The Negotiator (Professionals 7)

“Had to,” she repeated, pressing her lips into thin lines as she turned to look at me.

“Yes.”

“I’ve known you since you were a small boy, Christopher,” she started, telling me things I already knew. “I’ve always thought you were a smart boy, a smart man. No more,” she declared, whipping a dish towel off her shoulder and slapping it onto the counter.

“Cora…”

“Love doesn’t have to end. You kill it. That is how it ends. And if you did that, you are a very dumb man,” she told me, throwing up her hands, stalking out the back door.

“She’s not wrong,” Alexander agreed, grabbing a bottle of soda out of the fridge, then following Cora outside.

“Christ,” I snapped, hanging my head, wondering why I didn’t have a single ally in my own damn house.

They liked Melody.

I got that.

For fuck’s sake, no one liked her more than I did.

But that didn’t change that this was our reality.

Everyone was going to need to live with that.

Me more than anyone else.

I was going to need to find a way to cope that didn’t involve nearly killing myself with exercise, drowning myself in work, then taking a drink or five before bed to try to make myself pass out.

Maybe I would be further along if everyone around me wasn’t constantly calling me a fool for letting her go.

No one felt more foolish than I did.

To let the only woman who ever meant anything to me—meant a lot to me, in fact—go. Without a fight.

But what was done was done.

“Boss,” Laird called, snapping me out of my cycling thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“We have some information on Chernev,” he told me, sounding pleased. And he would be. As hard as I had been pushing myself, I had been pushing my team. To track him down. To eliminate the threat he presented.

I couldn’t give Melody much.

But I could give her safety.

“Alright. Give me ten to shower, and I’ll be right in.”

I figured we would find him in Bulgaria. Maybe, if he was chickenshit, hiding out in Turkey.

I even lingered through my shower, letting my mind wander to Melody, to the feel of her, the sounds of her, the need for her, her hunger for me.

When I finally walked into my study half an hour later, I wasn’t prepared for the file my men had compiled for me.

“You’re sure of this?” I clipped, flipping the pages in the file.

“Yes,” Laird assured me, nodding.

“When did he get on the plane?” I asked, my heartbeat hammering, my stomach twisting, wondering why the fuck this hadn’t been something I’d considered earlier.

“Seven p.m. last evening,” Laird told me, giving me the harsh truth with no chaser.

“Fuck,” I hissed, tossing the file, reaching for my phone. “Baird. Does someone have Quinton Baird’s number?”

They scrambled for a moment before producing a number, rattling it off while my clumsy fingers tapped my keypad, bringing the phone up to my ear as I paced across my office, feeling a cold sweat break out across the back of my neck.

“Quinton Baird and Associates,” a clipped male voice answered. I’d hoped for the office manager. Jules. Melody had made her seem diplomatic and level-headed. The men she worked with? Not so much. And all of them likely holding a grudge against me.

“This is Christopher Adamos,” I started, hearing the desperate edge to my voice.

“Yeah?” he cut me off, sounding a hell of a lot more interested suddenly. “Well, in that case, you can go ahead and go fuck yourself.”

“Melody is in dang-” I started before realizing he had ended the call.

“Fuck,” I snapped, trying again. It rang once, got answered, and hung up again. By the third call, I found my number blocked. “God damn it,” I hissed, rushing out of the study, going into my room, grabbing a suitcase, tossing things from my closet in it.

“Mr. Adamos?” Laird asked, following me.

“Get me a flight out of Santorini tonight. I need to land in New Jersey, if at all possible. And I need a car when I get there.”

“Right,” he agreed, already reaching for his phone. “And Alexander?”

“Bring him back to Zagori. But don’t let him out of your sight. I don’t think it is safe for all of us to be in the same place right now. I don’t have a lot of political pull in the States. If I get caught, I will be doing time. I need to know Alexander is here and safe. If nothing else, Cora can take him on.”

“Anything else?” he asked, jotting down a note in his phone.

“Keep trying to get through to Baird while I am traveling,” I demanded, rushing out of the door, running down the steps.

If I were thinking rationally, I would have realized that my best option would be to stay put, try to get through to the office, or any single member of her team. Not to get on a plane and waste sixteen hours in the air.