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Those she loved.
And all she could think was that Mickey had done this. These were some bikers that owed him. He’d let them get away with some crime along the way, and he was pulling in his chit.
She was one day closer to her divorce.
He was one day closer to being locked out of his millions-of-dollars payday.
Olivia wished her aunt was poor. Olivia didn’t need or even want the money. At this moment, Olivia wished Aunt Jo had never mentioned her will in passing. Mickey would have never guessed she was rich; Aunt Jo led a frugal life.
How long could she hold out against these men to protect her Aunt?
Her only hope was that somehow Nutsbe would look out his bedroom window and see too many shadows through the curtain and call her, and then …
Olivia mentally swiped at that thought hoping to pocket it before it became a prayer—a wish—a self-fulfilling anything. No, she didn’t want Nutsbe to come. Because he would try to protect her. And as brave and strong and wonderful as he was, he was one against two.
This guy had a gun.
And yes, seeing a problem—just like when Mickey was trying to dognap Henrietta—he’d swipe, calling into Iniquus, and Iniquus might well barrel full force their way—but could any reasonable person think they’d get here in time to make a difference?
Candace had called for help for her and her friends, but she alone survived.
Olivia hated that she lived behind Nutsbe. She honestly couldn’t imagine he wouldn’t come.
Mickey was a piece of shit. May he rot in hell.
Only one of what she’d counted as two intruders was sitting in front of her. Olivia could hear the other one downstairs emptying her drawers onto the floor.
Ponytail pushed a wheeled chair over in front of her. Looking at her with an easy smile. “Hello, Olivia,”
She pressed her lips together.
“I’m going to tape our little talk.”
What is that accent?
He placed a micro recorder on the side table and pulled it closer to them.
Shit.
“Did you know that recently, the Middle East lost a top nuclear scientist?” he asked.
What?
“A machine gun was propped up in a parked car, and the man was killed by remote control.” He reached out and swiped the piece of hair that had fallen across her eyes and tucked it neatly behind her ear. “Do you believe in tit-for-tat?”
“I’m not a scientist,” Olivia said.
“That’s not really how it happened. You can’t remote-control an assassination like that. Assassinations are personal. They’re the poetry of retribution. They should be performed with attention to nuance and detail.”
Olivia blinked at the biker.
Nuance?
She’d never met a biker who would lace that word into a sentence. Was this guy in a costume, acting a part? She remembered the story of the motorcycles and the CIA. But the CIA’s job was to gather foreign intelligence. In the U.S., it would be the FBI who worked domestically.
Who was this guy?
Why was he talking to her about the poetry of assassinations?