Chapter 2
Donovan Hughes
She was probably mortified enough without my walking down there to check on her.
She could sleep it off, but that hangover was going to be a bitch tomorrow. No way around it.
She’d crashed into me on the dance floor first. Knocked right into my chest, looked up at me with those green eyes, and for about three seconds, neither of us moved. I’d stepped away because I was working and couldn’t afford the distraction.
Citadel Solutions was here because a friend in French intelligence had asked us to help with a coordinated sweep against a trafficking cell that had been operating in clubs across Paris.
The cell’s playbook was simple: find a woman who’d had too much to drink, isolate her from her friends, and move her out before anyone noticed she was gone.
The DGSI, France’s internal security service, had identified the players and built the case. They just needed people in the clubs to watch and wait.
My job tonight had been to sit at a table, nurse a drink, and keep eyes on a man who’d been flagged as one of the cell’s recruiters.
While I was watching him, Sarah walked up to my table.
Just walked right up, nervous as hell, and introduced herself. Tried to buy me a drink. She could barely get a sentence out, but she did it anyway.
And then I’d had to be the asshole who shut her down because I couldn’t break surveillance. Told her I was meeting someone. Watched her walk back to her friend with her head down.
On any other night, I would’ve interacted. Or at least wouldn’t have been so shitty to her. I wouldn’t have let her buy me a drink, but I sure as hell would’ve bought her one.
But that hadn’t been an option, so I went back to watching the target and pushed the pretty redhead from my mind.
When the trafficking bastard finally made his move, it was outside the club.
I got the call over comms, stepped in, put a fist in his face, then Andrew and the team had him cuffed and in the van before he hit the ground.
It wasn’t until the van pulled away and I turned around that I saw who he’d chosen as his potential victim.
Sarah.
She’d had no idea what was going on. She was on the other side of that hotel door right now, thinking the worst thing that happened tonight was throwing up on a stranger.
It could’ve been so much fucking worse.
I looked down at myself. My shirt was ruined. Whatever she’d been drinking, it had come back with enthusiasm, and the smell was already less than pleasant.
I took the stairs to the lobby.
The front desk was staffed by one clerk, a young woman with dark hair pulled back and tired eyes that sharpened when she saw me coming. Her gaze dropped to my chest and held.
“Monsieur, are you all right?”
“I’m fine. There was a bit of an accident on the third floor. One of your guests got a little sick near room 312.” I paused. “Sorry about the mess.”
She was already reaching for the phone. “Of course. I’ll have housekeeping up right away. Is there anything else you need?”
I almost said no. I was halfway to turning around when it came out.
“Actually, can you arrange room service for 312? Morning delivery. Breakfast. Whatever you’d recommend for someone who had too much to drink. Coffee. Water. And headache medicine if you have it.”
“We keep paracetamol for guests. I can include that.” Her fingers moved to the keyboard. “How would you like to pay?”
I set my credit card on the counter—personal one, not business. Last thing I needed was the guys finding out about this and giving me shit.
“Donovan Hughes,” she read back, confirming.
“That’s right.”
“And the guest in 312.” She looked up. “Is she your partner?”
“No. She’s just someone who got caught up near some work I was doing tonight.”
“Ah.” The clerk processed the card and slid the receipt toward me. Her mouth curved. “Well. You certainly take good care of the women who get caught up near your work.”
I signed the receipt. “No name on the delivery. Just the food and the medicine.”
“Of course, Monsieur Hughes.”
I walked out.
I tapped the earpiece that had been in my ear all night as I pushed through the hotel entrance into the dark. “Andrew, status.”
Andrew’s voice came back immediately, energetic despite the hour. “Package delivered. We’re at the collection point finishing up with our friends. Heading back your way in fifteen, twenty minutes. Where do you want pickup?”
“Hotel entrance.” I gave him the address. “I’ll be—”
A different voice cut through the channel. French accent, clipped. DGSI. “All units, we have a runner. Target six, last seen heading west on foot near Rue de Rivoli. Armed with a knife. Any available units to assist, respond.”
I pushed back through the hotel entrance. The clerk looked up, surprised to see me again.
“Rue de Rivoli. Which direction?”
She blinked, then pointed to the left. “Out the door, two blocks that way. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you.”
I was moving before she could ask why. West on Rue de Rivoli put the runner heading straight through my area.
“Hughes, Citadel. I’m on foot, two blocks from Rivoli. I can intercept.”
“Copy, Hughes. Suspect is wearing white sneakers, blue jeans, and a black hoodie. Middle Eastern appearance with a full beard. Use caution. He cut one of our officers during the pickup attempt.”
“Donovan.” Andrew again. “We’re at least fifteen minutes out. You want to wait for us?”
“He’ll be in the wind by then.”
“Don’t get dead. We’re heading your way now.”
“Copy.”
Rue de Rivoli was wide, well-lit, and mostly empty at this hour.
A man in a hurry would be visible for blocks.
But a man in a hurry who knew he was being hunted would cut off the main road at the first opportunity.
Side streets would be their preference. The narrow roads feeding into the Marais.
There were covered arcades along the north side where the shadows ran deeper.
I picked a parallel street that would hopefully put me ahead of him if he held his current heading. I cut through an alley between two darkened storefronts, came out on a narrow lane, and positioned myself on the sidewalk.
The smell of my shirt caught me again. Not as bad out in the open, but bad enough.
I looked at my shirt. Looked at the street. And got an idea.
I ran my hands through my hair until it was standing in every direction.
Pulled the shirt half out of my waistband.
Then I undid my belt and let it hang loose, the buckle heavy in my hand.
It sold the look: a guy who’d stumbled into an alley to relieve himself and hadn’t quite put himself back together.
And if the knife became a problem, a leather belt with a metal buckle was better than bare hands.
I started shuffling. Slow and deliberately unsteady, trying to keep my breathing even underneath the act. I let my shoulders sag, let my head drop, and drifted into the middle of the sidewalk.
Then a man matching the exact description given rounded the corner. His stride didn’t break. He angled left to blow past me without slowing down.
Please work. Please work.
I let him get within arm’s reach.
Then I dropped the act.
I saw the knife in his right hand as he passed—overhand grip, the blade tucked behind his forearm. He wasn’t hiding it. He just didn’t think he needed it for me.
I grabbed his jacket with my left hand and yanked him backward.
His head snapped around, surprised, and his free hand came up to pry my grip loose.
That half second of reaching for my hand left his face wide open.
I swung the belt. The heavy metal buckle caught him across the face, and he staggered sideways with one hand going to his eye.
He said something in French I didn’t catch and didn’t need to. While he was disoriented, I swung again, this time aiming low, the buckle cracking across his knuckles. He howled, and the knife clattered loose on the cobblestones.
“Au sol!” I grabbed his arm before he could recover. It was one of about five French police commands I knew, but I was pretty sure I’d just butchered the pronunciation of On the ground!
He threw an elbow into my ribs that I felt in my teeth, but his knife hand was empty now and his eye was already swelling shut. I put him face first into the stone wall, pinned his arm up behind his back, and leaned my weight into him.
He spat more French, something that sounded like it would have been creative if I could have understood it, and then he tried to push off the wall. I hooked his ankle, swept his legs out, and laid him out flat on the cobblestones. He landed hard, and the fight went out of him.
I didn’t have cuffs. I didn’t have zip ties. I didn’t have anything except the shirt on my back that had already served one purpose tonight and was about to serve another.
I stripped it off one-handed, keeping my weight on his pinned arm, and bound his wrists behind his back. The knot wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t regulation, but the fabric was damp enough to cinch tight without slipping. He wasn’t going anywhere.
Smelled absolutely awful, but Sarah had inadvertently helped me with the vomit.
I tapped the earpiece. “This is Hughes. Target six is secured. I need a pickup team at my location.”
The DGSI team that had lost him showed up not long after. Three officers came around the corner at a jog with weapons drawn and pulled up short when they saw their runner facedown on the sidewalk, hands tied with what used to be a dress shirt.
The lead officer looked at me. Shirtless, breathing hard, a scrape on my forearm from the cobblestones. Then he looked at the runner. Then at the shirt binding his wrists. Then back at me. Something crossed his face that he had the good sense not to say out loud.
“We’ll take him from here.”
I stepped back. They hauled the runner up and replaced my improvised restraint with actual handcuffs. Then they walked him toward a vehicle at the end of the street. One of the officers held up my shirt between two fingers, considered it, and extended it out to me.
“Yours?”
“Keep it.” There was no way I was putting that thing back on my body.
I tapped the earpiece. “Andrew.”
“Heard you got him. You in one piece?”
I looked down. No shirt, just a scrape on my forearm, and my ribs were going to remind me about that elbow for a few days. “More or less. I’m ready for that pickup.”
The van was already close. It rounded the corner before I’d finished catching my breath. The side door slid open, and Andrew Volante, my Citadel teammate, leaned out, swept his eyes over me standing shirtless on a Paris sidewalk, and let out a low whistle.
“Nice. Le ol’ Chippendales disguise. Bold choice.” He tilted his head. “So, was it the guy or the girl who got you shirtless?”
“Both, technically.”
Andrew’s eyebrows went up. “That’s a story I need to hear.”
He reached behind his seat, dug through a go-bag, and tossed me a black T-shirt.
I pulled it on and climbed into the van.
Someone handed me a water bottle. I explained the vomit, and the ribbing commenced for another few blocks, but it had the easy, loose feel of a job well done.
The kind of talk that only happened when nobody was hurt and everybody could afford to be stupid about it.
Gael Marchand, an old friend from NATO rotations years back, turned around from the front seat. “I owe you both. Seriously. This would have been a different night without Citadel.”
“You’d have managed,” Andrew said.
“Not like this.” Gael shook his head, then smiled. “One day, when I’m done with all this, maybe I should come work for you guys.”
“We’d take you,” I said.
“Careful,” he said in his thick accent. “I might hold you to that.”
The van dropped us at our staging hotel. We exchanged handshakes with Gael and the other agent, a few words about keeping in touch, and then it was just Andrew and me standing on the sidewalk.
Andrew pulled out his phone. “Ethan wanted us to check in when we were done.”
“Yeah.”
He dialed. Put it on speaker. Ethan Cross, our boss, picked up on the second ring.
“Paris wrapped clean?”
“Yep,” Andrew said. “Sixteen in custody. Gael’s happy. DGSI takes it from here.”
“Good.” His tone shifted. “On to Kenya. You’re flying out next week. I’ll send you the flight details once they’re finalized.”
“Copy.”
“Cole Braddock arrived there yesterday. He’ll have info for you when you arrive.” Ethan paused. “This mission is personal for me. I know it’s not going to be very exciting, but I need you guys to take responsibility for helping get these rangers set up to protect the wildlife on the preserve.”
The word sat on me before I could stop it. Responsibility.
I had no problem with that fucking word when it had to do with me. But being responsible for others ended in disaster.
“You okay with that?” Ethan asked.
Andrew glanced in my direction. We both knew Ethan was talking to me. I stared at the phone.
“Fine.”
“Donovan.” His voice dropped into a tone that meant he wasn’t accepting short answers. “I know what I’m asking you to do out there. Training people. Being responsible for whether they’re ready. I know that’s not easy for you.”
“I said fine.”
“And I heard you. But I also know you. Cole Braddock is the mission commander. He’s running it. You and Andrew are support. You don’t have to carry this one alone.”
I didn’t say anything.
He let the silence hold for a beat. “Get some sleep. Both of you. You’ve got a week to reset before Kenya.”
The line went dead.
Andrew pocketed his phone. “Hell of a night.”
“Yeah.”
“Good work out there, Chippendales. Get some sleep.”
We went inside. Andrew gave me a two-finger wave at the stairwell and headed up to his floor. I found my room, locked the door behind me, and sat on the edge of the bed. The adrenaline was gone. What was left were sore ribs, the scraped forearm, and a quiet room.
I sat there longer than I should have. Then I got up, went to the bathroom, showered, and brushed my teeth.
The mirror showed a man who’d done fine tonight but definitely shouldn’t be in charge of making sure anybody else was ready for danger.
Ever.
I’d made that clear to Ethan before ever accepting the job he’d offered at Citadel.
But Cole Braddock was the lead. I was support. I just had to show up and do what Cole told me to do.
No problem.