CHAPTER 7
Okay, this is not . . . yeah, this is not good.
It had been a rough day. A basic morning that had turned into a long afternoon after Nick had left the Armory to try to corral Maks, who wasn’t returning calls and seemed to be putting in some effort to keep himself scarce. He’d gone all the way out to Brighton Beach and back again, but couldn’t find the guy. What he’d found instead was a gun at his temple and a pair of meaty hands binding him around the wrists.
Now, from his awkward position in the trunk of a speeding car driven by a lackey with a Russian accent, Nick could only listen helplessly as his phone rang off the hook. It took him a second to recognize the ringtone he’d just assigned to only Jane MacGregor.
He would have said she had very good timing if he’d been in a position to accept her call. Literally. His phone was in the pocket of his coat, bunched under the left side of his rib cage.
He could also feel the bump of that promo item Jane had given him. A plastic piece of crap in the shape of a heart.
Nick perked up a little. Make that a plastic piece of crap in the shape of a heart with a point and a blade. Well, hello. I love you too, Jane.
Twisting so hard he nearly dislocated his shoulder, Nick managed to pull the bunched section of fabric out from under him. After several tries, made more difficult by the bumping and swerving from the driver, he pulled the letter opener into his hand and turned it until he could use the blade to saw through the plastic tie binding his wrists. He flinched when the tip bent and nearly broke off, but then it was done.
Once he freed his hands, it was a matter of finding the trunk’s internal release. Assuming it had one. The car started slowing down; he could feel the drag. He used his cell phone light to find the release and then considered his options.
He could either kick out the backseat or find a seat-folding mechanism that might provide a path into the car proper, but climbing headfirst into the passenger area of a car with one’s gun-wielding kidnapper in control seemed like a bad risk.
He pulled the release, then used one hand to stop the trunk from flying up entirely and the other hand to snake his phone out and take a picture of the car’s license plate.
Nick lifted the trunk just slightly and registered the location as still being within Manhattan; he hadn’t felt a bridge or a tunnel, and the time lapsed hadn’t been all that long. They seemed to be on a long stretch of relatively traffic-free highway. There weren’t many options for that in Manhattan. After a moment spent gauging the speed of the car and considering the likelihood of being run over by traffic if he jumped, Nick decided to go for it.
He closed the trunk again and felt around, grabbing a towel and some old newspapers, all of which he stuffed down the front of his clothes for extra padding. And then he pulled the release and let the trunk swing up.
After tucking himself into a ball, with his face buried in his arms, he jumped, angling his body to the side in hopes of hitting the dirt strip on the edge of the road. It wasn’t a perfect jump, but he was free of the car and not currently bumping under somebody else’s wheels. He’d protected his face and head well, the brunt of the hit going to his left shoulder and leg.
Taking a second to orient himself, Nick processed that the trunk would probably still be blocking the driver’s view until the guy pulled over, but he wasted no time running to the barrier that separated the road from the green space of Riverside Park.
In the park, he quickly tossed the towel and the newspapers into a dog-waste bin but kept moving, texting the license plate to the Amory for the records and to Vlad Sokolov with a suggestion to give him a call.
Nick took a deep breath and looked down to catalogue his injuries. The left side of his body was a hot mess of shredded fabric and pain. After he limped through the park and hit the sidewalk on Riverside Drive, Sokolov called.
Nick took the call.
“If I was not so impressed, I would be very angry,” the Russian said.
Nick stopped to rest against a lamppost and closed his eyes, exhausted. The night was cool, and it felt surprisingly good on his exposed skin. “Why don’t you pay the team?” he asked. “The twenty mil is between you and me.”
“The twenty mil, as you call it, is nowhere. Is missing. And now you cheat me out of bashing in face.” Sokolov didn’t actually sound angry, which made the conversation more unnerving. He sounded like he was ordering a pizza. Like bashing in Nick’s face would be as simple and fast as choosing pizza toppings, which was probably what Nick’s face would look like after.
“What are my options?” Nick asked, pressing his free thumb against the throbbing pain between his eyes.
“I listened to Maksim. Is good man. Good player. He said not to kill you, but now I think is only option.”
“I’ll pay you with interest. I just need more time to figure out what happened. It was either a glitch or a setup.”
There was a pause, and it sounded like Sokolov was unwrapping a candy or something. “Who would know that I could make Nick Dawes crack so easy in van? No setup, Nikolai. Fine, you don’t want to come see me yet? You run, I chase. Like cat toy. Is all.”
“What—” But Sokolov’s side of the line was dead.
Nick shoved his phone in his pocket only to have it ring again.
Jane MacGregor. Again. What is so hard? Just put the fucking flakes in the water. Not rocket science. But he’d hired her for a reason, so he took the call. “What?” he asked.
“Mr. Dawes, sir, it’s Jane.”
Jane was angry. He could hear it in her voice, which was probably what she was aiming for. Since Nick was in the middle of trying to figure out how to get the man who wanted to kill him to stop wanting to kill him, he wasn’t in the mood for his angry fish sitter to bend his ear. “I’m busy,” he said curtly, hoping the slice of pain going through his left knee wasn’t permanent. “Is there a problem?”
There was a moment of silence, which probably represented Jane processing his mood, and then she said, “I’m standing in a pool of puppy piss.”
This was clearly not enough information, and Nick had never been particularly sympathetic to overblown displays of unnecessary drama. Certainly not in the present circumstance, where the increasing likelihood of a bullet to his head trumped puppy shenanigans. “How is this my problem?”
“Your puppy, your problem,” Jane snapped.
“I don’t own a puppy,” Nick shot back.
There was a long, long pause. And then she said very slowly, “You forgot?”
Nick realized his arm was bleeding through his shirt sleeve rather more badly than he’d first realized. “What? Listen, I’m busy. I don’t own a puppy.” Holding the cell phone against his head with his shoulder, he rolled up the fabric to see what was what. Well, it wouldn’t need stitches, anyway. No, maybe it would . . .
Jane’s rage boiled over. “Oh, man. Is this what rich people do? One day, on a whim, you want a puppy, and then you just—poof!—change your mind, and whatever happens, happens? No, what am I saying? It’s not just rich people. It’s all people. I should know. Well, listen. You can’t do that. It’s just plain wrong. Abandoning people, puppies—it’s wrong. I mean, are you seriously . . .”
Was she babbling about herself? Or puppies? Or what the hell? He was only half listening due to the tricky business of staunching blood flow with only one free hand while still on the go, but when a small yip came over the line, Nick instantly stopped in his tracks and melted. Aww. She was definitely talking about a puppy.
Maybe if he wasn’t limping home, bleeding after a kidnapping attempt that was not going to be the last time Sokolov tried to make a point, Nick could have spared a few more brain cells to help Jane sort out whatever predicament she’d gotten herself into.
Luckily, he hadn’t gotten what he’d asked for when he specified to Ally and Cecily that he wanted someone stupid to take care of his fish; Jane was certainly qualified to take care of a stray dog. He almost envied such a dog.
Nick glanced back over his aching shoulder to confirm he wasn’t being followed. He reminded himself that talking to Jane on the phone during a getaway didn’t exactly put him in stealth mode. Get off the damn phone, man. “I love dogs,” he said in a rush. “You can keep him at the apartment with you; buy whatever you need and put it on my tab. But this conversation is over.”
“What?” came her outraged reply. The thin clip in Jane’s voice was not pleasant. “So, you’re not coming to get him, Mr. Dawes?”
Beyond bleary, Nick realized he only really liked it when she said his name like that when she was trying to be funny. He loved it, actually, then. And he despised it when she was pissed. “No,” he said. And then he hung up on her.
And then he hauled ass back to the Armory.
The next morning, the first thought that occupied Nick’s brain right after he remembered how messed up his life was, was that his new house sitter, Jane MacGregor, probably thought he was a lightweight. It was interesting that this bothered him. But it did. There wasn’t a single guy on the Hudson Kings, Missy included, who wasn’t a total badass, and it smarted that Jane didn’t know that.
You should have seen me last night, Jane. I was in rare form.
Of course, it must take a lot to impress her. He thought she’d be more impressed with his apartment, but she didn’t seem to be. She just coolly went about her business, taking the surveillance cameras and the addition of a frog in stride. Nothing about him seemed to faze her. Her confidence was attractive, particularly because it wasn’t like she was performing for him in some way like most women. Most women took one look at Nick, at his apartment, and at the salary he made at his “real” job and never stopped performing. This could be useful in bed, except nothing ever felt real. Fake tits, tiny waists, pussies with his initials shaved into their pubic hair, it was like one giant audition to become Mrs. Nick Dawes.
Jane MacGregor was different. When he asked Jane a question, she didn’t think about what he wanted to hear. She thought about what she wanted to say.
Of course, the last time she’d had something to say, it was complete nonsense. If he’d been a little less tired last night, he would have called her back, sorted it out. At least that’s what he would have told himself he was calling her for. Truth was, Nick was beginning to think he just liked talking to her at the end of each day. A hit of Jane. Something to make him sleep better.
After showering and dressing, Nick downed a coffee and a butter-doused English muffin in the Armory kitchen and then headed to the war room; it was buzzing about the Russian sleeper-agent project. He hung around for a few minutes, watching his brothers working in groups, but his own name wasn’t on any of the boards. He shrugged. Rothgar had explained himself, and he didn’t need to explain again; when he needed Nick’s expertise, he’d ask for it. And Nick really needed to get comfortable with that.
He sighed, told Missy to let him know if there was anything he could do to help. She said no and then asked him the same question. He said no. But Missy wouldn’t let it go.
“I talked to Maks recently, and things don’t sound good from his version,” she said.
“Maks is talking?” Nick said, his temperature going up. Not that Maksim didn’t have the right. Or that he’d promised to keep his mouth shut about anything. And since he had stopped Sokolov from strangling him, Nick probably didn’t have an argument for getting pissed at Maksim for anything. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with him for weeks.”
“Maks is talking to me,” Missy said. “Not just anybody.”
Nick raised an eyebrow.
“Part of my job is to know everything,” she said defensively. “Rothgar knows we talk every once in a while. Since Maks is a solo agent, nobody’s in a compromising position. And you didn’t answer my question. Don’t deflect. You know I’m too smart for that. Do you know what you’re doing? Are you fixing the problem? Do you need help?”
“You can help by telling Maksim to answer my damn phone calls,” Nick said, a little prickly. He headed for the locker room, where he changed into workout clothes, and went to lift.
The weight room was empty except for the only other guy who wasn’t on the board, mostly because assassinations didn’t usually go up on boards. Nah, that wasn’t fair. Geo wasn’t just a hit man. He was more like a one-man 9-1-1.
Geordan or Geo, no last name, thank you very much, was working on his pecs; Nick gave him a nod and then got set up on an abs machine across the room, respecting Geo’s infamous bubble.
They worked out for twenty minutes in that room, without a word. When he was done, Geo grabbed his towel, slung it around his neck to stop the cascade of sweat, and stopped by Nick’s workout. He made eye contact for what seemed like the first time in at least a year; the guy’s eyes were so pale you could barely make out the blue—probably just the light, but still, the coldness there never failed to impress.
“You need help?” Geo asked, his hand stilling just before he pushed through the door.
“What makes you think that?”
Geo’s eyes moved to Nick’s reflection in the mirrors lining the gym.
Nick stared back at his battered, bruised face, and suddenly felt swamped with emotion. “I don’t want to use the team,” he blurted.
Geo didn’t register whether or not he thought that was a bummer. He just stared off into space like he was cataloguing something in a database or maybe looking through the jars in his pantry to see if he could find where he’d left his soul. “Is it a family-and-friends event?”
“Nope. Just me. Not interested in family and friends.” Nick blinked. “Honor among thieves and all.”
Geo’s icy stare moved back to Nick’s face. “Honor is Rothgar’s department. You need something below that line . . .” He tapped his chest. The merc slipped through the door, leaving Nick to marvel, as always, that Geo knew just how far he could open the door to avoid the annoying squeak and just how to turn the knob to close it without a sound.
Nick finished his own workout and then headed back to his room to figure out the next move. He sat down on the side of the twin bed that Missy had done up in that “guest visitor/the guy doesn’t give a shit” beige.
Jane was probably in his king-size bed right now. Her pale skin was going to look gorgeous against his dark sheets. Scottish, she’d confirmed. Well, he’d encouraged her to make herself at home in spite of her short stay, and she most likely had.
He idly wondered if he should take a page out of her book. His closet here held four dark suits, four white shirts, and four ties. The bureau held the rest of it. The guys who were lifers had decked out their rooms to fit their styles, and some of them had combined three rooms into one; Nick didn’t even want to think about it. If he was going to be here for a while, it meant things weren’t going well on the outside. So, what was the point?
Besides, for his penthouse, he’d simply dialed up a recommended decorator and had her talk to him for half an hour and then create décor for the apartment that “sounded like Nick.” He’d had very little to do with it, and it was fine. It impressed the girls he brought home and ticked all the boxes when his financial buddies were over.
His Hudson Kings brothers didn’t give a shit what his place looked like, which was one of the reasons why he liked them so much. One of the reasons why he’d decided to join up.
Nick looked in the mirror over the bureau and used the heel of his hand to smooth back a small bit of hair just over his ear. Sokolov’s guy hadn’t exactly held back, but there wouldn’t be any long-term damage. And he’d found that old saying to be true; in Nick’s experience, chicks dug scars almost as much as his money. He stared at himself for a moment, wondering dispassionately how much longer his looks would last or if this shit he’d stepped in was going to make that question irrelevant.
He hadn’t made too many mistakes that he couldn’t recover from, but he deserved what he was getting. The fucking scare of his life; that’s what he was getting.
Tristan was a bust, Maksim was hiding from him, and Sokolov was making it clear he was only playing with him. When Sokolov got tired of it, Nick was going to be out of time. Maybe Lawrence had something useful to say. Tomorrow, he’d get in touch.
At least it gave him something to do besides wait for Sokolov’s next chess piece to knock him upside the head.