Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
The bathroom door creaked open again. Kenna flushed the toilet and let herself out of the stall. “Don’t mind me. Just need to wash my hands.”
The woman to her left was…
“Nurse Smith.” Kenna hung a right, walked behind Amara, and washed her hands while the two women faced off. She needed to go tell Petyr that he’d already been dosed with something.
Assuming he was the target.
Kenna pulled two paper towels from the dispenser. “Who were you here to kidnap, and who’s working with you?”
Nurse Smith just stood there. Faced with Amara, Kenna wasn’t exactly surprised to see the woman was frozen with no idea what to do.
Amara was deadly even without a weapon in her hands.
Smith started to lift her phone, her attention shifting. Hoping to quickly send a message?
Before Kenna could object, Amara flicked out her hand. A tiny blade embedded itself in Smith’s shoulder, almost to the hilt. She gasped and stumbled back a step but didn’t go down. And she didn’t pull the knife out.
“Better to hand over the phone,” Kenna said.
The nurse had hung up with whoever she was talking to before Amara came in.
Someone within the embassy staff, or even on Petyr’s personal security detail, maybe.
And here they’d thought they were going to leave in the next few minutes.
Amara and Bruce and their instincts had already known something was wrong.
Unless there was more to come.
Kenna leaned against the wall by the door. Her phone buzzed with a text from Jax. She replied back,
Clear
She was safe, and he was safe to enter. But the door didn’t open.
“Who was the target?” Kenna asked again.
Nurse Smith sneered at them, stiff now because of the pain. Blood seeped into her blouse over her shoulder. “Doesn’t matter. We can get to anyone at any time. We’re everywhere.”
Amara didn’t react. But then, the brainwashed assets of Dominatus were nothing new to her.
This woman was low level. Probably only here so she could work her way back into their good graces.
Taking a job just to prove she was useful.
But in an organization that regularly tossed aside anyone who wasn’t, and who barely considered the foot soldier to be part of them, Kenna wasn’t hopeful for her long-term chances.
All Dominatus cared about was power. The only people who mattered were those at the top. Everyone else fell in line, or they were eliminated.
“Petyr?” Kenna tilted her head.
Smith’s eyes flared.
Amara repeated, “Petyr,” as if that alone confirmed Kenna was right. “Too bad you failed.”
“Question is, who is in on it with you? Are they Dominatus as well? Or did you recruit them?” Kenna gave Smith a second, but she said nothing, so she continued, “I see we’re going to stand here in this bathroom for the rest of the night.
Until the drug you put in that drink has run its course and your partner believes you’ve changed your mind and left him.
Or her. I guess it could be a woman helping you.
Someone strong enough to help you carry him to the car after he passes out. Am I right so far?”
Smith just stared at her.
Kenna would’ve waltzed over there and taken the phone, had she not been pregnant. “I’ll talk to Petyr. Make sure he’s safe. We need to know who the partner is.”
Amara nodded. “Send Bruce in.”
Kenna pushed the door open and found Jax and Bruce right outside. She looked at Bruce. “We need the phone, the plan, and the partner’s name.”
He nodded and headed into the bathroom, leaving her with Jax.
“Good?” He touched her elbows, worry on his face.
She nodded. “Good thing I had to pee, because if we’d just left, he would’ve been kidnapped and probably killed.”
“Petyr is the target?”
“If he’s the one looking drunk like he’s gonna pass out,” Kenna said. “I guess it might be hard to tell in a crowd already well into their cups…but we need to figure out who she dosed.”
Jax took her hand. “I’m resisting the urge to accompany you to every bathroom from now on. Just in case.”
She squeezed his hand but neither of them let go. “I wouldn’t blame you, but I’m not sure you need quite that much information about how things are going with me.”
She heard a breathy exhale out of his nose that was almost a laugh. They stopped at the archway that separated the lobby from the ballroom and glanced around. She scanned the crowd looking for Petyr, or the ambassador, or anyone stumbling and looking drunk enough they might’ve been drugged.
“I don’t see him,” Jax said.
“Neither do I.” Kenna twisted around and found the hostess with her black pants and white shirt, tight bun, and earpiece. “Could you help us?”
“Yes?” The woman had heavily accented English.
“We’re looking for President Blazevic. We believe someone might’ve drugged his drink and they’re going to attempt to kidnap him.”
The woman flinched, twisted around, and lifted a hand to her ear. She spoke in Croatian as she strode fast through the ballroom.
“Does that mean it’s taken care of?” Kenna looked at Jax.
His attention drifted over her shoulder. “They’re out of the bathroom.”
They met Amara, Bruce, and their new friend by the entrance. Smith had Amara’s wrap around her shoulders, but the pale face was a dead giveaway that something was wrong with her.
Amara said, “We’re going to take a ride in the car with our ill friend.” She glanced at an embassy staffer who approached. “She isn’t feeling well, so we’re going to leave.”
The guy nodded. “I’ll have your car retrieved.”
Amara smiled like she was an older actress, still in her prime. A starlet. “Thank you so much.”
Kenna and Jax followed them out. “Can we continue the ruse and catch whoever she was supposed to meet?”
Jax glanced over, but a yell from their right interrupted whatever he was going to say. She glanced over and saw Petyr collapse to the floor. Kenna flinched toward him, the innate instinct to help someone there before she caught herself and stayed where she was.
Amara shoved Smith into the car and got in with her before anyone saw the blood on the woman’s shoulder or asked too many questions.
Jax said, “I’ll see if they figured out who she was working with.”
Two of the thugs caught Petyr, who stumbled toward the car.
The crowd was comprised of half a dozen plus a woman in a dark-green dress with very pale skin and black hair, who fussed around them all.
If they were trying not to draw anyone’s attention, it wasn’t working, though there was a chance some inside hadn’t seen any commotion.
“Hang on.” Bruce lifted the phone and hit a button. The sound of ringing was low, but audible.
Across at the group, one of the thugs backed up. Kenna watched to see if he’d reach for his phone, but he merely stood there. Instead, the woman they’d alerted to the problem took her phone off a clip on her belt and put it to her ear.
“Zdravo.”
Bruce whispered, “That means hello.”
He and Jax both headed over there, while the woman got annoyed that the caller hadn’t yet responded. Kenna leaned against the car to watch the conversation unfold. Saying a quiet prayer no guns would be drawn and no one hurt. Nice and easy.
They alerted the security thugs to the fact that this employee was part of the conspiracy to kidnap and likely kill their president. The woman in the green dress whirled around and slapped the staffer in the face. She stumbled back, and two thugs grabbed her.
Jax said something else to them, and he and Bruce came back over.
“Not the way I thought this evening would go,” Kenna muttered.
Bruce exchanged the phone for keys. “Follow us?”
Jax nodded. “We’ll be right behind you.”
Kenna would rather hear firsthand what Nurse Smith had to say, but it was safer for her to be in a different vehicle.
Jax drove, and they followed Bruce’s car to an industrial area with plenty of empty parking lots.
Bruce threaded through the complex, then through the trailer park behind it.
The street switched to gravel, and he pulled into what looked like an old industrial plant.
The parking lot asphalt was cracked, with weeds growing through the openings. Bruce turned to the left and parked at an angle. Jax did the same, leaving space between the two cars. The place seemed deserted, but Kenna had been caught off guard by that before.
“I’ll stay put.” She palmed her phone. “I want to call Maizie anyway and check on Petyr.”
Jax leaned over and kissed her, then climbed out.
Being in the car wouldn’t necessarily protect her from a well-placed shot by a high-powered rifle, but if she was going to worry about that, then she really wouldn’t ever leave her bunker. She couldn’t live in fear of things she would never see coming.
Lord, protect us.
She tapped her phone on her knee, unsure how she was going to ascertain if Petyr was all right. It wasn’t like she had his number.
Maizie was easier to contact.
“Banbury—hey.”
“Hi, Maze.” She put it on speaker and dropped the phone to her lap so she could see what was going on through the windshield.
Jax had his arms crossed facing off with the nurse. Smith looked belligerent, even with the blood all over her shoulder. Bruce and Amara stood on either side of her.
“Anything from the files you’ve been going through?”
Maizie groaned. “Besides a headache?”
“Sorry.” Kenna didn’t envy the young woman’s job sometimes. Just the protected place where she lived, and the world that was hers inside that Airstream. Maizie was slowly emerging from it. Testing the waters of the outside.
“I switched to hacking satellites instead, because it’s way better than reading pages and pages of personnel reports and operation plans.”
Kenna smiled to herself. “Don’t get caught.” Kenna watched the tense conversation continue, and another car pulled into the lot. She twisted around. “Uh-oh.” She checked the others had spotted this new player but quickly realized she knew the car.
“What?”
“Ramon and Zeyla are here. No worries.”
“Okay.” Maizie sounded relieved.
“You were worried?”
“Of course. You’re out there fighting them, and you’re pregnant. And I’m sitting here, and I never know what’s happening.”
Kenna bit her lip. “I need to finish this. Hopefully, the baby doesn’t decide to come before I know it’s done.
” Being vulnerable like that sounded like the worst thing imaginable.
The thing that put the taste of fear on her tongue.
“When she does get here, maybe you could come and visit us. Or we’ll bring the RV to Stairns’ house, and we can all spend some time together. ”
“I’d like that.”
“So would I. After all, she needs to see her big sister.”
Maizie was quiet a moment. “Thanks.”
Jax broke off the conversation and came over, leaving Nurse Smith with the now four of them standing around her. He got in, and Kenna saw Amara shove Smith into the trunk of the car this time.
She showed him the phone. “Maizie.”
He nodded. “She was supposed to take Petyr to an address in West Virginia, but on Maps it’s just a gas station. They still want to keep up the ruse and try to catch whoever she was going there to meet, so we’re rolling out.”
Kenna leaned back. “Sounds good to me.”