didn’t seem like they’d touched him yet.

“Nice setup. Looks like the Rus has everything figured out.”

Rei kept himself perfectly still.

“Secure the slaves first,” a second man muttered. “Geez, you’d think this was your first day on the job.”

“Look at them. They know we’re Merchari. It’s their heads if they fight back,” the first man said. “We can just walk them out of here. You’re the one who doesn’t know what you’re talking about.” The man snapped his fingers.

Rei raised his head, looking in the man’s general direction but not meeting his gaze. A few meters away, Lisa did the same.

The man who had clicked his fingers laughed. “See. Puppets. These are high-class bitches. They brainwash them so they don’t even think of disobeying.”