Mac makes a choked noise, and the amusement in his voice is plain, if wry.“Need an assist?”
Dimitri heaves a deep sigh, then admits,“Yes,”like the act of accepting help is what’s truly painful.
“Be right there,”Mac chuckles.
I set about checking the man’s pockets for all the things we’d normally collect. Empty. For most people, this would be odd. In this case, it likely means he’s a pro. I don’t carry anything that can be used to identify me, either.
I’ve just popped the boot of Mac’s car when he and Dimitri appear in the mouth of the alley. Mac is sagging heavily to the side, supporting Dimitri’s weight as they make slow, careful movements. He leaves Dimitri against the side of the van, then continues down the alley towards me, wiping at some blood on his shirt—like that’ll help. Luckily, I’ve perfected my blood stain removal paste made of peroxide, bicarbonate of soda and salt.
“Dead?” Mac asks, shoving at the man’s shoulder with his toe. The body tilts up an inch, then settles back into place like so much, well, dead weight.
“Knocked out. Where the fuck did he come from?”
Mac throws Dimitri a look over his shoulder. “Hiding in the closet, right, D?”
Dimitri nods tightly and carefully removes the strap of a slim laptop bag from his shoulder. “Yes. He did the jump on me.”
“Hegotthe jump on you,” Mac corrects.
Dimitri scowls at him. “That is what I said. Here. Laptop.” As he leans forward to place the bag on the desk just inside the opening, pain lances his features around the eyes and mouth, causing the old, deep scar on his face to pinch. “It was well done to leave him alive,” he rasps. “Now we can question him.”
“That better be the royal ‘we,’” I remark dryly, lifting a brow at his grimace of pain. He’s normally in charge of interrogations, but something tells me he’s going to have to sit this one out. “You all right, big guy?”
“Fine,” he replies curtly.
“Where’d he get you? The leg?” I assume from the limp.
When he doesn't respond, I glance at Mac, who’s somewhat uncharacteristically not even trying to hide his amused grin. It makes me frown—Mac’s not one to revel in the discomfort of another, and being shot isn’t something he’d normally take the piss out of Dimitri for.
“An attack from the rear,” Mac explains, laughter dancing in his eyes.
“Ah.” My own lips twitch, but I school my expression before the chuckle slips out. The only thing worse than having a laugh at Dimitri’s expense is letting him see you do it. Not that it’ll stop our sniper from sniping at the big Russian bear. He’s reckless that way, and a bit too fond of butt jokes. “Well. Mac’s about to become insufferable.”
Mac laughs. “Yup,” he agrees brightly, throwing Dimitri a grin. “I’m gonna be a real pain in the ass about this one.”
I snort as Dimitri turns an icy glare on Mac, gingerly pushing away from the wall of the van, favoring his left leg and—I imagine—buttock. “Finish moving the body,” he growls. “I am bleeding and leaving more evidence with each breath you waste on terrible jokes.”
With another unbothered chuckle, Mac gestures at the shooter, and we get to work. In a coordinated movement, we hoist opposite ends of the sleeping man and carry him over to the car. He doesn’t fold in easily, and when Mac slams the lid, there’s a distinct crunching noise that makes both of us wince.
We head back to the van. I step inside and settle on my stool, itching to start organizing all my new acquisitions—wallet, guns, Alfano’s laptop…
“Okay. I’m going to drop Sleeping Beauty at the freezer and get our ass-assin home.” At Dimitri’s angry, dismissive noise, Mac turns to me with a wide grin. “When I come back, we can head in to clean up. You stay here and keep an eye on the streets?”
“Will do.”
“Anything comes up, you nip it in the butt.”
Dimitri grinds his jaw.
“It’sbud. Nip it in the bud,” I correct, hiding a smile as I grab a spare USB-C cord from the bin to plug in Alfano’s laptop.
Mac flashes that mega-watt smile. “Oh, that’s right,” he chuckles, as obvious as he is unrepentant about the intentional mistake.
Dimitri curses him under his breath, and I don’t quite catch the whole phrase—a real tragedy, since the man is as creative as he is explicit when it comes to foreign insults—but I catch something that roughly translates toturd from a haunted toilet.
I watch them climb into Mac’s car, then close myself back into the glowing blue lights and relative quiet of my surveillance van. My heart is still pounding hard—both from exertion and the remnants of adrenaline—and I realize my earpiece channels are still open as I hear the car doors slam, the engine start up, then the radio come on.
After a beat, there’s a low grumble:“If you start singing, I will kick you out.”
