The Negotiator (Professionals 7)

“Christopher’s brother was kidnapped, being held for ransom by Chernev.”

“Of the heroin fame?” Quin asked, knowing damn near every major player in the world.

“Yes.”

“Ruthless bastard.”

“Yes, well, that was why I was needed. To negotiate a deal. For a nice price.”

God, I hadn’t even thought about the money in over a week. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I had thought about the money at all since being back on the yacht.

“Tell me, Miller, did you really have any say in this transaction?” Quin asked, too smart for his own good. Or mine in this situation.

“Okay, no,” I admitted, watching as his jaw tightened. “But, really, it was a good deal. Better than anyone has ever offered me. And the job seemed easy enough.”

“And yet you are still in fucking Greece for what reason?”

“We got Alexander—Christopher’s brother—back. But Chernev got away. And, apparently, he had turned one of Christopher’s men. Which we didn’t learn until he attacked me in bed.”

“He what?” Quin asked, voice a barely audible hiss as his hands curled into fists.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. Really, there was no, you know, physical damage or anything. Christopher came in and handled it.”

I knew Quin well enough to interpret the look in his eyes right then, to know he had picked up on my carefully chosen words.

No physical damage.

I charged on, though, because I wasn’t ready to go there. If I ever would be.

“And because Christopher wasn’t sure if any of his men could be trusted at that point, he packed his brother and me up with just three guards and headed here to hide out while he had Holden called in to… do some interrogating.”

“Why were you the one almost killed?” Quin asked, turning accusing eyes on Christopher.

“Because I had been on a call with him, distracting him while Christopher and his men made their way to retrieve Alexander.”

“And he hates women,” Christopher added. “Especially ones in positions of power.”

“There’s that too,” I agreed, nodding.

“How long have you been here? Instead of Santorini?” he asked, keen eyes landing on me once again.

“Too long not to have found a way to call you,” I told him, shaking my head. “I wasn’t thinking straight,” I admitted.

“I bet,” Quin agreed, looking again at Christopher, the accusation clear in his eyes.

I knew I had been right.

When I got back to Navesink Bank, he would force me into therapy.

And they would throw around those words.

Stockholm Syndrome.

More startling than the idea of that, was the idea of leaving at all.

“How did you find me?” I asked, looking for something to distract me from the thoughts about leaving.

“We started to worry when we hadn’t heard from you. No one had seen you. No activity on your credit cards. Finally, Nia pinged your phone. And you’ll never guess where she found it.”

“At Bell’s place,” I assumed.

“And he was oh, so conveniently off on a job and ‘unable to be contacted’ until further notice. But you know Nia; she won’t settle for not figuring shit out. She traced some of his phone records to Greece. I took a shot and jumped on a plane.”

“How long have you been in the country?”

“Four days or so. I’ll say this for that bastard,” he said, jerking his chin toward Christopher, “he has these people brainwashed into thinking he’s a decent guy who would never actually kidnap someone.”

“He’s done a lot for them,” I defended immediately, knee-jerk.

A shadow crossed Quin’s face as he listened to me. “I’m going to need to speak to you alone, Miller. Outside,” he added. “Is that going to be a problem?” he asked, tone seething as he glanced at Christopher.

“I need to talk to him,” I added to Christopher in a quiet voice.

“Okay,” he said, to me, though, not to Quin. “Send Collis in so you can have some privacy.”

I gave him a tight nod as I followed my boss outside.

“Your boss said to head inside,” he told Collis, who turned his gaze to me instead, brow raising.

“He did,” I told him, giving him a reassuring nod.

“Look at that,” Quin said when we were alone. “They listen to the woman of the house.”

“Quin…”

“Look, Miller. I know. You have a thing for the clients sometimes. I get it. They’re your type. Tall, dark, and dangerous enough to be a little fun. I get it. But that man had your friend drug and kidnap you, drag you to a foreign country, and then forced you into working for him.”

“A financial agreement was reached,” I told him, chin raising.

“Did you have a choice, or were you simply making the best of a bad situation?”

Quin didn’t get to be the boss because he was dumb. The man had great observation skills. And he knew all of us pretty damn well.

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” I admitted. “I knew that as soon as we made it to shore, there was no coming home until the job was done. And since Bellamy and Fenway had already made up their minds on who they were loyal to in this situation…”