Privilege (Special Tactical Units Division 2)

“I’ll tell you more when I see you.”

“You want me to kill that program?”

“No,” Chay said quickly. “Leave it just the way it is. But what happens if you were to download the contacts from the phone? I mean, will the bug be part of the download?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Olivieri,” Sanchez said patiently, “trust me. You want the contacts? You can have them. Bug free.”

“Can you transfer them to my phone?”

Declan laughed. “This is gonna be quite a story when you finally get around to clueing me in. Yeah. Sure. Give me five minutes.”

Sanchez worked his magic again. By the time Chay ended the call, he had Bianca’s contact list.

He tossed her phone aside and took a deep breath.

On to the rest of the plan. Compared with all this, it would be easy.

According to his hotel reservation, he’d be leaving on Monday. There was no reason to tell the desk anything different. This way, if someone checked up, reception would say that yes, Chay Olivieri was still in residence.

He and Bianca would leave a few things in the room so the cleaning staff wouldn’t raise any questions. Toothbrushes. A change of clothes. Stuff people would normally have lying around.

As far as the hotel would know, he’d still be here.

Excellent—except, he wouldn’t be, which took him to the next part of the plan.

Leaving the hotel without a watcher knowing they were leaving.

Walking out the door and getting into a taxi? No way. That was far too visible.

But the hotel had a car rental company right on the property.

Chay made a quick call and requested a mid-sized, mid-priced, mid-everything vehicle. The clerk came up with the name of something so dull it made Chay’s Harley-loving self shudder, but he knew that a car like that would be all but invisible on the teeming Manhattan streets and he arranged to pick it up in the hotel’s parking garage.

Finally, it was time to get moving.

“Honey? You ready?

“Yes,” Bianca said as she came out of the bathroom. “I’m ready.”

He looked at her. She’d put on jeans, an oversized T-shirt, and flat-heeled sandals. No makeup, as usual, and she’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail.

She was, no question, the most beautiful woman in the world.

He didn’t realize he was staring until she gave a nervous little laugh.

“What? Is something not right with how I am dressed? I thought it would be best to look, you know, unobstructed.”

He smiled. “Unobtrusive,” he said softly, and he took her in his arms and kissed her. She melted into him and he felt his heart, his soul, his head fill with her. He wanted to stand here forever, holding her, holding onto this moment that he knew could not, would not last…

“Chayton?”

“Yes?”

There was so much she longed to say, to tell him…