“I heard. Handle it.”
“It’s about your woman.”
“Ha!” I spread my arms. “I have no woman. I’m alone. Always alone. An island in a man.” In my bedroom that smells like Lake, or, more precisely, a well-fucked Lake, I shrug off my suit jacket, release my tie, and throw it on the bed. I’ll swim a few laps. Did Rosalba pack Leo’s bathing suit?
“Alessio.” Niksha clears his throat as he stands by the door. “Miro has your woman.”
I stop yanking my shirt out of the waistband, lean in with my head tilted to the side, my fingers angling my ear toward Niksha as if that’ll make me hear better. “Pardon?”
“Miro handled the situation, and your woman is involved.”
There’s only one way Miro would “handle” a situation. “What are you saying?” I go to the closet, where I open the safe and gather more ammunition. On my way out, I stop to face Niksha. “What are you saying?” My voice rises, and I wince, hoping my nephew will stay mad at me and in his room.
“Your woman was the mole,” Niksha says. “The foreign nationals you had me look into? The three who were on your island? They converted her, and she has been feeding them information ever since.”
I press my gun under his chin. “Say that again. I dare you.”
Niksha swallows. “Alessio, you’re compromised and not thinking clearly. Let Miro do what he does best.”
I nudge his chin with the gun, my finger twitching over the trigger. “Where is he holding her?” Niksha says nothing. He won’t tell me. He believes I’m compromised, and he’s looking at the big picture and saving the world and me. This means he’ll have cleared Lake for execution. This means she really is a mole. And yet, I can’t imagine a world without her in it.
“I’ll do it myself,” I say. “Tell me where she is.”
Niksha remains silent.
The door to Leo’s bedroom opens. I grab Niksha by his collar and press him against the wall inside my bedroom. I nudge his chin again. “I’m not bluffing. Three. Two. One.”
“Downstairs. Room 502. I’m taking Leo to Val.”
FORTY-THREE
THE MOLE
Lake
Miro sitsat the desk with his phone propped on the base of the lamp. Val’s on the speaker, and the pair of them hack the sadist’s laptop along with his phone. He never mentioned I’m in the room with him, but that doesn’t mean he’s ignoring me. I’m being held at gunpoint.
His gun lies on top of the desk, and he told me to stay put. I’ve seen the speed with which he executed three people. I’m not going anywhere, though I wonder if it’s better to let him save Alessio the trouble of having to end me. The moment Alessio finds out what I did, he’ll execute me the same way Miro executed the sadist who kept me here.
As Miro chats with Val, it becomes clear that the piece of plastic I handed over to the sadists is a short-range tracker for the warhead Alessio is transporting.
Yup, a goddamned warhead.
I handed over the tracker that would’ve activated itself when the sadist got within a hundred-mile radius of the warhead. That was why he asked me for the location.
I struggle to unpack what Val and Miro are talking about, mainly because the depth of my involvement in a situation with such major, deadly consequences hasn’t sunk in yet. Actually, it might never sink in since I’m in complete shock over what could’ve happened if this man hadn’t intervened.
It occurs to me, if he killed me, it would have been for the greater good. Either I’ve lost my marbles or I’m really okay with that. Regardless, I’m a travel junkie and a foodie, a walking peace sign. I don’t know how to navigate an international criminal crisis. I just… I just…
“I want to go home,” I say. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.
“What was that?” Val asks, still on speaker phone.
“Nothing,” Miro answers, giving me a warning look.
“I heard someone,” she retorts.
Miro shakes his head. “You’re hearing things.”
