AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t need any other evidence. It’s really fucking obvious.”
“Random muggings happen all the time. Especially to someone who looks like a helpless tourist.” Jordy glanced at me. “No offense.”
“There’s no way this was fu—” Harrison stopped himself. “There’s no way this wasfreakingrandom. Archer, back me up, here. You’re the cautious one.”
Archer was hanging up his phone. He turned to the rest of us with a determined look in his eyes.
“None of this matters, because I just got a phone call. Kadyrovic wants to take a tour of the city on our helicopter tomorrow.” He nodded. “It’s go time.”
34
Jordy
As soon as I found out what had happened, a switch flipped in my head. I went into protective mode, making sure Kaylee was okay—and then Trish. Both of them were shaken up by the maybe-mugging, but otherwise seemed fine.
Then I started thinking about what I wanted to do to the guy who attacked her. There was probably security footage from the shops in the market; I could go through all of them until I saw the guy. The Baku police were notoriously corrupt, so a few well-placed bribes would get us all the other security footage in the city. We could track this guy down. We could find him.
And then I would beat him to within an inch of his life.
It shocked me how protective I felt of Trish. I had always been that way with Kaylee, of course. There was no comparison to the way a father felt about his little girl. But Trish was a close second, even though I had only known her a scarce month.
We have something special,I thought while reassuring her on the couch.And it’s more than just physical.
What would we do when we got home?
That was a problem for later. I stored it away in my mental filing cabinet. It was time to focus on the mission. No more distractions.
“Forget the mission,” Harrison said. “We should leave the city. Tonight.”
Archer gave a start. “After all this, you want to pack up and go home?”
“Yup. This feels like a trap.”
Archer laughed. I laughed with him.
“What are the odds?” Harrison insisted. “We’ve been waiting for this Chechen jerk to book a tour. And he just so happens to do it mere hours after Trish and Kaylee are attacked? It’s too coincidental.”
“Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence,” Archer said. “I do not think the two events are related.”
“If Kadyrovic knew something was up,” I said, “wouldn’t he get spooked? Why would he step right into the trap?”
Harrison gritted his teeth. “I don’t know. But I don’t like it. The whole thing stinks. I can feel it in my bones.”
“We’ll take extra precautions tomorrow,” Archer said. “I’ll take a weapon with me on the helicopter. We’ll hire someone to escort the girls to the airport.”
The girls. I didn’t know why, but I liked the sound of that. Our little mercenary family.
“And if anything looks suspicious tomorrow,” Archer finished, “we’ll call the whole thing off. But until then, we go forward with the plan. There’s too much money on the line. We don’t want to abandon the contract and hurt our standing with the Mathos Company.”
It was that last part that got through to Harrison. If we ditched a contract this late, it would make the entire mercenary company look bad. We might get blackballed from future contracts. Or worse, they might drop us entirely.
“I don’t like it,” Harrison repeated.
“I dislike a lot of aspects of my job,” Archer agreed, “but I still do them. Focus on tomorrow’s extraction.” He clapped the big man on the shoulder. “It will go smoothly, Harrison. I promise.”
He let out a grunt of disapproval.
We ordered room service for dinner. Harrison and I collected it from the hallway; the bellhop who had made the delivery was standing all the way at the end by the elevators, and he gave a polite wave and a bow. When we were back inside, Harrison removed the lids off the trays and sniffed the food suspiciously. But after a few test bites, he relaxed.
