The man doing the talking began to unsettle. He pulled out a satellite phone and stepped away. Alexei sent a dead look after him, then sighed. “Apologies, my friend. We might not be home for breakfast after all.”
He made it sound as if we’d had grand plans, and maybe he had. Me? I had a date with Locke’s bed, as long as he wasn’t in it. Or maybe the bunkhouse if the yard wasn’t too busy. Regardless, another hour or so wasn’t costing me much.
Be different if you had someone to go home to.
Cheers, Rocco. I knew that. But I didn’t even have a home, let alone someone keeping the sheets warm.
Because you’re always too busy saving the world.
Nope. If that were true, I’d have saved him.
In the time it took me to complete that depressing inner monologue, the dude with the phone came back.
“My boss says I can tell you who we are because you’re either friends or someone we can kill.”
“You’re wrong on both counts,” Alexei drawled, still hiding the Russian. “But by all means, continue.”
The negotiator smirked. “Does the name Gianni Sambini mean anything to you?”
“Only incompetence and stupidity.”
“You’ll be sorry you said that. Now tell me who you are.”
A pause stretched out. The man closest to me puffed himself up, not realising the gesture made his muscles too taut to react if I went for his gun. Or stuck the knife up my sleeve into his eyeball. Both were an easy reach, and I didn’t much care which option I landed on. I wasn’t a violent man. Merely efficient. Like Alexei. It surprised me that he was dragging this out so long. If he wanted to kill them, they’d already be dead. So why the long-winded theatrics?
It wasn’t my place to complain. But lack of sleep and a scratchy heart made me impatient. I caught Alexei’s deathly stare and cocked a brow. “Just tell him, will you? I’m hungry.”
Alexei shrugged. “All right.” He tipped his head at the dude with the phone. “Tell your superior to put Gianni on the line.”
Phone Dude snorted. “That’s not going to happen.”
“No?” Alexei’s Russian accent made an abrupt appearance. “Then perhaps you should tell him that you have put a gun in the face of Alexei Ivanov and have him educate you on why that was your greatest mistake.”
A sudden chill cloaked the air. The man with the phone raised the receiver to his ear. “Did you hear that? No. It’s just him and one other. No ink. Brownish hair. I don’t think so.”
“They are worried you are Saint,” Alexei told me in simple enough Russian that I understood him. “It amuses me to be the only one who knows you are something far worse.”
“That sounds like something I should be offended by.”
“Not really. If I wanted Saint here instead of you, it is how it would be.”
Phone Dude ended his call before I could respond. “Mr Sambini sends his apologies. You’re free to go.”
Alexei leered. “No. We chose to wait. Do not forget that.”
He replaced his helmet on his head, killing more conversation before it could happen.
I did the same, slipping my earpiece back in and rolling my hog around the man closest to me. He was half in shadow and gesticulating at the men in front of us. I took advantage of his distraction and spirited his spare firearm from his back pocket, revving my engine to disguise any sensation, but it was for show more than anything. Give me a reason and I’d have the socks from his feet before he knew what was happening.
The stick-up crew backed off, giving us space to steer around their parked car and continue on our way.
They’re letting us pass.
It didn’t add up. They were blocking the road for a reason and we’d seen nothing on our approach that made me think it was anything from the way we’d come.
Which meant it lay up ahead. And they weren’t worried about us seeing it because...
The radio in my ear crackled. Alexei’s voice came a moment later. “Be ready. They will ambush again before we hit the main roads.”
