She bucks beneath me, and her mouth falls open in a silent scream.
“That’s it,” I encourage her. “Come with me. I’m so fucking close.”
“Tony—” She can barely get my name out. “I’m going to?—”
She comes apart with a sob, and the feel of her clenching around me triggers my own release. I bury myself deep and let go, groaning her name as pleasure crashes through me in waves that seem to go on forever.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. We just breathe together, tangled in each other and the scattered intelligence reports, our hearts pounding against each other’s chests.
Finally, Sasha laughs softly. “I think we ruined your maps.”
“Worth it.” I roll onto my back and pull her with me so she’s draped across my chest. My shoulder aches, but I don’t care. “Definitely worth it.”
“Feel better?” she asks, peering up at me through those long lashes.
“Much.” I press a kiss to the top of her head. “You were right. I needed that.”
“I’m always right. You should remember that.”
We lie together in comfortable silence for a while. The fear and frustration haven’t disappeared entirely, but they’ve faded to a manageable level. For the first time since Thornfield, I feel like I can think clearly.
“He’s going to keep running,” I muse after a moment. “Adrian. He’s too paranoid to stay in one place, too smart to use the samecontacts twice. We could chase him for weeks and never get close.”
“So we stop chasing.” Sasha lifts her head to look at me. “We make him come to us instead.”
“How?”
“We give him something he can’t resist.” Her eyes meet mine. “Let’s draw him out ourselves.”
35
Sasha
The bait worked better than we expected.
Boris’s contact at MI5 confirmed Adrian’s location twenty minutes ago—an automatic plate hit near Stratford tied to one of Belmont’s shell companies. A warehouse in East London.
The intel we planted about Dmitri withdrawing resources to Moscow made Adrian bold enough to surface and rally what remains of his coalition.
“He’s meeting with at least four representatives from the European families,” Boris explains as he spreads satellite images across the conference table in our Shoreditch command center. “The Corsican contingent, two men from Berlin, and someone we haven’t identified yet.”
Tony leans over the photos with his arms crossed. “Security?”
“Six men outside that we’ve counted.” Boris taps the warehouse’s rear entrance. “The building has three access points. Main door here, loading dock on the south side, and an emergency exit in the back.”
Dmitri’s face fills the laptop screen propped at the end of the table. He’s been conferencing in from Moscow since we confirmed Adrian’s location. “I can have twenty men there within the hour. We hit them hard and fast before they know what’s happening.”
“If we do that, Adrian will disappear again the second he hears vehicles approaching.” I shake my head. “We tried overwhelming force at Thornfield. He had escape routes we didn’t know about. He’ll have them here too.”
“So what do you suggest?” Dmitri’s voice carries an edge. “Walk in and ask him nicely to surrender?”
“Something like that.”
The silence that follows is deafening. Tony turns to look at me with one eyebrow raised. Boris stops mid-movement with a satellite photo in his hand.
“Explain,” Dmitri demands.
“Adrian thinks he’s regained the advantage. He thinks you’ve pulled most of your resources back to Moscow and left Tony and me with minimal protection.” I meet my brother’s eyes through the screen. “He believes we’re desperate. Scared. Ready to negotiate.”
