“One stone?” I ask.
“It’s something my father says—a play on thatkill two birds with one stonesaying. Our stone isn’t used to kill two birds. We kill one to save another. Every life taken is a life saved. One stone.”
I pick up the small rock, palming it as I try to decode this message, and then I spot a slip of paper. It only has one line scrawled on it.
Je m’en suis sorti avec difficulté. J’ai planifié ça avec douleur.
It’s French.I escaped with difficulty. I planned this moment with pain.
That’s a paraphrasing of a quote from the movieThe Count of Monte Cristo. We chatted a bit about how the most famous lines from that film never appeared in the original text written by Alexandre Dumas, so her paraphrasing is a play on how things get lost with progression. I’m assuming the French is to reveal that it’s her, since she was my translator, but to be less obvious to anyone else who found it.
But the biggest clue she left is that the movie quote states it was planned withpleasure, notpain. She’s telling me that what she’s doing is not what she wanted. It’s what’s necessary.
One stone.
Maybe the fact that she disengaged the tracking inside the clasp of her diamond collar, but didn’t leave it here is a message too. A vow that she’s still mine.
Or that’s my colorful spin on it. I don’t fucking know.
Except I do know her. I knew her the second she appeared on my goddamn security camera with that gorgeous mahogany mane, a fierceness that could incapacitate any man, and a beauty that demanded to be seen as royalty. My soul realized she belonged to me even then. And I learned her day in and day out. Her brilliance, her skill, her wit, heart, and desires.
I guess planning something with pain could be her admission to carrying out a mission that betrays me in some regard.
She ran. She was here, where she’d be safe. Where we could be together. And she left.
There’s no way around that, but she also risked everything to get me this message. I snap a quick picture of the note, the bracelet, and the stone. Depending on what she’s doing, if this all goes to shit and I need to prove her loyalty to KORT, this mighthelp. But I need more. And I need to find her before KORT or Kratos does.
I may not know where she is or what she’s doing, but there’s one place I can find out.
ZARA
Waiting patiently like a sniper or a crocodile in a swamp, I kick my black boots up on the wrought iron railing as I zero in on my prey.
The clippity-clomp of horse-drawn carriages echoes from below, the faint sloshing of the rain-washed pavement being pranced upon. It’s too ebullient of a sound to escort my impending actions, but so is the doleful drone of the saxophone dominating the streets. Moonlight glimmers on the glossy buildings and statues and greenery, enhanced by the stubborn droplets from this afternoon’s shower. I’ve never been here at night. It’s even more lively—lights and music and riotous charm.
As I watch the pair conversing in secret—one on a bench, the other two feet away, feigning the examination of a street artist’s paintings—I’m confident I have my mark. But I don’t know how deep this runs, and I won’t be interrogating my target.
I pull out my burner and dial, my eyes never veering from my surveillance. He answers with only a breath, no voice identification for an unspecified number.
So, I do the honors. “Who is the handler for the Kazakhstan mission?”
A door clicks shut before he finally speaks. “Where the hell are you?”
A group of women who appear to be celebrating a divorce are whooping so exuberantly that the raucous din floats up toward me. I’d be afraid that he might discern my location by dissecting the background noise, but I’ll be on my way in a half hour.
Still, I aim to make this quick. “I asked a question first.”
“I’m missing something,” he snipes. “I got you the hell out of Greece, and you repay me by disappearing? Are we not on the same team anymore?”
I huff a sardonic laugh at the nerve. “There’s a hell of a lot of evidence to the contrary. Like—I don’t know—the dozens of men sent to ambush me.”
“We had nothing to fucking do with that,” he barks. “I told you they were probably there for your groom.”
“Well, if you’d been in that church, you’d have realized that most of them were after me, and you’d be calling bullshit on that excuse. But you know how softhearted I am, so I have no plans to retaliate, dear brother. You can prove your allegiance by answering my damn questions.”
Tripp sighs, but concedes. “Dad is overseeing it personally now.”
Fuck.
