CHAPTER 37
“Jane,” Nick whispered. “Don’t answer. Don’t look through the peephole. They’ll see the change in the light. Pick up your bag and walk to my office. There’s a door to the panic room there. Be as quiet as you can in those shoes.”
Nick wanted to monitor the video just to watch Jane enter the panic room. He wanted to see for himself that she was safe, but Geo’s grip on his arm was persuasive. “Let’s go,” he told the hit man.
Rothgar tossed Geo a couple of earpieces, which he caught neatly as he passed through the door, and Nick vaguely heard him say that he’d have the entire team on call.
He followed Geo to the garage, still talking to Jane. “I’m coming straight there. I’m coming to get you. You go into the panic room and you lock up and you stay silent. Turn off your ringer.”
“Nick, how bad is this?” she whispered. He kept her on the phone, kept talking to her in a soft murmur, gave her the combination, listened to her enter a room he’d never had to use once in all his time in the gray area.
And now Jane had to use it, and he’d put her in this situation. He told her to switch on the video cams from inside the panic room—he’d have done anything to have those same cams in his own sights.
But he didn’t have the video, couldn’t see her face, and couldn’t see how scared she was beyond that calm, cool voice she always used.
“I’m on my way. Try to stay calm.” Nick ground his teeth. Jane was supposed to be safe at Ally’s, and he was supposed to be making the Sokolov problem go away. Yet somehow the stakes were higher than ever, and time was suddenly running out.
“So, they’ve come to kill you, but they might just find me,” Jane said so evenly, so calmly he knew she was covering. “This is it? This is the real deal?”
“What’s real is that I’m coming to get you, and I’m ending this thing with Sokolov once and for all.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, a slight shake in her voice.
Kill or be killed. “You know why I wanted you to stay away, now, right? Just to be sure, while this thing was coming to a head. You know that’s the reason. The only reason in the world that would make me want to set you apart from me.”
A sound like a sob or a laugh came through. “I didn’t know. I hoped, oh, god, I hoped it was something stupid like this. But I didn’t know. And I had to protect myself. Oh, Nick, the things I said, and the way I said them . . . if something happens to you . . . now I’m stuck in this box, and I need to explain, but I’m supposed to be quiet, and explaining what I said versus how I feel will take so many words . . .”
Nick gently shushed her and then said quietly, “It doesn’t matter. There will be time. We’re almost home, Jane. But in case you really believed all that shit about airplanes, just know that I don’t buy it. You’re that one star I’ve been waiting for. Whether you’re ‘just Jane’ or my partner on a mission, there’s nothing ordinary about you.”
She didn’t answer. Nick got nervous as Geo drove them into the parking garage beneath Nick’s building. His buddy parked in somebody else’s spot just in case there was a bomb trigger in Nick’s.
“You still with me?” Nick whispered, juggling the phone against his face while he holstered the weapon Geo offered him.
“Still with you,” Jane answered back.
“Can you hear me?” Rothgar asked, courtesy of the earpiece in Nick’s ear.
“Yup,” Nick said softly.
“Ditto,” Geo said. He adjusted a rifle on his back as a complement to the two guns strapped to his thighs. If anybody was looking on the elevator camera, it would be obvious they weren’t showing up for a tea party. A nonlethal punch to the back of the doorman’s head eliminated the potential for awkward questions.
The door to the penthouse was cracked open when they got there. The lights were out. Nothing illuminated the apartment except for the faint contribution of city lights coming through his huge window walls and the neon glow of the fish tank.
Geo slipped night vision goggles over his eyes; Nick was stuck waiting for his vision to adjust.
Then they both just listened. It seemed completely silent. Until Nick heard it, the faint gurgle of slightly labored breathing. Sokolov came himself, Nick thought. Thinking of how close the Russian had been to stumbling into Jane made him shiver.
Geo finished canvassing the apartment. He held up two fingers. Sokolov and . . . ?
Geo mouthed, “Tristan.”
Nick nodded. But, dammit, Tristan, what made you turn?
Geo signaled that he was going toward the breathing; Nick signaled that he was going toward Jane.
Nick crept forward, secure in the knowledge that Geo was too good at his job to get confused and accidentally shoot him at some point. He hadn’t gone two steps before the sound of someone pounding brutally on a wall or a door came straight at him from the direction of his office—and the panic room. “I know you went in there, Nick!”
First thought: Tristan. Second thought: Idiot.
Nick waited several additional seconds in silence before taking a chance on moving again. He crept toward the office door, stopping abruptly when his phone vibrated at his hip.
Jane, texting: I think they put something on door. Idk what.
Oh, but Nick knew what it was.
“Nick, most of your cams are dead,” Rothgar said softly into Nick’s earpiece.
“Understood,” Nick breathed more than said. Leading with his gun, he popped around the doorjamb into his office and then back again. His chest heaving, he processed the block of explosive wrapped with duct tape and a digital remote; the blinking red light didn’t show a countdown, but it was making a thin tink tink tink sound. “Where’s Tristan?” Nick whispered into the mic.
“Mine,” Geo said in a voice that was as gentle and deadly as anything Nick had ever heard in his life. Okay, so Tristan wasn’t in the office. And given that Sokolov wasn’t breathing nearby, neither was he. Unless there was a third party in here somewhere, the office was clear.
“Need Flynn,” Nick said. “Panic room. Jane’s in there.”
“He’s already on his way,” Rothgar said. “There’s a reason I never hired Tristan.”
Get under the desk, Nick texted Jane.
Are you okay? she texted back.
Nick shook his head, unable to suppress a bittersweet smile. I’m fine. I can see the door from here; I’m right with you, Jane.
What’s on the door? she texted.
God, it was tempting to give that explosive a go, but it wasn’t his specialty, and if he nicked the wrong wire—
“Wait!” Tristan screamed in a high-pitched voice. “I’ll give back the twenty mil. I sw—”
Nick stared into the darkness, stunned, but couldn’t bring himself to leave Jane. Within a few seconds, it was apparent that he didn’t need to exact personal revenge for Tristan stealing the money and lying about it.
A strange sound reverberated through the otherwise silent apartment. More of a zing than a boom. Geo’s silencer? Shit, maybe Sokolov’s. One down, but if Tristan set the bomb and someone offed him, they needed Flynn more than ever. Maybe he should have more sympathy for a fellow merc down, but maybe the fucker was lying on the explosives trigger.
Or maybe Sokolov had the trigger.
WHAT’S ON DOOR? Jane texted.
Nick fingers felt slippery on his phone as he stared down at Jane going all caps on him. Hang tight, he finally answered.
Just then, Flynn’s voice came over the earpiece: “In like Flynn,” he whispered.
“Watch your step,” Geo murmured, ducking into the office and startling the piss out of Nick. “Still one to go. And I want to double-check there’s no third party in the shadows.”
“They don’t know it’s not me in there. They maybe heard someone go in, know a panic room when they see one. But they don’t know it’s Jane,” Nick hissed, trying not to lose his shit over Jane being stuck inside with a bomb on the door. “If Sokolov fucking blows up Jane thinking it’s me, I’m gonna . . .”
Geo raised his black leather–clad palm, digits in the air, and he slowly closed his fingers into a fist. Nick nodded. Okay. Shit. Of course. Yeah, he’d stay calm. He’d stay quiet. He’d do anything as long as they got Jane out of this mess in one piece.
Flynn slipped quietly in, looked at Nick and Geo with a frown, muttered, “Sitting ducks. Let the pro take over,” and took a knee. He pulled the massive visor sitting on his forehead down so his head was completely covered and opened up his jacket to reveal a vest that held an array of clippers, tools, wiring, adhesive, and more.
“He’s got this,” Geo mouthed. He gestured to the gun in Nick’s hand. Go time. They were finally down to it. No more talking. No more joking. No more dodging. Just survival. And more than at any other time in his life, Nick had something to live for.
Rothgar tuned back in. “Three brothers, tight quarters. Be sure before you shoot.”
“Sokolov?” Nick mouthed.
Geo hesitated, then sent Nick to the front of the apartment while he crept off to the back. And within two steps, Nick heard him. Sokolov’s watery breath. “Nikolai,” the Russian purred. “You run, I chase. Like cat toy. Is all. Remember?”
Nick felt that same fury from the day he’d entered Sokolov’s game. But this time, he buried it far down inside, way underneath his love for Jane, and began to walk the perimeter of the circular foyer, in a wide ring, still in the shadows just beyond the neon glow from the tank. All he needed was one shot.
Sokolov’s inhale was lost in the bubbling sound of the tank’s oxygen pump, so he’d lost his advantage. But after stalking each other for the longest minute of his life, Nick got a break. Sokolov’s size did him in. He bumped a piece of furniture; Nick recognized the sound as the rocking of the side table’s uneven feet thirty degrees to the right of where he was standing. Nick stopped moving and let Sokolov proceed. The man moved slowly. Taking one small step only every so often. But eventually, one foot in front of the other, the Russian would step into the clear.
Nick adjusted his stance, pointed his weapon, and waited for his shot.
He thought of Flynn hunched over the blinking box. He imagined Jane’s face, under the desk, behind the door, as the tiny wire cutters went snip . . . snip . . . .
In front of him, the oxygen tank blew bubbles. Above the waterline, over the top of the rim, the massive Russian moved forward until Nick had an elbow, now part of his gut . . .
He secured his grip.
“Nikolai!” Sokolov bellowed, throwing his body into range and unloading a full cartridge of ammo in Nick’s direction.
It seemed like the gunfire would never end, even as Nick shot back, controlled, methodical, and deadly.
And when he was out of bullets, angry shouts filled the aftermath. The air was thick with Russian and English curse words getting buried by the sound of something exploding.
Jane. Flynn and Jane. “No!” Nick yelled into the dark chaos. Glass was flying all around, water gushing onto the floor, pouring into Nick’s shoes, disorienting him. A loose hose from the fish tank jerked and swayed, shooting water into the air.
Through the debris, Nick could see Sokolov floundering on the slippery floor where thick dark mixed with gushing water.
The lights went on. Geo’s voice, Rothgar’s voice, Flynn’s voice mixing together in his ear.
The Russian was still waving a muzzle in the air, pointing at Nick. But when he pulled the trigger, nothing but a dull clicking sound came out.
And when Nick caught his breath and looked a little closer, Sokolov’s arm just fell gently back to his chest, and the Russian’s body stilled.
Nick reached down and grabbed Sokolov’s gun and turned toward his office, absolute terror flooding into his bloodstream as the glass began to settle. But Flynn was right there. He was right there, stowing his wire snippers, gently prying the box off the wall, and placing it into a secured carrier.
Nick blinked, trying to comprehend that his friend was still there and the door was still there, which meant that . . .
Jane was still there.
The bomb hadn’t gone off . . . the fish tank. The fish tank, shot up by a shit ton of rounds. Shattering.
Flynn poked his head through the door; Nick couldn’t hear what he said. There was something wrong with his hearing.
“Jane,” he said, feeling like his whole future hinged on this moment. Feeling like he was about to find out if he had a future.
Flynn pulled his head back out and froze when he saw Nick. It looked like he mouthed, “Holy shit,” and then asked if there were any more targets. Nick shook his head and watched Flynn’s body relax.
He stared at the open door, wondering why Jane wasn’t coming out. Beyond the ringing in his ears, Nick heard Flynn say, “She won’t come out. Asked for you, though.”
Nick took a deep breath and entered the panic room. Jane was still huddled under the desk and he couldn’t see her face.
Nick bent down. “Jane?” he whispered. She was staring at the wall. Nick closed his eyes. She’d found her limit. And if he walked her past the dead Russian bleeding out all over his foyer in a pool of tank water, she was going to her Nana’s, and she was never looking back. My star. “Jane, I’ll get someone to take you home. I don’t even know how to say I’m sorry for getting you into this mess.”
Jane looked over her shoulder in surprise, and she looked nothing at all like he’d worried about. She was paler than usual, her green eyes looked wide, and her lip was bleeding a little where she’d obviously bitten down. But she wasn’t in distress. “I just wanted to finish this for you,” she said. And then she climbed out from under the desk, holding out her hand for a lift up.
Nick had never felt relief like this. In one moment thinking he’d lost everything and then . . . she was reaching out for him. He pulled her to his feet, soaking in her tremulous smile, and then he looked over her shoulder under the desk.
She’d drawn on his wall at floor level. A tiny, intricate mural done in pencil of a garden in moonlight, stars in the sky and all.
“Jane,” he said hoarsely, clutching her in his arms.
“I think you’d better kiss me already, Nick. Because I’m about to cry. Or something. I’m not sure.”
Nick kissed her then. A crazy, swashbuckling, dipped-back kiss that went on and on and on. He pulled away only to take a breath, setting Jane back on her feet. She let out a whoosh of air but wouldn’t disengage her arms from around his neck.
“Better?” he asked, touching the tip of her nose with his.
Jane made a show of thinking about it and then said, “Almost.”
Nick grinned and tilted his head, his gaze on that lush mouth of hers . . .
Someone cleared a throat behind him. Chase. “Rothgar and I finished a sweep of the house. You’re clear except for the, uh, mess in the front. And, be ready. Because it’s a mess.” His brow was furrowed.
“What’s behind your back?” Jane said suspiciously, dropping her arms from around Nick’s neck.
“I’m really glad you’re okay,” Chase said, a weird look on his face. “No hard feelings, right?”
“I tend not to hold a grudge against the cavalry that’s just saved my ass. No hard feelings,” Jane said with a smile. “So, what’s behind your back?”
Chase winced and slowly pulled out a gallon-size plastic zipper bag, which he held in his meaty fist. To Nick he said, “It’s all I could save. I’m really sorry, man.”
The bag held three fish and an agitated frog. Jane squealed in horror. “Oh, god. Really? Just these guys. Oh, wow.”
“I tried,” Chase muttered. “It’s pretty grisly out there. Maybe you should—”
“I’ve got to get these guys into a better situation.” Jane took the bag and marched off to the kitchen, all business, every problem-solving inch of her.
Nick held out his hand and gave Chase a shake that spoke volumes without a sound, and then followed him into the foyer.
Rothgar was on the phone, one leg bent at the knee and resting on Sokolov’s wrist. Dead, for sure, with an outstretched arm and curled, lifeless fingers. Glass, dead fish, and a mix of tank water and blood surrounded the Russian’s body. The big man signaled Nick that he’d be off in a moment. “Missy,” Nick heard Rothgar say. “Get the cleaners to Nick’s place ASAP . . .”
Nick’s cell phone vibrated. A name came up, the code name Nick liked to use for Maksim Krovopuskov. Nick showed the screen to Rothgar and then took the call. “Maks, what’s up?”
“I just got paid for the heist. Money wired in about ten minutes ago. Tapped Lawrence. Same thing. Can’t reach Tristan, but I figure he got paid as well. Wasn’t sure if you were going to pick up or if Sokolov owned your phone now. What’s going on?”
“My best guess is that Sokolov assumed I’d be dead by now, and he wanted to use the timing to show you that he’s making good on your contract.”
There was a long silence. “If you’re not dead, why did I get paid?”
Nick thought about keeping Maks in the dark merely on the basis that the guy wasn’t one of the Hudson Kings but decided the Russian had earned his trust, and he needed to pay him back in similar currency. The guy had laid himself on the line for a man of the Hudson Kings—maybe burning some of his own bridges down to do it—and as far as Nick was concerned, he’d earned more than a mere marker. “Because Sokolov’s too dead to cancel the wire transfer.” There was a small hitch of breath on the other end of the line. Maksim was surprised.
“And it turns out Tristan hijacked the heist; he took the money. I’ll work with Dex to get it back. Does this create a problem for you in any way?” Nick asked.
After a pause, Maks answered, “No problem, Nikolai. The girl from the party is safe?”
“She’s safe. I appreciate you asking.”
There was another pause. Nick couldn’t figure out why they were still on the phone. It was almost as if Maksim had something on his mind. Maybe about Missy. Maybe about his own business. He should know by now Nick—and by extension, the Hudson Kings—had his back. “Maks, if you ever decide to come in from the cold, you know Rothgar still thinks you’re one of the best.”
There was an even longer pause. “Not today, Nikolai.”
Rothgar was off the phone now, and the men of the Hudson Kings were gathered, prepping to go.
“I’m out, Maks. Later.”
“See you on the next heist, comrade.”
“I’m taking a vacation,” Nick said. He could see Jane from here, now, still fussing over the fish in a makeshift tank on the dining room table.
“The girl from the party,” Maks said, a new lightness in his tone.
“The girl from the party.”
“You’re a smart man, Nikolai.”
“Smarter than I used to be,” Nick said. And then he hung up.