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“Yes, of course.” She gives me the shirt and heads to the far wall, plucking a key from a hook with an expertise that makes me wonder how many other women she’s seen in this room. She returns, grabs one of the weird sex stools, climbs it, and undoes the latch on the handcuffs for me. “Now you’ll be quiet so I can work?”
I clutch my wrist to my chest once it’s free. I feel like crying again, but it won’t serve any purpose. “I’ll be quiet. You’re Naomi?”
She blinks at me, steps down off the stool, and then shrugs. “Most of the time. Sometimes I’m the Emperor.”
I tug the sleep shirt over my head. It’s a Mickey Mouse shirt, and I’m trying not to be weirded out by something so clean and childish in this bizarre place. It feels good to be wearing something. “The Emperor? That’s not another hacker? You’re the hacker?”
“I’m the hacker,” she agrees, and her gaze skids to the door again, as if she doesn’t like to look at me. “But I can’t hack anything if it’s not quiet.”
“Sorry,” I say and wring my hands. I’m feeling shaky and fragile, but excited all at once. “Daniel sent me,” I murmur in a low voice. “He’s here to come get you.”
“Oh no,” she says. Anxiety flickers across her face. Her hands go back to the brim of her cap. “Oh no. That’s not good. He can’t be here.”
“Wait, why can’t he be here? You want to stay?” I’m shocked.
Naomi looks at me then shakes her head, gaze skidding away again. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I want to leave. But he can’t be here. It’s dangerous.”
I bite my lip. “I don’t have any way of telling him not to come. I had a GPS tracker, but they took it with my clothes.”
She nods absently and pulls at my sleeve. “We’ll figure something out. Come with me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DANIEL
Letting Regan go back to Hudson is about the worst thing I have ever done. Petrovich and Mendoza literally sit on me to keep me from dragging Gomes out and punching him until his face is raw, tenderized meat. Kind of like what’s between his legs right now.
“It’s time.” Petrovich hands me a cheap pair of black pants, a white shirt, and a vest. These are our uniforms. The GPS Regan has will alert us to her location and hopefully that will reveal my sister. Petrovich is still working out where his hacker will be. He thinks basement. I don’t really give two shits.
“Do I tape my gun to the bottom of the tray?”
“No weapons,” Mendoza reminds me. Only Hudson’s carefully vetted guards are allowed weapons. Even those in the kitchen are screened due to their placement near knives and heavy objects, but I guess the waitstaff is not. At some point, Petrovich and I will have to disarm two guards, take their weapons, and find Regan.
Getting inside Hudson’s compound is ridiculously easy if you have no weapons and are dressed like staff. Mendoza has done it before; at the time he was unwilling to level the place to find his lost girl. But I guess it ate at him, and now we’ve tipped him over the edge. That and we’re the ones taking all the risks.
“You eat this shit?” Petrovich asks, sniffing at the squares of raw tuna speared by a toothpick.
“We can’t all live on borscht,” I mock, picking up my own tray. “Let’s do one circle, meet back here and then decide on our targets.”
He nods and—with one more disgusted sniff—walks out.
Petrovich and I as waiters is a foolish disguise. I can already see the Hudson men eyeing us with suspicion. If it were just me, perhaps it wouldn’t be an issue, but Petrovich is a bear of a man with a dour expression—like Nick. Humorless.
Inside, I count eight Hudson men stationed at the corners of the room and two at each entrance. Their weapons aren’t visible, but their watchful eyes and careful poses set them apart from the party guests. The guards at the back of the room are being the least attentive; their eyes are wandering all over the barely clad bodies of the female party favors. Hudson’s idea of party is a two-to-one ratio of prostitutes to men. My guess is that several of the “guests” are actually businessmen, although I see the familiar haircuts of military folk as well. Money, booze, and lack of control over one’s dick are the downfall of many careers.
“The men at the back,” I inform Petrovich when we meet in the expediting room, where all the trays of food are delivered from the kitchen.
He nods. “There are four outside. First take out the two by the French doors. I will provide the distraction.”
I pick up my tray and head toward the back of the main party room. The French doors are open, and there is a near-constant stream of people moving toward the back where the pool is. Women are getting naked and drawing the crowd out. It’s easy enough to come up behind the guard on the right. Even easier to jab the discarded cocktail fork I’ve appropriated from a nearby table into his neck. He falls backward, but his descent goes unnoticed when Petrovich’s loud voice yells, “Bomb. There’s a pipe bomb.”
