“Go,” I say, because if I don’t say it now I’m going to lock the door and keep her here like a psycho.
She nods against my chest, steps back, and grabs her bag.
At the door she pauses. Looks at me.
I don’t saybe carefulagain. I’ve already worn the words out.
She opens the door and slips out into the hallway. The latch clicks shut.
The room is too quiet after she leaves, and I sit on the edge of the bed longer than I should. I lace my shoes, check my phone twice. Nothing from Paolo, nothing from Dario. That should be a good sign.
I grab my jacket, holster the Glock, take the elevator down. The lobby is doing its whole anonymous luxury thing, nobody looking at anybody too long, which is the entire point of a place like this. I continue down into the parking garage and the temperature drops ten degrees. Concrete and exhaust and fluorescent tubes buzzing overhead, half of them flickering.
My car’s on the far end near the wall. I click the fob and the taillights flash.
Three rows away. Maybe forty feet.
I slow.
The air feels wrong.
I can’t pin it. No sound, no movement, still, every nerve in me goes sharp. The hair on my arms lifts.
I adjust my path. Angle between two parked cars instead of walking the open lane. My hand drifts upward, fingers brushing the holster through my jacket.
I turn just as a body slams into me from the side.
We hit the ground hard enough to crack my elbow against concrete. Pain shoots up my arm. My gun tears free and skids somewhere under the nearest car. I twist under the weight oninstinct, drive my fist into the guy’s throat, buck my hips, and throw him off. He rolls, cursing in Russian.
Bratva.
Of course.
I’m already pushing up when another one comes in swinging from my left. I duck it, slam my fist into his kidney, and he folds. But a third guy is already there, and his fist connects with my jaw hard enough to split the inside of my cheek against my teeth. Copper floods my mouth. I grab his collar, yank him forward into a headbutt, and he staggers.
I get a punch into his ribs, feel a satisfying crunch under my knuckles, but somebody catches me low and drives me back into a pillar. The impact rattles my skull.
Hands grab for me.
I slam my head backward into somebody’s face. Hear a crunch. An ugly shout. I pivot and drive my fist into one guy’s chin hard enough to spin him. He goes down on a knee.
A burst of savage hope hits.
I can still get out.
Then I hear the click behind me. Close. Inches.
Metal kisses the base of my skull, cold and precise, and every muscle in my body locks.
“Hands.”
Fuck.
My arms go up, slow. Blood dripping off my knuckles, chest heaving, tongue probing the cut inside my cheek. I turn around.
Nikolai Kozlov.
This fucking asshole.
