Swallow (Kindred Book 2) (28 page)

“I’ve got this,” she muttered to herself and rested a hand over the purse she had slung across her body.

Walking toward the Grand Hotel, Zara wasn’t as self-conscious about talking to herself as she had been the last time she’d been on this sidewalk. Maybe that was because this time her words were for her rather than the men in her ear.

“Looking good, baby,” Brodie said and she smiled. “Your legs look fucking hot.”

“Thank you,” she muttered, trying not to let her glee spread to her expression because grinning like an idiot would probably be more conspicuous than talking to herself.

“They’ll look sexier with my head between them later.”

“Rave,” she whispered, sure that her blush was making her face luminous.

“If you get back what you give, she can earn her name,” Tuck said and she could only conclude the teasing was a way to relax her.

“She earned that months ago,” Brodie muttered and Tuck laughed. “There’s no bird called a spit.”

A laugh escaped on a breath as she pulled open the door to the Grand lobby. “You got an eyeball on them?” she asked.

It took no time for the men to refocus on business. “The blinds are half closed, but yeah, they’re in there,” Brodie said, sounding serious now that the game was upon them. “Where am I?”

“With me,” she whispered and pressed the elevator call button.

Again, she held onto the purse that was across her body. She’d intended to get dressed up like she had the last time she’d been here, that was until Brodie reminded her there was no party and no one to impress. So wearing a short gypsy dress that was approved by Brodie, she had plenty of room to move if she had to make tracks in a hurry.

According to Brodie’s instruction, if she had to run the first thing she was to lose were the shoes. Now that he’d admired their effect on her legs, Zara would bet his opinion on that would’ve changed.

She’d suggested wearing flats, but that might have been an obvious safety net. Brodie preferred the spike heels and had explained how to push the point through the eye socket into the brain. The act would eliminate any threat but would probably make her lose her lunch too. From her sneer, he’d guessed how disgusting the idea was to her. Her love had reminded her that he was her chief and if he told her to do it, she had no choice.

The more casual dress allowed her to wear a larger purse and Brodie had allowed her to take her gun. But that wasn’t why she kept touching the purse. Inside were the keys to the van she’d parked a block over. The van that had been secreted in a storage locker for a month before she and Tuck had moved it to a separate unit on McCormack property.

They’d lost Art protecting this device. They’d hidden it to stop it from falling into the wrong hands and now she was supposed to just give it away.

The Grand elevator came and she stepped inside to select the conference room floor. “Are we sure about this?” she asked as the doors closed, giving the men the chance to revise the plan.

“Shit,” Brodie hissed and the suddenness of his exclamation made her jump.

“What?”

“They closed the blinds,” Tuck said. “It’s ok, we still have the neck cam.”

The necklace camera was the same as the one she’d worn at the compound and was becoming part of her regular jewelry routine. “You want me just to shoot him?” she asked, but it was unlikely Sutcliffe would allow her to get her hand in her bag to pull out her gun then put a round into him before he took her out himself. If she got a gun into that room, she had to assume that the others did too.

“No, the meeting is here because it’s public,” Brodie said. She was heading to a private room, but the hotel was public. “Someone will hear the shot and we don’t trust Saint.”

At the pre-brief, they’d sat in main security and the men had explained to her how the bustling hotel in a busy part of town was a difficult place to commit murder. Even from Brodie’s position, it would draw too much attention to their group. It was Kindred protocol to do their work when people were alone or in a deserted area. As she thought about it, she realized that was what had happened to all of the men she’d been present to see die by Maverick. Tim. Quebec. Sutcliffe’s men.

The plan was to let Sutcliffe take Game Time with the belief that he’d transport it to the arsenal. They had a low-quality image from the map she’d seen in the kitchen of the Sutcliffe compound, but Game Time would be taken to the most secure storage area, where the most destructive weapons would be kept. That was the location the Kindred had to identify and the reason for her taking this risk.

“Give them the keys and get out,” Brodie said. “Fast as you can.”

Zara had never considered hanging around just to shoot the breeze. But Brodie had told her about his struggles when she was in the Sutcliffe compound and out of his range. While there wasn’t quite the same distance between them at that moment, there was a tormenting barrier to him keeping her safe.

“Copy,” she said and strode along the corridor.

“Don’t knock,” Brodie said. “Gives them time to take aim. Stay to the side.”

She didn’t like any of these statements, but expressing her apprehension would make him abort the op, she was sure of it, and she hadn’t gotten herself hyped up for nothing. She was doing this. Doing as Brodie told her, she stayed near the wall and opened the conference room door without knocking. A beat of nothing passed. She’d betrayed her presence, so she had to enter, but her heart was hammering as she did.

Slinking around the doorframe, she saw Sutcliffe and Grant on the couch, neither had a weapon drawn, in fact, they were both smiling. “Miss Bandini!” Sutcliffe exclaimed and put a glass of dark liquid aside to stand up and cross to her.

Zara left the door open, just in case, but he came all the way over and took her hand to shake it vigorously. Maintaining his hold on her, he pulled her into the room and over to the couch where there was a decanter and an empty glass on the end table.

“We were just discussing your turnaround,” Sutcliffe said and pulled her onto the couch to sit between them.

“I can take it blind,” Brodie murmured as Sutcliffe went to the end table to pour her a drink.

With the men on the couch, Brodie could picture the room and take the shot if he had to. But there would be zero room for error. The blinds could affect the bullet trajectory, and she was in the center seat, where Sutcliffe had put her and as she glanced at Grant’s smile, she wondered if they’d put her here on purpose as a shield for both of them.

After the Atlas warehouse, they had to be wary of a sniper, especially being as she claimed to love one. “I brought the product,” she said, opening her purse.

Grant’s smile faded as he watched her put her hand inside. Instead of seizing it, she slid her hand beneath her weapon and was reassured by the weight of the cool metal on her knuckles. She’d killed with this weapon once before and if she had to, she would do it again now.

Pulling out the van key, she held it up toward Grant, who opened his hand to receive it. “It’s a black van, one street over.”

“How did you get it?” Sutcliffe asked, coming over to give her the glass of liquor. “Wasn’t it under Kindred protection? They wouldn’t have handed it over without a fight.”

She took the glass but didn’t drink. Whether it was just alcohol or contained a drug, she didn’t want anything slowing her reflexes and Art’s warning about hard liquor remained with her. She’d been a part of the Kindred for a short time and every word of advice she’d been given thrummed through her mind. All of it was useful. The others were trained and experienced. She was the rookie.

“It was no trouble,” she said.

“Raven has been out of the picture,” Grant said. Zara was surprised to hear him answering for her. “Zara has been abandoned by her previous allies.”

“Typical,” Sutcliffe said, seating himself beside her and retrieving his glass from the table. “You were used, my girl.”

She wasn’t used. Nor was she his girl. She could practically hear Brodie grinding his teeth together, and she knew he was using all of his restraint not to take the shot right this minute. What Sutcliffe knew about Raven’s identity was unknown. But if Grant was trying to butter up the Brit then there was a chance he’d told the truth. Regardless, she wasn’t going to reveal any secrets.

“Ben told me that you were at the house last night,” Sutcliffe said. “Can we assume that we have your loyalty now?”

“Ben has been a good friend,” she said. “He’s a good man.”

Sutcliffe made eye contact with Grant on her other side. “We want you to move to the compound.”

That request was unexpected, but she tried to hide her shock. “Move?”

Discerning as he drank, Sutcliffe lost his humor and became pragmatic. “Our pace will only increase now that we have Game Time,” Sutcliffe said.

Looking from Sutcliffe to Grant, she was surprised to see the certainty Grant was exuding. “Your pace?” she asked.

“We plan to hit a high-profile target,” Sutcliffe said.

They couldn’t know that she was worried. Hiding her fear took all of her restraint. “I thought the point was to protect our people,” she said, hating that this turn of events was making it difficult for her to think straight. “If you plan to hurt—“

“It won’t be in this country,” Grant said.

It was on her lips to exclaim her surprise. This was a room for revelations. The closed blinds were only a few millimeters thick, but she’d never felt so far away from Brodie as she did at that moment. They wanted her on Sutcliffe land and they planned to turn Game Time around quickly, meaning there was a chance it would never be stored on US soil, they could have a plane waiting for it.

“When?” she asked.

Getting answers wasn’t as easy as asking the right question. “You’ll be given more information when you’re settled in. When will you join us?”

Recognizing opportunity was another Kindred requirement. “Now,” she said. She couldn’t delay if she wanted to ensure Game Time was monitored.

“Excellent,” Sutcliffe said and took one of her arms while Grant clutched the other.

They helped her onto her feet and she put aside her glass to go with them to the door. Glancing back at the blinds, she hoped the others understood her reasoning. There was nothing that Brodie and Tuck could do to protect her after she left the conference room.

“I’m coming, baby,” Brodie said and she could hear movement in his tone. Background noise suggested he was running down an echoing stairway.

“No,” she said. Grant paused, but Sutcliffe kept on moving. “You don’t have to pull me. I’m coming. I want to come to the compound. I want to be a part of what you’re doing.”

Sutcliffe didn’t let her go. But Grant did. “Are you talking to me?” Brodie asked and the slight pant in his voice made her swallow.

“Are you sure?” Grant asked, which gave her leave to answer Brodie.

“Yes,” she said to Brodie. Grant and Sutcliffe stopped inside the stairwell they’d brought her to. Making eye contact with Grant, she was still talking to her lover. “You’ll stay with me?”

“We’re on it,” Brodie said. “Don’t take the earpiece out. We’ll lose contact until Swift and I catch up. But we’re there, ok? And if you need to start shooting, do it.”

This was her commitment to the Kindred. None of the men she’d met would request rescue on being given the chance to experience the inside of the enemy lair. Sticking close to Game Time might be the only way to keep track of it.

“You want me to?” Grant asked and she nodded. She didn’t mean with her, like with her, but if he stayed on the compound too, then at least she’d have one person to voice her concerns to if she had them.

Making it clear she didn’t mean anything intimate, she managed a demure smile. “If Albert has enough rooms?” she asked and turned to Sutcliffe, who was peering at her. He wasn’t convinced of her allegiance, and that made her wary. But until he gave her cause to believe she was being setup, she wouldn’t show her hand. “What about the product?”

Blinking innocent eyes at the two men looming over her in this dark stairway with its grey walls and steel staircase, she couldn’t let them think that she was worried about her safety. She had to make them think that she trusted them. After Brodie’s confession that he could tell she was nervous even when she tried to hide it, she was doubting the strength of her game face.

“You want us to kill it?” Brodie asked in her ear. She was struggling to blank her expression while listening to the Kindred’s Chief, who had to be rearranging priorities and plans fast.

She was getting better at holding two conversations at once. She didn’t get the sense that Grant or Sutcliffe thought she was talking to someone other than them. “We can’t leave something so valuable on the street,” she said.

“We’ll have men pick it up and bring it to our storage facility.”

“Good,” Brodie said.

Grant took her hand and Sutcliffe began to head down the stairs with her. Grant wasn’t too far behind. The limp that had made Sutcliffe seem impaired was lessened today. There was no stick. Although he favored leaning on the banister, she would guess that he could move if he wanted to. The severity of his injury had been another illusion.