“Iknewit,” Ace whispered to Christian, turning his hand palm up. “Pay up.”
“I left my wallet back at the flat,” Christian said.
“Likely excuse,” Ace told him before turning back to Dagan. “But seriously, why aren’t we marching up to that door and hot-wiring the security pad?”
“We’re waiting for the maintenance man,” Dagan whispered, trying not to let it get to him that his friends had been making bets on…what? His love life? Or his decided lack of anything resembling a love life? “He always comes out for a smoke break at this time.”
Ace skewered Dagan with a narrow-eyed stare. “And you would know that…how?”
Busted. “All those times I said I was going to the gym or the library or the park?”
“Don’t tell me.” Ace raised a hand. “You were here, surveilling the building.”
“And Morrison’s downtown offices, too,” Dagan conceded. As they say, in for a penny, in for a pound.
“I thought we agreed surveillance might draw unwanted attention to Chelsea. You know, odd if suddenly there were men skulking about right when she started her employment.”
“We agreed not to do anygroupsurveillance. But I never said I wouldn’t go out on my own and—”
“Never mind.” Ace waved him off. “You’re sweet on her, which makes you paranoid and overprotective and apparently a liar-liar-pants-on-fire.”
Dagandidfeel bad to have misled them. But if he’d admitted what he was up to every day, they would have tried to stop him. And hecould nothave allowed that. He had needed to know everything he could about the places Chelsea spent her days. It was the only thing that had kept him sane.
“We’ll kick your ass later,” Ace promised. “Right now, I want to know what happensafterthe maintenance man comes out for a smoke. What’s the plan?”
“We tranq him. We take his key fob. And we enter the building without hot-wiring the security pad and potentially setting off an alarm. The building is rigged with security cameras, but if we take them out as we pass, we should be able to get in and out without anyone the wiser.”
“Bob’s your uncle,” Christian said, which Dagan had learned was the British equivalent ofthere you goorsounds good.
Dagan pulled the wrist of his black jacket back to glance at his watch. “Any second now, the maintenance man should—” That’s as far as he got. Right on cue, the guy in question pushed through the back door, fresh cig dangling from his lips.
Dagan pulled on his ski mask and, from the corner of his eye, saw his brothers-in-arms do the same. Quietly sliding the dart gun from the holster on his hip, he took aim. The world around him slipped into a fog. The only thing he could see or hear was his target.
The little pistol was loaded with six rounds of thiopental. The stuff wasn’t lethal. At least not in the dosages they used. But it could put a grown man down in about three seconds flat. Trouble was, it generally only kept him down for somewhere between ten and fifteen minutes. After that, the victim would be groggy and nauseous, but nonetheless functional. Which meant after they tranqed the guy, they needed to get in and out in short order.
Blowing out a breath, Dagan squeezed the trigger. The dart left the barrel with a muffled-soundingthwackand flew true. It embedded itself in the meaty part of the maintenance man’s shoulder.
The guy yelped, dropping his lighter as the unlit cigarette fell from his mouth and landed in a rain puddle. He ripped the little dart with its fuzzy yellow tail from his arm. “What the feck is—”
That’s all he managed before his knees went weak and he stumbled.
Shit.Maintenance Man was going to go down like a sack of potatoes, and Dagan could just see him whacking his balding head on one of the two steps leading from the back door to the alley. If he did that,nighty-nightcould very easily turn into thebig sleep.
Dagan holstered the dart gun and charged from behind the dumpster. Half a dozen bounding steps allowed him to catch the guy before he could go timber. Dagan grunted. The dude wasn’t a lightweight. But Dagan managed to gently lower the unconscious man to the ground, careful to keep him out of the cold puddles.
“Holy guacamole. That’s some fast-acting shiznit,” Ace said. He and Christian gathered around Dagan to stare down at the man. “Next time,Iwant to shoot it.” Ace reached for the weapon on Dagan’s hip.
“Hands off.” Dagan slapped him away. “I’m the one who thought to pack the dart gun for this mission, which meansI’mthe one who gets to use it.”
“Stingy,” Ace huffed.
Some people might think it strange to be joking at a time like this, but when you lived like they did, always on the edge, you learned never to lose your sense of humor. Because if you did, you might never find it again.
“Right, then,” Christian said. “Let’s go get Chelsea.”
Chelsea…
Her name alone was enough to kick-start Dagan’s heart.
