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The two of them should check into rehab with the money.
Berlin nodded. “I’ll call you again in the future if I need help. You guys are good.” He tried to look sincere. “No one else I trust more than I trust the two of you.”
Phoenix leaned one arm on the back of the couch. “Shame about Miami.”
Berlin drew on more sincerity for that one. “I gotta go do a thing, yeah? You guys know what you’re doing later?”
They both nodded.
“Good. Don’t worry, okay. And don’t go in my room.”
He grabbed the Subaru keys and drove across town to a brand-new top-of-the-line laundromat. Close to a few new apartment complexes. He’d have to think about getting a condo or something in Calgary—once he got there.
Something legit, unlike this place that was a front for an Estonian family with ties to a crime lord in their home country. The wife’s uncle.
He headed in the front door, hood up and sunglasses on, walked up to the counter, and laid down the ticket stub. “Picking up an order.”
The clerk looked at the stub, then waved over his shoulder. “Second on the right.”
Berlin checked no one watched, then headed through the swinging door to the back hall. The sign above would make anyone think he’d asked where the bathroom was.
He knocked on the second door, then let himself in.
The man behind the desk wore a polyester suit and far too many gold rings. He had more hair on his hands than on the top of his head. The wife—or girlfriend, or whatever this one was—sat at a desk to the right. Tiny, leggy, and blonde. She barely spoke English.
Christoph grinned because Berlin paid him so much, why wouldn’t he be happy? “I have your papers.” He hauled himself out of the chair and slid the file cabinet open. Two pieces of paper. Birth certificate, high school graduation. Out of a wall safe he pulled a driver’s license for British Columbia and a Canadian passport.
Berlin felt a spark of excitement set alight in him.
Christoph had done it.So I don’t need him anymore.
Berlin pulled the gun from the back of his belt and shot the Estonian in the chest, then head. He spun around and shot the woman in her face even while she screamed.
She was moving when the round hit her, so he had to fire another. She spun with the force of it, clipped the desk going down, and made a mess on the carpet.
Berlin swiped up the papers, passport, and license, then took the stack of cash from the wall safe and used a backpack on a hook to stuff it all inside. He strode the opposite way down the hall, to the rear exit. Hit the bar. Jogged down the pavement.
Ditched the car.
He ran two miles before he felt the urge to pat the pocket that should contain the diamonds but didn’t.
I’ll kill you.
Only one more thing to do.
TWENTY-FOUR
Clare shifted in the front seat of her car, one of the generic ones Vanguard kept so operatives could drive something unassuming that couldn’t be traced back to them. She made a fist and rubbed it on the leg of her running pants, shorts over leggings.
The evening held a chill. Mares’ wife wasn’t supposed to be here for two hours, but it wasn’t like she’d never sat and waited for someone to show.
Her mind wanted to run the highlight reel of the last day of Kara’s life, but she refused to allow her mistakes to eclipse everything. The way Kara’s blood had pooled on the sand. Hot and sticky. No matter how much Clare had tried, her friend didn’t make it.
Mission success.
When they’d given up so much in casualties? Clare hadn’t been able to stomach labeling that mission a win even if they’d brought the target home. The faith she’d had in the military died that day. She’d walked away from the army, realizing she’d tried having faith in the guy she loved. In the future they were supposed to have—the life they created.
That hadn’t worked.
