The Negotiator (Professionals 7)

“Two and a half hours, if we get to a boat immediately.”

“He is calling back in three,” she said, shaking her head. “And that is if he doesn’t get impatient. If he calls and you aren’t here, and he starts to suspect something, you are asking for a bullet in your brother’s head.”

“We’re going. If he calls, you answer. Stall.”

“Mr. Adamos…” she tried again as I yanked my arm away.

“Do your fucking job.”

I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth. I regretted them more when her head jerked back like I’d stuck her.

That was the problem with words in the heat of the moment. Not even regret could allow you to take them back.

There was no fixing this.

But I could fix the situation with my brother.

“Laird, you stay with Miller,” I barked, turning and running down the stairs.

It wasn’t until we were on a ship on our way to Mykonos that anyone spoke to me about anything other than the plan.

“She’s never going to cook for you again,” Niko told me, shaking his head.

“She is just here to do a job. Nothing more,” I insisted.

“Then she is available,” he concluded, and if I wasn’t so consumed with the current moment, I would have heard the baiting in his tone.

“You stay the fuck away from her,” I ground out.

“Yep. Just a job. Clearly,” he agreed, turning to look out at the ocean.

SIX

Miller

Laird stood at the door of the office like a member of the Queen’s Guard—stoic, steady, emotionless, reaction-less.

Even when I tried to shove him out of the way.

I wanted to go.

It was a silly, irrational reaction, but I just wanted to charge out the door, run down the steps, hop on the first boat back to the mainland so I could call someone to come get me since I had no money, no ID, no nothing thanks to Bellamy and Fenway bailing on me.

I was not, as a rule, someone who bailed under a little pressure. If that was my nature, I would have failed at my job years ago. I was good under pressure. That was why my reputation was what it was. I could deescalate most situations. I thought on my feet. I could talk myself out of anything.

So wanting to bolt felt foreign and unsettling.

I genuinely wasn’t sure that, were Laird not there, I would have stuck around for the call.

And, well, I didn’t like that.

I didn’t want to be that person.

At the end of the day, Christopher was right; this was a job. I had to see it through.

Decision made, I sat back down on the seat in front of the monitor, taking deep breaths, trying to string my thoughts together, to create convincing arguments for any of the things he might say when he called and found Christopher missing.

Three hours, almost to the moment, later, the phone started ringing.

Which meant one thing.

Christopher and his men hadn’t made it there yet.

My stomach tightened at the idea of him being intercepted, of them all being dead.

But no.

I couldn’t psych myself out.

I answered the call, watching as Atanas pixelated for a moment before getting clear.

“Miss Miller,” he greeted, glancing around. “Where is Adamos?”

“Throwing a hissy fit,” I told him, rolling my eyes. He liked when I insulted Christopher. It was an immature, insecure reaction. But that was okay. I could work with immature and insecure. “He’s not happy about giving up Santorini. It’s his home. It will make him look weak.”

“He’s already weak.”

“How so?”

“Having anyone that can be used against him. That is weak. Surely, you heard about my brothers.”

“I haven’t actually. What happened to your brothers?”

“I killed them,” he said, making a slicing motion to his throat. “My older brother. And my little brother. Around the same age as this little shit over there,” he said, gesturing.

He might have done it. He might have pretended to be proud of it, but there was shame there, maybe a hint of regret.

Something I learned along the way about people—no matter how big a monster they became, they had once been human, they had loved, lost, mourned. Just like the rest of us.

“That must have been a difficult decision,” I said, knowing that the best way to keep people engaged was to encourage them to speak about themselves while you pretended it was the most riveting thing you’d ever heard in your life.

It could buy me time.

Buy Christopher time.

Because keeping Chernev distracted was the only way to ensure that a bullet didn’t end up in that kid’s forehead.

I didn’t need that on my conscience.

I’d had it happen before.

And the memory still made me knife up in bed, gasping for breath, panic gripping my system, helplessness making my eyes well up.

It was hard enough when the victim was an adult. I wasn’t sure I could handle it being a kid.