Page 69 of Her Defiant Warrior

“What are you talking about?” Bull demanded to know. He pushed his way between them.

“You need to back off, people are looking,” Jase frowned. “We can’t draw attention to ourselves. Also, you need to whisper.”

“Then you need to walk with us.”

“No,” Gideon disagreed. “We look like wealthy business executives, and you look like our security. We wouldn’t walk together. You would walk behind us.” Gideon gestured to his and Jase’s bespoke suits.

“Don’t blow this,” Jase hissed. “Amanda and Ely will have your balls.”

Bull drifted back to stand next to Rob.

“I need a tablet or a smartphone,” Gideon said to Jase. “I should be able to call up the schematics to this place, or at least get in touch with one of the other SEAL team's tech ops and they can grab them.”

Jase looked up and saw the sign to the Museum of the Future’s Heal Institute DNA library. As he remembered, it was dark with glowing strands of DNA. A perfect spot to do some pick-pocketing. He just wished that Jonas was around. This was so much more his area of expertise.

Jase lifted his chin, and Gideon followed him into an elevator to the correct level. They were soon ensconced in another world. If he wasn’t on a mission to find somebody’s backpack or purse, he’d find the whole place fascinating.

“I can’t believe he did that. You need to kick him to the curb!” Everybody was staring at the young girl on the phone.

“Fuck him. He doesn’t deserve your time. Your vajajay is worth diamonds, not cubic zirconia. He doesn’t get entry with something that doesn’t cut glass. Are you hearing me, Tiffany?”

She paused for just a moment to take a breath, and Jase saw his target. A young man with a Crimson Tide logo on his backpack was standing there with his mouth and backpack open, listening to the girl in disbelief. Jase needed a tablet that was in English, hopefully without facial recognition, to get into it.

“I don’t care if he has muscles to die for. He probably takes steroids and has a needle dick. I’m talking pinkie size. He’s going to have to give you a big-assed diamond to make up for it.”

Just as Jace was plucking the tablet out of the young man’s backpack, a security guard came up to the rude girl and the conversation about genitalia ended. Gideon’s eyes were glowing with amusement when he got back to him.

“Let’s move,” Jase said. “Do you need light?”

“Nope. Need to do this where nobody will interrupt me.”

“Vault of Life, here we come.” Jase guided them to another elevator. Rob and Bull barely made it on with them.

“Where did you get that?” Rob asked.

“It was a birthday present,” Jase said. “Omari has always wanted a tablet.”

“Do not listen to him,” Gideon said in a subservient tone. “I must have this to determine the new schematics of the building. Much has changed since I was here. We must move fast, yes?”

Rob looked suspicious, but Bull nodded. “Good thinking.”

Jase bit back another sarcastic comment. He needed to remember he was subservient as well.

They stepped out of the elevator and were once again in another world. The vast room was dark, except for the thousands of elevated neon specimen jars showing all the different species of life.

Gideon ignored the spectacle and looked for a wall that he could sit against and peruse the internet or get ahold of his counterparts on one or all of the SEAL teams in the United States. Jase noticed that even Bull and Robb were looking up at the jars. They were as entranced as the other visitors.

Jase wandered far away from Gideon, wanting the two goons to follow him, so that Gideon could do his thing. He knew damn good and well that he wouldn’t just be conferring about the schematics of the place, he’d be informing Kostya of everything that was going down. He knew his lieutenant; he’d find a way to get hold of Braxton without blowing his cover and figure out what was going on with the C-4.

As for the assassination or kidnapping, Gideon and Jase had a good chance of taking this down, but more help was always appreciated. What’s more, they needed to find out who was behind this fifty million dollar hit.

* * *

“Did you get to the switchgears?” Ely asked.

Ryker looked like he was going to puke again, and Spider looked happy. Apparently, he had been working over their teammate some more.

“They got there, boss,” Rob answered.