Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
C on watched Ronnie walk down the hall. He’d gotten too close. What in the hell did that mean? He waited until he heard the door somewhere at the end of that hall close before he made his way to where she told him the study was located.
“Wow,” he whispered as he walked into the room simply because the vast space seemed to earn reverence. Arched coves circled the room, all laden with books. Con glanced at the names. One entire arch was dedicated to the translated work of Plato. The next arch contained books on law from William Blackstone to the Codex of Justinian, authored by the Imperial Commission in 529 AD. He drifted by each alcove and marveled at the exquisite taste of the library. The commission of such a collection would have cost many millions of dollars because most of them appeared to be originals.
He turned to look at the expanse of the study fully. It was unbelievably vast. He couldn’t read all the books in the room before he died as an old, old man. But, oh, dude, would he love to try. He made it to the huge desk that sat in the middle of the round room. The solid wood was hand engraved with scrolling and detailing that would take years to complete. He pulled back the chair, looking for an electrical outlet. There was none to be found. He put his computer case down on the polished wood and opened the drawer on the right. It revealed a panel with not only outlets but American voltage outlets, too. In addition, there were chargers, USB ports, lightning ports, docking stations for SD cards, and every imaginable port-to-port charger available. He opened the left drawer and found a slim printer and a secure telephone system. Con hooked up his computer and connected to Guardian’s system. He tapped his earpiece and reported in.
“I’m back, Ethan.”
“Ethan is offline. You got me. And why aren’t you getting some sleep? By my count, you’ve been up for over thirty-two hours.” Brando’s voice was a nice surprise.
“Meh, I’ll power down in a bit. Needed to check in. Do we have anything on Abrasha’s movements?”
“The British Authorities met the aircraft at the landing site you said it would land at. He wasn’t aboard.”
“What do you mean he wasn’t aboard?” Con leaned forward and called up the photos Ethan had pulled off the surveillance cameras. “Did they make a stop we aren’t aware of?”
“Nope,” Brando said. “I think the bastard is hiding in the aircraft, but supposedly, they did a search of the plane.”
“Is it guarded?” Con asked.
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Because if he’s laying low until everyone leaves, he can slip off that plane, and no one would be the wiser. What about the names of the people with him?”
“I have a copy of the passports the British government swiped. They were all taken into custody for entering the country without going through customs and border control protocols. Still, my guess is they’ll be out and disperse into nothing sooner rather than later.”
“Are the passports fake?”
“If they are, they’re as good as ours. Computer files attached to the passports show travel and entry into numerous countries throughout the last six or seven years.” Brando was now up on his video, and Con watched him shake his head. “I know the powers-that-be are working on getting a chance to talk to these guys.”
“All right. What about an asset in Australia?”
“Berserker is there. Guess that’s home for him. He’s traveling to Sydney from Melbourne. He’ll check in when he has information. How did you get stuck working another on-location mission? Is this a thing now? I’m not sure I’m a fan. Give me my little node and the ability to work from home any day.”
“It kind of dropped in my lap when I was at the gala for Mom.” He laughed and remembered Ronnie literally dropping onto his lap.
“You don’t sound too upset, yet you were bitching like a big dawg when the grumpy one made you go to Paris,” Brando reminded him.
“Well, first off, I don’t like being ordered around by him who shall not be named.”
“He’s not Voldemort.” Brando laughed. “You two really need to forgive and forget. You got even when you changed his ring tone to that little shark song.”
“Yeah, I did. That’ll teach him to insult me.” Joseph called him a hack and a couple other things. No one insulted his computer skills. No. One.
“Then you should call it even.”
“Can’t. He’s the one who shall not be named.” That was obviously something Brando didn’t understand. He wouldn’t stop until Mr. Grumpy Ass stopped. Tit for tat and all that. He laughed at his own rhyme.
“Again, he isn’t a fictional book character.” Brando sighed.
“I don’t know. When you talk about him, he appears.” Con snorted. “Hey, lock down the comms. I want to ask you a question.”
“Hold on.” He could hear Brando typing, although the video feed only showed his head and shoulders. “Okay. No one is coming on unless we let them. What’s up?”
“Remember me telling you about how I was going to find Ronnie?”
“Only every other day for the last … It’s been, what? A year?” Brando looked up at the camera. “Why?”
“I’m on this mission with her.” Con glanced at the door. “Dude, she’s … she’s fucking everything I could ever want, and I think I just fucked it up. Royally.” He shook his head. How in the hell he’d done that, he wasn’t too sure, but the cold shoulder after their conversation in the car was not the direction he was hoping to take the relationship.
“Okay, so you’ll have to fill in the gaps. I’m not a mind reader.” Brando propped his chin on his fist. “Talk.”
“Things were going well. I mean, we had a date, or at least that’s what she called it. And those kisses …”
Brando’s head popped up. “Hold up. You’ve had sex with her?”
Con frowned at his little brother. “No, asshat. I said kisses. She’s a lady. Not someone you’d pick up and fuck on a strange mattress.”
Brando held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Dude, I asked a question. Do not chew off my head, or I’m hanging up. I can get this abuse from Matt or Rob.” Brando threw their older brothers’ name at him. He and Brando were seven and eight years younger than their brothers, respectively. So, he and Brando hung out with each other, and Matt and Rob did the same thing. They were cool but way too stuffy for Con’s liking. The stiff upper lip type who loved to dress in suits and went after the thrill of mergers and acquisitions. They were very much like their mother, while Con and Brando were raised primarily by their dad and were much less the pressed suit and silk tie club.
Con sighed. “Sorry. She’s not like that, though. She’s … man, she’s everything I remembered and more.”
“She seemed nice on the island, but I was too freaking busy to notice much of anything except that explosion as we left. So, tell me, how do you think you fucked it all up?”
“We were talking in the car on the way here to her flat, which, by the way, is a museum with antiquities Mom would give her eyeteeth to own. Anyway, she asked me if I was afraid of her.”
Brando burst out laughing. “Did you say yes? She’s a fucking assassin, dude.”
“No, asshat. I told her I wasn’t afraid of her because I’d seen her in action. She’s compassionate and so fucking smart.” He glanced at the books in the alcoves. “I told her I respected her, and I saw the person behind the fa?ade she puts up. I told her she wasn’t a cold-blooded killer, but she was the best at what she did.”
Brando frowned. “Okay, so what’s the problem?”
Con inhaled deeply and then blew out a breath. “It was like a barrier went up. She stopped smiling and gave me the cold shoulder. I asked what I did; I mean, at that point, I had no idea.”
“True, and I still have no idea, so spill .” Brando motioned with his hand for Con to hurry up.
“She said I got too close, and she had no idea how to deal with it. And then she walked away.”
Brando stared at him. “Could be she’s telling the truth, and she needs to process what you said.”
“But what in the hell did I say that made her feel vulnerable?” Con dropped back in his seat and stared at his brother.
“Well, let’s look at this another way. You’re an assassin. Someone you know, not intimately yet, tells you, an assassin, you’re actually compassionate and not a blood-thirsty killer.”
“Stone-cold,” Con corrected him.
“Whatever. She lives her life by not being herself. By not letting people see who she is. You bust in the door and say, hey, you’re a sweetie, and while you’re good at your job, you’re not the killer you make people think you are.” Brando made the sound of an explosion, and his hands blew apart. “Talk about nuking her world, bro.”
Con stared at the video screen as his brother stared back. “I did do that, didn’t I?”
“Ah, yeah, asshat. You did that.” Brando nodded as he spoke.
“So, what do I do to make that better?”
Brando shrugged. “You’re at her apartment, right? I think if she were really upset, you’d be on your ass at a hotel.”
Con sat up, and his head cocked. Brando shook his head. “Oh, no. I’ve seen that look before. What are you going to do?”
“I’m in her apartment. I could find out who she is. I mean, really, who she is. She’s got as much money as we do,” he said as he looked around the study.
“And that would play to your advantage how?” Brando asked. “You start digging and find out shit she’s not willing to share with you, and you’ll drive a wedge between the two of you. You’ll never know if you two could hit it off. Don’t be you, dude. Don’t dig. This one time, let it go. Get to know her, and maybe, I don’t know, date her instead of investigating her?” Brando shook his head. “To gain her trust, maybe you have to be willing to trust her first.”
Con narrowed his eyes and glared at his brother. “Have you been taking more online classes?”
Brando shrugged. “I get bored sometimes, and you’re not the only genius in this family.”
Con leaned back in his chair. “It’s torture not to know.”
“Is it?” Brando mimicked Con’s position. “Just be normal for once, dude. You don’t have to know all the answers to this one. Let it go and have fun. If she comes around, you take that opportunity and run with it. No questions need to be answered now, maybe they never get answered. You’ll live through it.”
Con nodded. “You’re right.”
Brando sprang upright and held up his hands. “Holy revelations! Somebody get a marker and write this down! My brother actually told me I was right! This day will go down in the annals of Solomon history.”
Con laughed as his brother danced around his chair with his hands in the air, acting like the crowd was going wild. “Ah, screw you, dude.”
Brando stopped and pointed at the screen. “No, thanks.” And started dancing again. Con hit the key that terminated the video connection and then turned off their comm link. His shoulders shook from holding in his laughter at his brother’s antics.
He checked his systems again before closing the lid on his laptop and standing up. He pulled one of the books on law from the shelf and headed toward his bedroom. He’d take a shower, grab some sleep, and then hope like hell the woman of his dreams didn’t kick him out on his ass. If she didn’t, he swore to himself he’d follow Brando’s suggestion. Leave the questions unanswered and let what he hoped was between them evolve naturally.