Page 18

Oz tipped the room service waiter, closed the hotel room door behind him, and gave a light knock on the bathroom door as he wheeled the breakfast cart over to the table.

Ayla was slow getting ready this morning, but he wasn’t complaining.

The longer she took, the less time she was outside and visible.

Besides, it prevented the waiter from seeing her.

Even in disguise, it was better to keep her under wraps.

He frowned as he shifted the covered plates from the cart to the table.

Oz was beginning to worry about Ayla. She’d hardly touched dinner last night before she’d crashed.

Sure, she was stressed over her sister, but all she wanted this morning was toast and plain scrambled eggs.

No spice. She’d been clear about that. Luckily, the hotel served American-style breakfasts as well as Puerto Jardinese, but they wouldn’t be able to count on that at any other place they stayed.

Still no Ayla.

Pushing the cart between the beds to get it out of the way, Oz tapped on the bathroom door again. “Pollita, the food’s here. You can finish up in there after you eat.”

His worry increased when the door opened. She was dressed, wearing white pants and another top with some sort of swirly pattern, but she didn’t have her wig or makeup on yet. Her face looked pale. Winding his index finger in the end of one of her blonde curls, he asked, “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Did you hear anything from Baggs? Did he learn anything last night?”

Oz shook his head, and with one last caress of her hair, he lowered his arm. “He’ll check in before we get rolling.”

Probably. He kept that qualifier to himself. They’d had one hell of an argument last night when Ayla realized they weren’t stopping at the hotel just to drop off their things before heading out to look for her sister.

Fuck, he didn’t want to deal with that again.

She’d gone from reasonable, to furious, to tears, and back to furious so quickly, he hadn’t been able to keep up.

The only thing that saved his ass was convincing her that Baggs would do the after-dark searches and fill them in about what he discovered. If she found out the truth… Yeah.

Hand resting lightly on the small of her back, he steered her toward the table. This was a mid-tier hotel for Trujillo. Oz couldn’t risk taking her to a top-end place, not with the Russians searching for her sister, but this one was nice enough.

They had two queen-size beds, a desk, a round table with two chairs in front of the window, and a flat-screen television.

Considering some of the oddball hotels in the city, this was a win.

But they were going to need to move around, and like American breakfast, they wouldn’t be able to count on this level of accommodation in the future.

Going back and forth from the safe house, though, was one hell of a risk.

Not only for the op but for Ayla as well.

Once she was seated, Oz lifted the lids from her plates.

She’d asked for the butter on the side, and using a knife, she gingerly added a little to her toast. He waited until she took a bite, then moved to his side of the table, removed the plate covers from his dishes, and deposited all of them on the cart.

He opted for an American-style breakfast, too, for a change of pace. His omelet was spicy, loaded with cheese and vegetables, and he’d gotten a side of sausage patties. Reaching for his coffee cup, Oz raised his gaze to check how Ayla was doing with her food. She looked green.

“Are you okay?” he asked again, this time more urgently.

She pointed at his sausage patties. “The smell is making me sick.”

“What?” He lifted the small plate and sniffed, but it smelled okay to him. “There’s noth?—”

“Get it out of here!”

“Relax, Pollita, it’s gone.” Oz stood, took the plate with him into the hallway, and closed the door behind him. Leaning against the wall, he used his fingers to eat one of the warm patties. Tasted fine to him. He reached for the second one.

Oz stiffened as the door to a room down the hall opened. The man was older, dressed in a suit and tie, but he paused as he neared. His brows went up when he saw the plate in his hand, and he waited, expecting an explanation for why Oz was eating in the hallway.

Shrugging, he said in Spanish, “My wife didn’t like the smell of the sausage.”

The man smiled. “When my wife was pregnant, she couldn’t tolerate the scent of coffee. It made mornings difficult in our house.” With a nod, he continued down the hallway and headed toward the elevators.

Pregnant.

Oz couldn’t breathe for a moment. It was seven weeks since he and Ayla spent the night together.

His own stomach churned. He couldn’t finish the final sausage and deposited the small plate on a credenza located partway down the corridor beneath a wall-mounted mirror.

Returning to his position beside the door to their room, he pulled out his phone and began searching for symptoms. He could be jumping to conclusions.

Fatigue. Check. Mood swings. Check. Food aversions. Check. Nausea. Check. There were more symptoms, but he didn’t know about those, not without asking Ayla.

Why the hell hadn’t she told him?

Maybe he was wrong. Some of these symptoms—fuck, almost all of them—could be attributed to adrenaline, stress, and worry.

It had been one adventure after another for her since she stepped off that bus two days ago.

That was on top of how concerned she was about her sister.

Not just her sister, but her identical twin.

Putting the phone away, Oz closed his eyes. He needed a minute before he and his Pollita had a discussion. The one thing he couldn’t do was react without thinking things through. This was too important to fuck up, and that meant his head had to be clear when they talked.

He was absolutely finding out if he was going to be a father.

Oz let himself back in the room and returned to the table. His food was cold, but he wasn’t hungry anymore. He checked her plate. Ayla had eaten her toast, but it appeared as if she’d done nothing except push her scrambled eggs around the dish.

“Better now, Pollita?”

She looked up at him, and while she remained pale, the green was gone from her face. “Yes. Thanks for getting those sausages out of here.”

“No problem.” His coffee was cold, too, but Oz drank it anyway. He needed caffeine before broaching this conversation. He wanted to talk, not piss her off.

“You haven’t been eating very much,” he said, gesturing toward her plate.

Her lips pulled back in a gesture that was half smile, half apologetic. “I’m sorry. I’ve been so worried about Io that I just can’t eat.”

“Because you feel nauseated.”

“Well, yes.”

Bracing himself, Oz asked, “Pollita, when was your last period?”

Confusion gave way to startled realization, and Oz had his answer. Ayla wasn’t keeping secrets from him. She legit never considered she might be pregnant.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” she said, and there was a note of what he labeled desperation in her voice. “I’ve always been irregular.”

“When was your last period?”

“I’m not pregnant.”

“Ayla—”

“You wore condoms.” There was more than a note of desperation now.

Oz shook his head. “Not that last time. I ran out, and we decided to risk it, remember?” It was the only encounter where he’d gone bareback. Ayla was the only person with whom he’d ever considered taking that kind of chance.

She paled further. “You pulled out before you came.”

He eyed her untouched coffee, thought about helping himself, and decided against it. He couldn’t believe he had to teach sex education in a hotel room in Puerto Jardin. “I was seeping pre-come. Sperm can leak into that fluid.”

“Usually not many. The odds?—”

“All it takes is one finding an egg. The odds don’t mean shit then.

” Ayla went so white, Oz thought she was going to pass out.

He got up and crouched beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“Breathe, Pollita.” When she had some color back, he said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so blunt.”

She nodded but stayed quiet.

Confident she wouldn’t check out on him, Oz released her, and still crouching beside her, showed Ayla his phone. “You have most of the symptoms.” He scrolled down to show her the checkmarks he’d made on the interactive page. “So Pollita, when was your last period?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice came out choked, and she cleared her throat. “I keep track in my planner, and that’s in my apartment in LA. But those symptoms don’t have to mean I’m pregnant.”

Yeah, he was aware of that, but the other possibilities were falling into line behind the most obvious reason. “Before or after our night together? Your last period,” he added when Ayla seemed confused.

She considered the question for a moment and then her expression turned stubborn. “I’m not pregnant. I would know if I was.”

Oz had his doubts about that. Ayla was in major denial about it being a possibility. And there definitely was a chance. Judging by her reaction, her last period was before they’d spent the night enjoying each other. “If you are pregnant, I’ll be with you all the way. You can count on that.”

“How? You’ll be in Puerto Jardin or some other place mercenaries work and I’ll be in Los Angeles.

” Her blue eyes turned watery, but before Oz could decide what to do about the tears, his message app started sending notifications.

If he’d locked his phone again, this wouldn’t have happened, but he was still holding it for Ayla to read.

She read it all right.

“That’s your friend. What did Baggs say? Did he find out anything about Io?”

Great. Fucking fabulous. In the middle of an important conversation, he had to check messages because there was no way Ayla would discuss anything else until she knew what Baggs said.

He knew what she was doing. She was using the interruption to delay things.

It was likely she thought this would end the topic entirely. She was mistaken.

“Well?” Ayla prompted him.

“He said he didn’t hear anything concrete about Fuentes, and that the few things he did come across were whispers.

Rumors heard from someone who heard from someone else who picked it up from another person.

What he did learn ties the man to the Treasure of Trujillo and not any kind of arms dealing.

That’s a plus for your sister if Fuentes is involved in her disappearance.

Arms dealers have to be worse than treasure hunters. ”

“Maybe,” she conceded, “but greed is a powerful motivator, and people kill over money.”

Oz nodded and stood but didn’t comment. Arms dealers were the scum of humanity.

“What else did Baggs say?”

“Not much.”

“Oz.” There was a growl in his Pollita’s voice.

“He told me which hotel he checked into and that he’d be back out searching after he caught some sleep.”

“And?”

“That’s it. That’s all he said.”

“Really?”

He put his irritation aside. This wasn’t about her not trusting him. Ayla had shown over and over that she had faith in him. It had more to do with her worrying about her sister and needing more intel.

Since he cleared out messages after reading them, the only ones on his phone were from now. Crouching again, Oz showed her the text stream. It said exactly what he’d told her.

“Oh.” Ayla’s disappointment was obvious. “Why is Baggs staying at a different hotel? Why isn’t he staying here?”

“Because it risks you.” Oz got to his feet and rounded the table to take his seat. “Baggs will be on his own going forward. He’ll update me via messages, not in person.”

“How does it risk me?”

“He’s asking questions in some shady places.” That was putting it mildly. “If he attracts the notice of the wrong person, and for some reason he doesn’t pick up a tail, his staying in the same hotel would lead them to us. To you. It’s safer if we separate.”

“The same would go for us. If someone followed us and you didn’t notice, it would put Baggs in danger.”

He nodded, but Oz planned to keep her in places that were as safe as possible.

Places where there was as close to a zero chance of running into the Russians as he could get.

Petrova’s flunkies showing up at the café was a fluke.

As long as he kept Ayla away from the most likely locations to search for her sister, there shouldn’t be a repeat.

Ayla started to ask another question, but Oz suspected it was a delaying tactic. He cut off the attempt. “Now, back to what we were discussing before Baggs interrupted us. Do?—“

“I am not pregnant.” The obstinate expression on Ayla’s face underlined her words.

This was getting them nowhere. Oz stood, checked to make sure he still had his keycard for the room, and asked, “Are you finished eating?”

At her nod, he reloaded the plates onto the cart. When the table was cleared, he pulled it out from between the beds and pushed it out into the hallway. Grabbing the Do Not Disturb sign, he put it on the outside door handle.

With that taken care of, he came back to where Ayla sat. “Stay here. Don’t go closer to the windows than you are right now. Do not answer the door for any reason. Unless there’s a fire, stay put. I shouldn’t be gone long.” Oz headed to the door. “Engage the secondary locks behind me.”

“Where are you going?”

Hand on the doorknob, Oz glanced back over his shoulder. Ayla stood, fingers linked at her waist and a worried expression on her face. “To buy a pregnancy test.”

Concern left and obstinance returned. “I told you that I’m not pregnant.”

“Fine.” His voice was clipped, but he was irritated by her refusal to even consider it as a real possibility. “Then the test will prove it, and we’ll move on. But Pollita? I’m damn well going to know whether I’m about to become a father.”

He left the hotel room, pausing after he closed the door. Oz wasn’t moving until he heard her secure it. The wait took longer than he liked, but finally, she snapped the other locks into place. Through the door, he heard her say, “I’m not pregnant.”

Oz shook his head as he walked down the hallway.