“Ummm…” She thought fast. If he didn’t know Darcy was dead, he couldn’t be the killer. But then who the hell was he? Her mind tried to click through possibilities, but she couldn’t think of one.
“Agent Dagger, you with me? Or should I say, Mom?” He looked at the moniker emblazoned across the front of her pink fluffy robe. Her breasts were two loose cantaloupes under the fabric. She’d like them to be a little higher to face this guy down.
For once she said what she was thinking. “Next time you toss me in a van, could you let me put a bra on first?”
The guy threw back his head and laughed. “I see you haven’t lost your sarcasm.”
One of her kidnappers poked his head in. “Mr. Smirnov, do you need anything else?”
Mr. Smirnov… was that a code name? Was he staring at a bottle of vodka when he came up with it?
Smirnov glared and said, “Leave me. I’ll let you know when I want something.”
She took a breath. Act more like Darcy, less like herself. “Really. If you want to talk to me, you can just knock on the door, preferably before ten, because I like to get some sleep. If you throw me in a van while I’m taking out the trash, what do you expect?”
He ignored that one. “So where’ve you been, Darcy?” He leaned into her name again, making some kind of point. “You’ve missed every check-in for the last week.”
She blinked back, her mind devoid of anything but fear, which was short-circuiting all of her other thoughts.
“You’re lucky we didn’t take you out. I wouldn’t extend this courtesy to many people.”
“Thank you,” she said.Take her out—she squeezed her thighs together. It was amazing she hadn’t peed herself yet. Lucas had been a ten-pound baby. Nothing had been the same after that.
So who was this guy?
•Not Darcy’s killer
• Not the EOD
• Russian accents. Dirty warehouse filled with boxes.
It hit her like a Nerf bullet straight to the forehead.Russian. Criminal.These guys were the Russian Mafia.
Meaning… Darcy had been working for the Russiansandthe EOD. She had been a double fucking agent. No wonder she had gotten herself killed.
FUCK. Gabby wanted to scream all of the obscenities. All of the cells in her body vibrated with fear and anger and righteous indignation. What had the EOD gotten her into? What hadshegotten herself into? It was one thing to take the place of an EOD agent, entirely another to take the place of a double agent. Darcy, that double-crossing bitch—how was Gabby supposed to get out of this?
“Can I have a chair?” Gabby asked, trying to sound like she wasn’t completely freaking out. “And dear god, can I have a drink?” Anything to calm her nerves. She gestured to the bar cart behind Smirnov.
Smirnov laughed and poured her a tumbler of vodka.
Gabby wasn’t a heavy drinker, just normal wine-mom stuff, which she didn’t think qualified as alcoholism, although it was hard to know. Maybe she had crossed a line since the divorce, but this wasn’t the moment to worry. She threw back this vodka like it was water. It blazed a trail straight down her esophagus.
Smirnov gave her a nod of approval. “A lady who knows how to drink. I should have known.”
“Don’t patronize me, Smirnov.” Drinking wasn’t a talent. It was a vice.
He refilled her glass. This one she didn’t throw back. She wanted to calm her nerves, not get table-dancing, walk-of-shame-from-her-kidnapper’s-warehouse loose.
More serious, Smirnov said, “So where’ve you been?”
Better to stick with the same lie for everyone. She pointed to her nose. “Notice anything different about me?” She flashed him her aquiline profile.
He squinted. “You’re telling me you had a nose job and took a week off without telling me?” He laughed like it was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard.
Gabby doubled down. She had no choice. “Um, not a nose job. I had a deviated septum, and it was a whole thing with my sinuses.” She made a swirling motion around the front of her face, her best explanation for nasal abnormalities she was inventing on the spot. “It’s the first time in my life I feel like I can breathe clearly.” She took a loud, deep breath to demonstrate. “At least now that the swelling went down. The first couple of days were no good.”
“It’s going to be the only day you can breathe clearly,” he hissed. “Do you know who I am?” He leaned forward over his desk menacingly.
