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There was absolutely no reason for anyone to be outside her door at midnight like this.
She remembered the look on Mason’s face today when she’d questioned his artifact acquisitions for the store, followed by his gross, harassing text message.
He was a wealthy man who expected to get away with everything he did. He had little reason to fear real trouble for buying looted artifacts as long as all the transactions went through the auction house. The onus was on the house to confirm provenance.
Was Gardner angry enough to come after her?
There was a soft click as the knob to her apartment door turned. The dead bolt was engaged, so the door didn’t open, but if they could pick the doorknob lock, they could probably get past the dead bolt.
She grabbed her phone from the counter and typed a message in the empty box.
Help
She hit Send, then yanked up the kitchen window. She climbed out, standing on the roof of the apartment below hers. She was about to close the window, but her apartment door opened.
She moved away from the open window. It was freezing, with a biting wind, and she wore only thin flannel pajamas. No shoes or socks.
She was on the third-floor roof. There was no fire escape on this side of the building. It wouldn’t take them but a second to find her with the open window. She rounded the corner and tucked against the wall.
She texted Rand again.
Please. It’s Kira. They broke in. I’m on the r
Steps sounded around the corner. She hit Send, then dropped the phone. It slid down the slight incline and caught on something before it could drop into the gutter.
Please, Rand. See my message.
In the end, she never even saw a face. The man wore a ski mask. It was the only thing that registered before she went lights out.
Chapter Sixty
Rand was on his way out the door before the second message landed. “They’re splitting the team monitoring Diana,” Ian said.
“I don’t give a fuck.”
“Neither do I. I was just clarifying the situation.”
Chris had gone to Diana’s apartment, making a show of the fact they weren’t together for anyone watching over her place. Freya would stay in the compound, going over the data Kira had sent just before her urgent texts to Rand.
The Raptor compound was at least thirty minutes from Kira’s apartment. “You call the police,” he told Ian. “I’ll drive.”
For the second time in eight hours, Rand drove like a madman through the DC metro area. They arrived at Kira’s minutes before the local police arrived. It was a busy night for crime in the city, apparently.
Rand was on the roof and had just spotted her phone when the police finally showed up. He pointed the phone out to the cop and stepped back to let the official investigation begin.
He chafed at having to follow the rules, but doubted they’d get anything from the cell phone anyway. He had the time stamps on the texts he’d received. They knew exactly when she’d been taken.
And he sure as hell bet he knew who was behind her abduction.
Diana had never even heard of Kira Hanson until Freya had mentioned the woman hours ago, and now she’d been taken hostage.
Because of her.
She knew the game the Gardners and Rafiq were playing. They’d hoped to use fear of extradition to get to her, but the State Department paused on making an extradition decision while the bombing was investigated. It was only a matter of time before the fact that Rafiq was alive would be made public. At this point, Diana could hide indefinitely, which would give the feds all the time in the world to gather intel on the Gardners’ dealings with Rafiq.
But they’d taken Kira Hanson, and that changed everything.
She knew they were trying to draw Diana out. Prevent her from hiding and waiting out the investigation.
