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48
EMMY
Well, tonight had to rank high amongst the most spectacular balls-ups of my career.
Yes, we’d achieved our initial objective—in the chaotic aftermath of the police raid, Ravi and Spider had escaped along the beach with the weapon and a shocked Santoro.Barbie had picked them up, and they were all safely back at the rental house, watching the drama from across the water as we tried to unpick how everything had gone so, so wrong.
Black, Dan, Alaric, Armand, and I had been herded into the living room with everyone else while the cops searched the property and an ambulance crew did their stuff on the terrace.Revealing our true reasons for being at the party didn’t seem wise at this point because that would only lead to more questions we didn’t have time to answer.At least someone had found me a towel and a packet of wet wipes to clean the worst of the trifle off myself.
As best we could work out, Timonenko had tried to clear a route through the partygoers by waving a gun and shouting, and when the guests didn’t move fast enough, he’d fired a warning shot overhead.At which point, a property magnate from Texas had drawn his own gun—afterwards, he proudly told us that he never left home unarmed—and attempted to bring the situation under control.Can you guess how that went?Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you looked at it, only one civilian had been wounded before Pale took out Timonenko with a headshot.
Alaric had attempted to staunch the blood flowing from the woman’s chest wound, and at that point, Rick Astley had joined the party, blasting from the speakers of a yacht filled with drunk coeds as it sailed merrily through the middle of a gunfight, the passengers completely oblivious to the danger.
And while everyone was losing their heads, Ilya and two of his men had exited via the rear balcony and run to the dock.Alex had surfaced from drowning the guy he’d tackled in time to see Angelou’s RIB speed off, and Ilya had thoughtfully knifed ours so Alex couldn’t give chase.Worse, Ilya had grabbed Hallie on the way.Alaric had pushed her behind an oversized concrete plant pot beside the walkway to the dock and told her to stay there, and it seemed Ilya had figured a hostage would come in handy.
Fuck, the girl couldn’t catch a break.This was the fourth time she’d been kidnapped, and now I felt sick to my stomach.Finding her wouldn’t be a problem—after the previous incidents, she wore a tracker at all times, so we knew exactly where she was—but retrieving her promised to be a headache.Currently, she was speeding south in the RIB.Not only did Ilya have a head start, but we had no idea of his destination.
Spider was busy stitching up a knife wound on Alex’s arm while Ravi babysat Santoro.Vance was still trying to find out what the fuck was going on with the Long Beach PD because they weren’t telling us anything, while Pale and Barbie loaded hardware onto theBlack Opaland manoeuvred her into place for a pickup.At her top speed, we’d be able to keep pace with Ilya but not overtake him, which wasn’t the disaster it sounded—our boat had a pair of modified Waverunners on board that would go significantly faster when the need arose.
But while catching Ilya was certainly possible, retrieving Hallie presented a far greater challenge.We couldn’t have a shoot-out on the water.No, we’d have to wait for him to come ashore and take things from there.He wouldn’t dispose of her, not yet.Not while she still had a use.Maybe he’d try to trade her for the weapon?
“Two minutes,” Pale said.
“We need to get out of here,” I murmured to Black.
Across the room, Armand had an arm around Dan’s shoulders, but he was the one who was shaking.Turned out there was a big difference between playing an undercover agent in the movies and actually being one.Still, at least he could write his torn suit off as a bona fide business expense.Alaric would need new clothes, too.His were covered in blood, which meant everyone else in the room was giving their little huddle a wide berth.
Miroslava Novikova glanced in our direction.She’d abandoned her beau, and now she was sitting with a group of women by the grand piano, trying her utmost to look innocent.I didn’t believe the act for a moment.She was buried in this from the tips of her Jimmy Choos to her ruby earrings, but we’d deal with her later.
“The police are looking for Charlotte McGuinn,” Vance told us.“She was abducted on her way home from school last week.”
What the actual fuck?A kidnapped schoolgirl?“Why the hell would they think she was here?”
“They got a tip-off.”
“From who?”
“I don’t know, but if they see the padlock and chain upstairs…”
Oh, bloody marvellous.If we stuck around, we’d be answering questions forever.Fuck it, we were getting out of here.
“Ma’am, please sit down.”
I almost felt sorry for the cop.He was barely more than a kid and clearly way out of his depth tonight.
“Sorry, but no.”
“You can’t just leave.”
“Actually, the Fourth Amendment says I can.”
“Uh…”
“Don’t blame me; I didn’t write it.”
“You’re a witness to a crime.We need to take a statement.”
“Exactly.A witness, not a perpetrator.”For once.“Here’s my card, and I’ve jotted my lawyer’s number on the back.I’ll make a statement tomorrow, but tonight, I’m feeling sick, and so I’m going home.”
“But the captain…”
“The captain can call me tomorrow.”
The cop craned his neck back to look up at Black, presumably hoping for a little help in dealing with this unreasonable female.But Black just shrugged.
“You heard what she said.God bless the Constitution.”
Alaric and Dan would stay, Dan to keep Armand out of trouble and Alaric to control the narrative around events on the terrace and keep an eye on Novikova.But that left us short of manpower.Or rather, womanpower.Where were Ana and Darya?Probably at Skywater House, eating pizza and planning their next B&E excursion.But tonight, I needed their help.If anyone could predict what Ilya was likely to do, it was those two.As we waited for Pale to pick us up, I fired off an SOS text to Ana, then checked on Hallie’s whereabouts again.She was still heading south at a rate of knots, her heart rate elevated but otherwise strong.As long as she was still alive, we could fix this.
Just hold on, Hallie.We’re coming.