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“… possible security breach. Orders are to put the charter on hold. The choppers too,” one mansaid.
“They’re ready to land.” The second man spoke in English accented with Italian. Or was itFrench?
“I don’t give the orders,” the first mansaid.
The second man cursed in Italian. “He’s a drunk. Why don’t they clear him out and be done withit?”
“You know how they’ve been lately. Protocols were ramped up after the breach in Dubai. They’re beingcareful.”
… put the charter on hold. The chopperstoo.
They’re ready toland…
Julia balled her fists at her side, resisting the urge to plunge them into the wall against her back. Had Ronan’s distraction served the purpose of preventing Elise and the other women from being brought to theparty?
She looked around the room, taking in the desk against the window and thinking about the other doors lining the second floorhallway.
She looked at her watch, forcing herself to focus. She couldn’t afford to be emotional. Not when Elise was out there, still counting on Julia to findher.
It had been eight minutes since Ronan started picking a fight with the guards. Technically she only had two minutes before they were supposed to meet, but there was no way she was going to call the mission a loss because Elise wasn’t in thebuilding.
The guards had moved toward the stairs, their voices evaporating as they stepped into thestairwell.
She turned the knob, closing the door with a quiet click, and moved deeper into theroom.
She would move as quickly as she could. Ronan would find a way to wait forher.
She knew hewould.
19
Ronan couldn’t lookat his watch but an instinctual clock in his head ticked down the time as he punched and kicked the guards, taking a few hits along the way to draw out thefight.
He was surprised they hadn’t pulled a weapon on him yet. He could only assume they were hesitant to take the fight to the extreme in front of theguests.
He’d been gratified to see additional guards entering the large foyer, lining the periphery of the area, waiting to be called into action. With any luck they’d left other parts of the house unguarded, making it easier for Julia to get toElise.
He figured he had roughly two minutes before Julia would be at one of their predetermined meetingspots.
He looked at the two guards circling him. Blood dripped from the nose of the tall, skinny one. The meaty one was breathinghard.
He could kill two minutes noproblem.
20
She foundwhat she was looking for in the third room she tried. By then she wasn’t surprised. In spite of its untraceable ownership, the villa obviously wasn’t some generic meeting place forManifest.
Someone lived here — or stayed here at least some of thetime.
The realization had only teased the back of her mind when she’d been on the first floor — the desk in the room she’d used to access the staircase a giveaway that the room might be someone’s workspace.
But when she’d gotten to the second floor, it had become obvious. There was another desk in the first room, and while there hadn’t been any photographs or overtly personal artifacts, there had been evidence that the desk was used on a regular basis — pens, paper clips, a half-empty pack of breath mints, two cigars, a goldlighter.
She hadn’t found anything of note in the desk, but the possibility that the villa was used for more than parties gave her hope and she’d moved through the next room as quickly as possible, all too aware of the ticking clock, the fact that Ronan would be heading to one of their meetingplaces.
She’d just opened the top drawer of a sideboard that seemed to act as a bar in the third room when an alarm pealed though thehouse.
It took her a few seconds to realize that’s what the sound — a low, rhythmic squeal — was. It could only mean one thing: Ronan was on the loose downstairs, which meant the place would be on lockdown as they tried to find him, and quite possibly as they tried to find her, since she’d arrived on his arm and was now conspicuouslyabsent.
