Page 57 of Tangled

She nodded.

He asked, “Can I borrow your computer?”

From her laptop, he went to his cloud storage, where he retrieved several naughty little programs he’d been working on, modified one a little under fifteen minutes, and uploaded it to his phone.

A knock clattered at the hotel room door.

Colleen about crawled up the headboard.

He patted her leg. “It’s okay. I ordered room service for breakfast and two lost-luggage kits with toothbrushes and combs and stuff from the store downstairs. I was thinking about ordering some clothes online with two-hour delivery.”

She said, “Huh. Being holed upwith moneyis a lot better than with no money.”

“Indeed. Check the peephole when you answer the door. Then jump on your phone. I’ll give you my login. Put anything you need in the basket.”

She went to the door and called out, “We’re fine. Just leave it.” And then she waited before she opened the door and pulled the room service tray inside.

The scent of breakfast filled the hotel room. Tristan had ordered two of everything, and the drifting aroma of baked goods and bacon filled his nose and went straight to his brain.

He grabbed a few strips of crunchy, salty heaven whilst Colleen situated herself on the bed with her phone and the donuts.

With Colleen distracted with shopping for the necessities, Tristan walked to the other side of the room and called Jian’s phone.

She raised her voice and asked, “Hey, what size are you?”

Tristan flinched and held his finger to his lips.Damn,he didn’t want to give the Butorins any more information than necessary, even the fact that Colleen was still with him.

The line clicked when the phone connected.

The download started.

Tristan repressed a smile. He didn’t want his voice to sound happy. “Hello?”

A rough, Russian voice answered. “We tried to do things business way, Tristan King, and now we do things Russian way.”

“I understand. I’m prepared to turn it over.”

“You are? You said it would take week or more.”

“I can start uploading packets to show good faith. I believe I can have a complete version uploaded by Wednesday morning. In return, I need to talk to Jian and Anjali to make sure they’re okay.”

“You don’t need to talk to anybody. You just need to upload program that hides us from surveillance cameras.”

“Proof of life is standard in these situations, Sergey.”

“You can have picture.”

“Fine. Jian makes the okay sign. Anjali has both arms raised.”

“You don’t trust that we just wouldn’t do all numbers. I’m hurt by lack of trust.”

“I know how valuable my program is to you. Every day that you don’t have it puts your people in jeopardy. Showing me Jian and Anjali would encourage me to work harder and get it to you faster.”

“Fine. I show you picture. I will send in one minute. I have to untie them.”

They hung up, and Tristan looked at his phone.

The screen showed a wildly swinging video, so much so that Tristan blinked and looked at the white popcorn ceiling to regain his equilibrium. When he looked down again, the screen was white with a diagonal shadow, probably the seam of the ceiling, which meant the phone had been laid face-up on something.