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Gunner didn’t understand her reaction any more than he could Razor’s or Doc’s. The only person whose actions seemed logical was Shiv’s. He had no idea what would happen with the op now, except he wouldn’t be a part of it.
“Come inside now,” said Doc to both him and Raketa. When Gunner stood, she wrapped her arms around him.
They walked through the front door and followed Doc back into the bedroom they’d been in before.
No one spoke as Raketa lay on the bed and Doc prepped the area under her arm. As a physician’s assistant, he had the experience to remove the device that had likely been planted very close to the surface of her skin. He motioned Gunner to the other side of the bed where he showed him the tiny scar that looked like she might’ve cut herself shaving. It was healed to the point where it would’ve been difficult to see unless someone was looking for it.
Gunner held Raketa’s hand and closed his eyes as Doc made the slight cut and removed the microscopic device. He used tiny forceps to set it on a sterile pad. In the next few minutes, Eighty-eight would dismantle it under a microscope and look for clues that would lead them to whoever made it.
The rage he’d felt earlier rolled inside of him, and he did his best to tamp it down. Even if Petrov, or whoever had done this to her, were standing in front of him, he couldn’t lose control the way he had again.
“It’ll sting for a little while,” Doc said when Eighty-eight took the device and closed the door behind him.
“Thank you,” Raketa said to him, acting as though the pain didn’t phase her.
Doc left the room too, and they were alone.
“I didn’t trust him either,” she murmured. “I was sure he was working for UR.”
“Pimm?”
Raketa nodded.
What he’d accused Pimm of doing was planting a device in her clothing. That alone had sent him into a rage. But that hadn’t been true, which meant the person who had implanted it in her body was still out there. Soon they’d know the device had been removed. What woul
d happen then?
As if on cue, the burner phone vibrated. Both he and Raketa looked at the screen when she pulled it out of her pocket. It wasn’t a text; it was another call.
20
Raketa answered without speaking. The voice was modulated, like it had been before.
“You have killed your mother, your sisters, your boyfriend, and yourself. Stupid, stupid girl. I can no longer protect you.”
Gunner’s look of shock mirrored her own when the call disconnected.
“Protect me? It has to be Petrov.”
“What makes you so certain?” Gunner asked.
“The last time I saw him, he said something similar. ‘You’re here for your own protection.’”
Gunner nodded, but he didn’t look convinced.
“Talk to me,” she said, using the words he said to her so often.
“Why would he say you’ve killed your mother, et cetera? Wouldn’t that warn you away?”
“He also called me ‘girl.’”
“Is that significant?”
“I was in his office, telling him about Topor walking into the apartment where they kept me, whenever he felt like it. When I hesitated, he called me ‘girl.’”
Gunner still didn’t look convinced, and the more she told him, the less she believed it herself.
“What should we do?”
