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Whatsoever.
But yeah, there was a lot of internal monologuing going on as he shifted out of his cubicle and walked off for the stairs. He knew the guard down at the other end wouldn’t question the departure—just like there had been no problems with his late arrival after check-in. They were used to him coming and going on his own, courtesy of his work with the Executioner.
Pulling open the fire door, he was quick-footed as he descended to the lowest level—
Lucan stopped. Sniffed the air.
Incense . . . and Kane?
Nadya, the nurse, must have come up here, he thought as he started again with the jogging.
Bottoming out at the base of the stairs, he glanced back at where he’d come from, peering through the latticework of the balustrade’s supports. When he didn’t see or hear anything, he strode off toward the clinic. The hall seemed like it went on forever, and as soon as he came up to the storage room’s door, he opened it wide and looked down the row to Rio’s bed—
It was empty, with the sheets, such as they were, messy . . . as if she’d gotten up in a hurry. As his heart slammed into his ribs, he leaned back and looked out into the hallway.
Of course. The bathroom.
Telling himself to get a grip, he went across to the closed door. The scent of the soap she’d used lingered in the air, but it was faded—and he was relieved he couldn’t catch any sniff of her. They’d managed to camouflage her successfully.
With an excitement that was totally inappropriate, he put his ear right to the panel. It was cold against his face.
And got colder when he could hear nothing on the far side.
He knocked. “Rio?” he said softly.
There was no response.
Glancing up and down the corridor, the prison camp seemed really fucking dangerous all of a sudden.
Like the last however many decades had been a party?
“Rio?” More with knocking. “Rio. Answer me or I’m coming in.”
He shoved at the door with his shoulder—and got a big ol’ fat nothing as it opened wide. She wasn’t in there.
Lucan raced back to the clinic and walked directly down to the bed she’d been in. Bending low, he looked under the mattress. The gun was gone.
“Sonofabitch—”
“Lucan?”
His head whipped to the drapery hanging around Kane’s bed. “You okay?”
Not that there was anything he could do to help the guy if he wasn’t—for so many reasons. But mostly because he had to find Rio.
“Lucan . . .”
If it had been anyone else, he would have fucked them off. Except just as the Executioner had discovered, and Lucan knew all too well, the aristocrat was someone he couldn’t help but take into account. Even if it was just going to be briefly. Like it had to be at the moment.
Going over to the draping, he yanked it back—and turned his face away for a second. Every time he saw the male, it was a fresh horror.
“Hey,” he said, “I’m dealing with something, but later I can—”
“She is with Apex,” came the frail interruption. “Your female.”
“What.”
Lying on the floor of the workroom, Rio tracked the guard or whatever the hell he was as he progressed down to the dumbwaiter. Clearly, he knew something was out of place, but then again, she couldn’t have left a bigger clue if she’d gone neon with a Las Vegas arrow flashing at the damn thing.
Glancing behind herself, she measured the drug bundles in their cage—and discovered that the load was on a platform with wheels.
That just so happened to have the same amount of clearance as a car.
With as little movement as possible, she flattened herself onto her stomach and pulled herself forward using her bare palms and her knees. As she closed in on the undercarriage, she tilted her head to the side, and prayed—prayed—that she didn’t jostle the cage or—
“It’s some kind of—I don’t know what the fuck it is. It’s like a box in the wall. No, it wasn’t like that before. No shit, I’m not going up there—”
The words stopped short, but she couldn’t tell whether it was because the man had noticed her or just been interrupted by whoever he’d called.
When boots started stomping in her direction, she feared it was the former.
Staring out from underneath the cage’s platform, she tried not to breathe at all as a set of military-grade footwear come down to the bin—and stopped right in front of where she was hiding.
“Do you think I can’t smell you, human?”
There were a series of grunts and her cover was moved off to the side, rolled clear away. As it revealed her, Rio wondered what kind of lead shower would fall on her head if she pulled a pivot-and-trigger. But considering that was her only chance—
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a little red dot skating across the floor—and as it went out of her field of vision, she’d have bet both her eyeteeth that the laser sight was pegging her in the back of the skull.
