Blaze shrugged as best he could, his hands still tied behind his back.“Laws.Plus, they didn’t even figure out who made or placed the pipe bombs last time. The FBI seems off its game, or maybe they’re in someone’s pocket.”
“Interesting. You seemed reluctant to join my team before.”
He shrugged. “We both know why I will join you. Let Sarah go back to her farm and leave her alone. I give you my word that I’ll run your coup and succeed.”
“Yes, interesting offer.” She turned to Sarah and asked her in Russian, “Do you want to return to your little farm?”
Sarah nodded and answered in Russian. “Yes, of course. The farm is all I know.”
Skull Trim went rigid, and his furtive glance at Sarah spoke of guilt. He asked her, also in the language, “You speak Russian?”
Sarah mocked him, saying the equivalent of, “What, like it’s hard?”
Blaze watched him, and he saw the moment that Skull Trim realized he’d compromised operational security by discussing Vladimir Lvov’s long-term goal in front of someone who’d understood Russian, and then the next moment when terror entered the mercenary’s eyes as he glanced back at Mary Varvara Bell, who was still watching Sarah.
Mary Varvara Bell set her pen on the table precisely above her notepad. “Yes, well, your offer certainly is tempting, Blaze, but it’s time to end these lies.”
She raised one finger in a signal behind her.
Mercenaries seized Micah and Twist, disarming them with quick pats. They looked first at each other and then at him.
“Dr. Bell, I assure you—” Blaze began.
She waved his protests away. “After the surveillance equipment in Logan’s apartment stopped transmitting, we became suspicious, no matter how much Tristan King assured us thatourreceiving equipment was malfunctioning and he could view everything.”
She raised a hand, signaling to someone in the wings behind her desk, where she’d entered from the last time Blaze had been in her office.
“So we took precautions,” she said.
More of those damned Koch Group mercenaries shoved two women through the doorway, a raven-haired woman and a petite blonde. Both were stumbling, their hands tied behind their backs.
Blaze recognized Twist’s wife, Colleen Frost, and Micah’s, Kylie Miller.
Colleen looked confused, even indignant, as befitted the CEO of a tech company, but Kylie took the measure of the situation and went still, recognizing a mafia execution in progress.
She also picked Blaze out, as he’d helped rescue her sister from a French warehouse the year before, and frowned.
The mercenaries frog-marched Twist and Micah around Bell’s desk to kneel beside Blaze and Sarah.
More mercs manhandled Colleen Frost and Kylie Miller, forcing them to kneel beside their husbands.
Logan, the only one of them still standing behind Mary Varvara Bell, had his mouth set in a grim line.
“Daniil, take care of them,” Mary Varvara Bell said to Skull Trim, picking up her pen as if she had more important things to do than watch them die.
“Stop!” Blaze shouted, confident that an excellent argument was just about to come out of his mouth.
His throat dried up.
“Oh, myword,Aunt Mary,” Sarah announced, her voice loud above all their shouts. “You’re going to kill ushere,in youroffice?Howcliché.Just like my grandfather used to kill people.”
Blaze swiveled his head to look at Sarah.
Logan frowned at her.
Sarah rolled her eyes. “My dad used to talkall the timeabout howhisfather executed people on the floor of his office, in front of his desk. I’ll bet you have a carpeting guy in your contacts, too, right? Rip up the carpet and bleach the concrete underneath before you get back from lunch?”
Wow, interesting tactic.
