Her beautiful blue eyes held his. “What if we’re badly injured and twenty minutes is too long?”
“Anything you can’t survive for that amount of time would kill you anyway.”
She licked her dry lips and held his gaze for a moment longer before turning back to Callum. “Got it, twenty minutes and then the cavalry storms the castle.”
“We have got to work on your metaphors,” Dimitri told her. “Cavalries don’t storm castles.”
“Yeah, correct me, because that’s the most important part of this discussion.” She frowned at him and he couldn’t help but chuckle. It felt good. It felt normal. It was reassuring. He dropped his hand back to the table in front of him, wishing he still held Megan. And calling himself all kinds of a fool for wishing it.
“Twenty minutes from the second you enter that house,” Callum said again. “You both have watches on. Use them. If we don’t see you exit on twenty, we come in, guns blazing, and get you out of there.”
Dimitri nodded. “Once inside Rudi’s office, I disable the guards while Megan uses the tech Elle gave her to copy the information on the flash drive. Then we get out of there before they wake up.”
“Painting a target on our backs and leaving Claire hanging in the wind,” Megan said.
“One thing at a time, Buffy. First we get the info, then we swoop in for the kill.”
“Yeah, right,” she muttered. “We swoop in months from now.”
“Okay.” Callum ignored the dig. “We ready to head out?”
There was a round of nods as one by one, people left the room. Dimitri watched as the women wished Megan luck and Julia gave her a shy hug. The strange actions made him realise more than ever that Megan, in fact none of the women, were trained for this sort of thing. They didn’t know what to expect. They didn’t know how to react. And Dimitri knew it was far too late to worry if they were asking too much of them.
They headed down to the garage at the back of the house as the rest of the team left to get into position. The meeting was scheduled for noon and they had plenty of time to get to the house. Megan was wearing faded jeans that were ripped at the knees. As agreed, her face was makeup free and her hair was rumpled as though she hadn’t been able to fix it. The T-shirt she wore had a hole ripped in it and a black smudge. The intent was to look like they’d been on the road for a couple of days and there had been a struggle when he’d taken her.
“Give me a minute,” Megan said, heading for the bathroom.
“We’re on a schedule here,” Dimitri shouted after her.
“I’ll be right back.”
Dimitri closed his eyes and mentally went over the plan. He had no doubt he’d be able to subdue the guards inside Rudi’s office, or that he’d be able to knock Rudi out so Megan could duplicate the information on the ring. What worried him was getting out without setting off alarms. The timing was a problem. They’d need to work fast. Otherwise the security team would discover their boss unresponsive and the house would be locked down tight. He rubbed his temples. So much could go wrong. If Megan got hurt…No, he couldn’t think like that. The question wasn’t whether she could take care of herself or not, it was whether she’d follow orders or go all maverick on his ass.
“I’m ready.”
Dimitri opened his eyes and promptly forgot to breathe. His jaw opened and closed a couple of times before words came out. “What the hell?”
Megan stood in front of him, her hand on her cocked hip, her eyes gleaming. She wore a red mini dress that fit like a second skin. It left nothing to the imagination. Her hair was tied in a high ponytail. Her lips were painted red, h
er eyes were outlined in black. Her only jewellery was a black wristwatch and an oversized ring in the shape of a black rose. Her feet were clad in mile-high black pumps.
“What the hell?” he said again, because his brain was fried.
Her smile was slow, wide and full of evil intent. “The girls and I decided this outfit would cause more of a distraction than the poor, victimised woman outfit.”
His eyes snapped away from tracing her curves. “Is this what you were planning in the office yesterday?”
“You’ll never know.” She sashayed towards him. “Because instead of asking politely, you decided to educate us. Shame the only thing we learned was just how arrogant you guys are.” She smiled at him. “Let’s go or we’ll be late. Wouldn’t want to keep Rudi waiting, now would we?”
She climbed into the car. So much for not going maverick on him. At least the worst she’d done was change clothes. He could cope with that. It would be fine. He hoped.
It took all of Dimitri’s self-control to focus on getting the car out of the garage and into traffic. He kept getting distracted by the steaming hot blonde sitting beside him. Rudi’s house wasn’t that far from their office as the crow flies, but with London’s roads and heavy traffic it would take time to get there. As he drove, his brain rushed over the plan, trying to see where her new look would ruin things. Apart from questions about why she was in such a great state, he couldn’t think of any problems. In fact, it might even work in his favour. He could tell Rudi he cleaned up the merchandise for the meeting. Yeah, that would make him look good. He relaxed. Slightly.
It took a few minutes for him to realise Megan wasn’t talking, which wasn’t normal. She sat quietly beside him, clutching her stomach and looking nervous. Dimitri did a double take—Megan never looked nervous. It suddenly occurred to him that she may have been hiding her anxiety about the op. He should have talked to her about it. It was normal to feel anxious the first time, even for a trained operative.
“It’s going to be okay.” He tried to reassure her. “Just stick to the plan and everything will be fine.”
“I’m okay. Don’t worry.”