Page 53 of Lethal Obsession

“Working on it.”

“I’m into hotel security.” Mickey’s voice comes through my comms. “Checking cameras and exits.” He pauses, then comes back a moment later. “So far, nothing out of the ordinary, just staff.”

“Check the names,” I say grimly. “And that doesn’t mean they didn’t hide someone earlier. Get Lars’s guys to run through the earlier feeds.”

“Copy that.”

Lars’s security are all trained by me, and chosen for more than their physical capabilities. Unlike the kind of work I do in Miami, our tech enterprises require security operatives that are as dangerous on a keyboard as they are in the field. I’ve spent a lot of time training a team we can rely on for both. Lars has accused me more than once of being overly cautious, but if I learned anything from my years of captivity, it’s that the more skills a man has, the better his chances of staying alive. And that means training geeks with guns, as Roman calls them.

I scan the street. “I need eyes and ears inside that van, Lars. I need to know how many we’re dealing with.”

“Whoever is in there has high-grade shit sewn up tighter than a twink’s buttcrack. It’s going to take time to break in.” Lars sounds positively gleeful at the prospect.

And if they’re planning something, we might not have time.

“Have fun, asshole. And keep me updated. We could be on a clock here.”

“Ooh,” he says as I head for the fire escape. “Now you’re just turning me on.”

I take the stairs down to the basement parking garage, then find a pedestrian’s exit. I emerge onto the street at the rear of the hotel and take my time edging around to the front, hugging doorways and recesses as I move through the growing dawn. I pause just before the corner, sheltered behind a parked car, looking carefully around at the empty streets. The van is parked diagonally to the left of me, in a side street across the road. I can just see its rear doors from my vantage point. The street sweeper is still pretending to work on the pavement opposite the entry to the hotel.

And he’s not the only one pretending to be something he isn’t.

“That homeless guy in the doorway of the handbag place,” I murmur into my comms, “is wearing brand-new sneakers. The newspaper stand where the lady in blue is standing isn’t actually open. And the guy in the hoodie on the park bench keeps touching his ear like he’s wearing comms.”

I’m starting to get a really bad fucking feeling about this.

“If they were police,” Mickey says, “Lars would have hacked them by now.”

Fucking great.

“So they’re either intelligence,” I say, “or private contractors.”

Lars snorts. “And you said Paris would be no fun.”

“Some party,” I say, double-checking the street to make sure I haven’t missed anyone.

It’s always possible that they’re not here for me.

It could be Lars or Mickey. It could even be someone who has nothing to do with us.

And it could be Ofelia.

It wouldn’t be the first time someone has kidnapped Roman’s children in an effort to come at him. I should know, given that last time it was me who was given the job of snatching them.

Cold, sick fury trickles through me.

Don’t fucking think about it. If I think about someone taking Ofelia, about what they might do to her, I’ll lose focus altogether.

But they’re definitely here for someone.

I have no intention of being taken by whoever is in that van. I don’t want them knocking on Lars’s door. And I definitely don’t want them anywhere near Ofelia.

What I need are answers, and the easiest way to get them is by getting inside that van.

I do some quick calculations. There are three people on the ground. The van isn’t big enough to comfortably seat more than six. With a driver and equipment, that leaves two, maximum, running whatever they’ve got in the back.

Two I can take, before the driver knows what’s going on.