The door slid open, allowing the master sommelier to come inside and display the chosen bottle of wine to Adrian for his approval. Sean watched him go through the wine-tasting ritual before nodding his approval of the vintage. The master sommelier poured out three generous glasses of wine before leaving the bottle on the table and exiting the room. Three servers appeared in his wake, one to retrieve the dirty dishes and the other two to deliver the soupcourse.
It being June, and the summer heat a heavy weight beyond the building, the soup was a cold avocado gazpacho poured into delicate-looking porcelain cups one was supposed to sip from. A hint of cream was drizzled over the surface as a garnish. Sean wasn’t sure if he should stir the cream through the soup or just drink it as is. He opted to pick up the cup and sip the soup. His background for this cover might be one step above street trash, but he could fake manners with the bestofthem.
The servers left. Sean kept up theconversation.
“We can shore up your firmware and mainframe and ensure the security of your multiple smart building AIs. Routine penetrative tests would be included in your contract with us. Our standard operating procedure is to attempt an initial hack into your systems to locate risk areas before tailoring a security fix that addresses your individual needs,”Seansaid.
“I don’t care about the details, only that itworks.”
“We stake our reputations on making sure ourproductswork.”
Adrian eyed him shrewdly from across the table. “So I’ve heard. You haven’t been around very long, but your company is certainly gaining areputation.”
“We pride ourselves on filling a market need and doing it well. Ekaterina is an exacting taskmaster, to say nothing of her former commandingofficer.”
Sean let the bait lie between them, and sure enough, Adrian pounced on the conversational opening. “So Jamie Callahan is still in thepicture?”
Captain Jamie Callahan, once a Recon Marine and now a metahuman leading Alpha Team, was an heir to billions whose father was running for the American presidency. The national election was a high-profile distraction that had been woven into Jamie’s backstory for the January mission. For his cover, Jamie had quit the Marines two and a half years ago in order to focus on his own business ventures rather than his father’s politics. The result was Root Source, Inc., but he’d only financially backed it and didn’t own a controlling stake in it. Still, having the Callahan name linked to the company was a guaranteed in with the wealthy, something Sean had witnessed firsthand inLondon.
“Jamie will always be in thepicture.”
Sean took another sip of his gazpacho, running his tongue over the back of his teeth to get rid of the film there. He looked up when the door slid open again, frowning as a pair of men dressed in suits entered the room. They looked more like guests than restaurant workers, and shouldn’t have been allowed to enter the privatediningroom.
“Excuse me, this is a private dinner,” Sean said, eyeing theirapproach.
Neither man spoke, their silence making Sean’s instincts snap to attention. He caught sight of a tattoo peeking out from beneath the taller man’s unbuttoned collar, and Sean felt his blood turn to ice in his veins. Peeking out on either side of the man’s neck were the intricate lines of a dagger tattooed over his shoulders, giving the illusion of the blade stabbing him through the throat. It was an old-style tattoo, one that was more popular with the American branches of the Russian mafia than that of the deadlierbratvasback in the Motherland. Sean had spent hours and hours poring over the tattoos favored on both sides of the Atlantic, committing their designs and meaning to memory. He knew what that particular tattoomeant.
Assassin.
Sean got to his feet so fast his chair pitched over backward, drawing the gun from his back holster with his right hand in a smooth motion. Adrian was in the way of his shot, forcing Sean to side step in order to fire. He aimed for the closest enemy, winging the man on the arm. The suppressor built into his gun masked the sound of it going off even as the bullet embedded itself in the wall. The man he’d grazed swore viciously before closing in. With two targets, Sean had to choose, but his split-second hesitation cost him. He wasn’t fast enough to stop the assassin from taking ahostage.
Chloe was hauled out of her seat by her neck, the assassin’s hand wrapped tightly around her throat, choking off her scream. He dragged her in front of him, kicking her chair out of the way before pressing a sharp switchblade to the arched line of her throat, so close it sliced through the sheer fabric of herdress.
“Drop your gun,” the manordered.
He had a Russian accent, the stresses telling Sean it was very possible Russian was the man’s first language, not his second. Sean had an excellent ear for accents and a terrible habit of not listening to theenemy.
Which meant Sean didn’t drophisgun.
“Get your hands off my wife!” Adrian yelled, half-rising out of his seat. “Someone get securityinhere!”
Sean knew the private dining room was soundproofed, something Adrian seemed to have forgotten. The man Sean had shot at earlier shoved Adrian into the chair, putting a gun to the back of his head. The tear on the man’s suit jacket was damp with blood from the bullet graze, a stained white shirt sleeve peeking through theopening.
“Shut the fuck up,” the newcomersnarled.
Sean kept his gun aimed at the man holding Chloe. Her broken little sobs were only cut off when the man Sean mentally labeled as Tattoo tightened his fingers around her throat, makinghergag.
“We’re here to deliver message,” Tattoo said to Adrian, tapping the switchblade against Chloe’s throat to better enforce his threat. He didn’t seem bothered by the fact Sean hadn’t lowered his gun yet. “My boss warn you about coming back. New Miami has no room for yourbusiness.”
Adrian twisted his head around, mouth working angrily, but he didn’t say anything as the other man shoved the gun hard against his skull inwarning.
“Drop your weapon or I’ll blow his fucking brains out for your third course,” the second man ordered. Blond, blue-eyed, he had a drawl that pegged him as being raised in the South, possibly Atlanta, a hotbed of homegrown Russian mafiaactivity.
Sean didn’t have a photographic memory, but mission details were hard to forget, even years after it was over. He hadn’t worked very many Russian cases while with the CIA, but he’d kept up to date on their activities as the agency required. If the man with the gun was from Atlanta, then there was a good chance Sean was dealing with a Russian-American mafia group. In which case, Tattoo was still the outlier, unless he was a foot soldier on loan from a differentbratva.
Sean stared down the barrel of his gun at Tattoo. Ignoring the adrenaline pounding through his veins, he said, calmly, “The Wolcotts are clients of mine. My boss will be highly displeased if she has to cut short her meeting with Stanislav Pavluhkin because of a fucking territory dispute that should’ve been dealt with in the boardroom, not with second-rateenforcers.”
The way Tattoo jerked at Stanislav’s name told Sean he was definitely of abratvabackground. Working that angle could possibly get them out of this messalive.
