Chapter 18
Reichenbach Falls
AT LEAST Grace was warm, because the outside temperature was dropping with every mile, and even beyond the exhaust and the smell of the tire and engine grease—and his own blood—Josh could catch the tang of snow.
“You’re so stupid,” he mumbled, about an hour into the drive. “You could have been free!”
“I’m stupid?” Grace mumbled back, cuddling into Josh closer. “You’re too weak to walk! How could I know you were too weak to walk!”
“I’m sorry,” Josh told him, trying not to shiver. “I’m so sorry.”
Grace had tunneled under the foil blanket too—they wouldn’t freeze to death here in the trunk, but comfort was at least a hundred kilometers behind and below them.
“I was trying to plant the trackers. I didn’t expect…
.” Josh tried to keep his voice from breaking.
“I didn’t expect….” He didn’t expect his body to give out, not now, when they all needed it most.
Grace pulled him closer. “Why?” he asked softly. “Why now?”
“What?” Josh was trying not to cry.
“You were strong and fucking silent for a year—why does this hurt you so much now?”
Josh almost laughed. Who said Grace hadn’t grown emotionally since he and Hunter had gotten together?
Which was the answer, wasn’t it? Having someone in your life to lay your burdens on made you stronger, but it also made you realize how weak you were alone.
“You’re so brave,” he whispered. “Loving Hunter. It’s so scary knowing they could leave, even if they don’t want to.”
“Liam won’t leave you,” Grace said. “I mean, you know, he might leave Chicago, but you don’t have to stay there all the time either.”
“I’m so muddled,” Josh admitted, “as to how that will work. I’ve kept you out of school enough. You were going to get your degree and teach kids to dance, and you have shows to be in and—”
“And you’ll be following your Interpol boyfriend around the world, helping him break into shit,” Grace said with satisfaction.
“And then you’ll come home for months at a time, and you and I will raise hell.
Don’t worry, Recovery Boy—you can’t ditch me.
” Josh heard his scowl. “Not that you didn’t try. What was that shit?”
Josh had listened in horror as Danny threatened to trade himself for Grace, but at the same time, he got the plan.
Danny trades himself for Grace, Grace swings around and picks the lock and lets Josh out, and then, when they were clear, the cavalry would rush in and the yacht would explode and hey, they’d track the car to Kadjic’s lair, Liam would call Interpol, and Kadjic would be busted, his empire in shambles, his secret art collection discovered and released to the world—hooray!
Except Grace got to the trunk and found it open, but Josh was unable to do more than that. By the time Grace arrived, Josh was so weak he could barely lift himself up on his elbow to tell Grace to run.
And while Grace had been trying to wrestle him out of the trunk—all in silence because, of course, Danny was scaring the shit out of everybody as he sparred with Kadjic—the yacht had blown up.
Josh had watched his friends, and, hey, the man he loved beyond reason, leap off the aft deck and—hopefully—not get singed on their way down.
He wasn’t proud of crying out then, and he was really not proud of the fact that, as soon as the car slid into first gear, Grace had leapt on top of him and yanked the trunk shut on top of them.
And Josh was back in the dark once more, with Stirling in his ear and a furious Grace on top of him.
And neither of them were able to speak above a whisper, because oh fuck, Kadjic had Danny, and if Kadjic had them as well, it was like having a scalpel to Danny’s balls.
They were leverage, and they both knew enough about the game to know that leverage over somebody was all you needed to bring them to their knees.
In the town car, the battle raged on, with Kadjic throwing swords and Danny dodging them and parrying with stilettos.
“You are looking older, Daniel,” Kadjic purred smoothly after what had been a weighted silence. “Too old to be a—what was your word? Boy toy?”
“You only need to fear age when you have nothing to show for it, Andres. I’m not anybody’s toy—haven’t been since you tried to gut me in Morocco. How have you grown emotionally in the last eleven years?”
“My empire has grown by leaps and bounds,” Kadjic defended, but there was an anger in his voice, a clumsiness that belied his belief in himself. Danny had grown—and Kadjic had no idea how much. But Kadjic was still the same street bully Danny had defied way back then.
“Has it?” Danny asked smoothly. “Has it? This wasn’t your first shipment lost in the last two months, I hear.
How’s things coming out of the Middle East?
Still up to your eyeballs in opium? What about South America?
How’s the cocaine flowing these days, Andrejevic?
That used to be your favorite product—still the same? ”
“You could not possibly…,” Kadjic said, dismissing him but at the same time, Josh could tell, believing him.
Danny chuckled. “You’ll never know, will you. I could get all of that information from creditable news sources, like I heard about the Rembrandt in the Louvre—”
“That was you!” Kadjic charged.
Danny chuckled again. “You think? I’ve got witnesses that say I was somewhere else completely that day.”
“Where?” Kadjic demanded.
“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know,” Danny said. “But it doesn’t matter. Because I wasn’t at the Louvre. Nor in the Middle East or Colombia—”
“Stuttgart?” Kadjic demanded suspiciously. “That tiara in England?”
“No,” Danny said. “But it’s been so gracious of you to allow me free rent in your head. Have you really been chasing me around Europe, hoping to find me with my hand in the till?”
“Are you telling me you’ve been out of the game for the last eleven years?” Kadjic sneered. “You dried out and gave up thieving?”
“Good God, no,” Danny snorted. He paused. “I’m just telling you that you’re imagining things, Andrejevic. Your empire is crumbling around you, and you are blaming an old boyfriend who hasn’t thought about you in years.”
“You lie!”
Josh and Grace both gasped softly, because they could feel the shifting in the car and knew something violent had happened.
When Danny spoke next, his voice was muffled—much as Josh’s was—so probably through blood. “Of course you’re right,” Danny admitted. “I thought about you just the other day. I made an appointment with a plastic surgeon to get my scars removed.”
The next sound was definitely a blow, and Grace whimpered softly in Josh’s ear.
At the same time, Stirling—who had been so silent, Josh had wondered if Kadjic’s men had run a jammer on the car—spoke up.
“You guys still there?”
“Yes,” they both said, and then Grace bumped Josh with his nose, indicating Josh should be the one who spoke.
“Good,” Stirling said. “We’re still tracking you. I keep expecting somebody to jam our signal, but apparently Kadjic’s busy freaking out, so, well done.”
“Danny’s keeping him busy,” Josh whispered.
“Kadjic hasn’t checked for an earwig, but I think it got turned off.” The first time Kadjic had hit him, probably. Danny would leave it off then, and reactivate it when he had reason.
“Where even are we?” Josh asked, because that had been bothering him as the air got colder.
“You’re about half an hour from a little village called ?esky Krumlov—it’s supposed to be charming, but I don’t think Kadjic is heading there.”
“Why not?”
“Because his driver has been looking up stops for petrol in the village—you don’t usually do that when you’re home.
I think he’s got a cabin tucked into the South Bohemian mountains somewhere, but if so, it’s off the main mountain road, which is pretty curvy.
” There was a pause. “I hope you’re not queasy, Josh. ”
Josh grunted. No, thank God, that had not been one of his problems. But he felt like he had to be honest. “Weakness, Stirling. Just… exhaustion. I may have to sleep soon. And I don’t know if I can walk when it’s time to get out.”
“Fair. I’ll tell the others.”
Oh God. Josh was a minute away from passing out, but he had to know. “Liam…?” he whispered. “Chuck and Hunter and—”
“They’re fine,” Stirling said. “In fact the timing was like we’d planned it!”
Josh chuckled rustily. “You’ll have to tell me sometime,” he mumbled. “Talk to Grace now.”
And then he fell asleep or passed out or whatever it was that took over his body these days.
But Liam was safe, and that was all he needed to know.
“FUCK!” LIAM swore as he surfaced from the oily water, lungs aching and a suspicious burning in his side. “Fucking balls, that’s cold!”
Hunter surfaced about ten feet from him with a sharp gasp. “Bracing,” he wheezed, while Chuck popped up next to him.
“Somebody call search and rescue,” he gasped. “My balls are in my throat!”
There was lots of swearing then, as they made their way to the slip where Leon’s yacht had been.
None of them talked about it, but they’d had a hell of a time not getting sucked into the rotor wash as the great bloody machine had passed by them, because they were alive now, and that’s all that fucking mattered.
Finally they were wet, chafing, freezing, and piling into the comms van where Michael was waiting with clothes and—shockingly enough—coffee.
“Would you believe there’s a coffee maker and an outlet?” he asked, pointing to the thing on the small counter under a cupboard. “I found it when I was tossing the place for clothes.”
“Needed,” Chuck said, gulping his coffee. He’d shucked his wet things and was huddling naked under a blanket while Hunter and Liam did the same. “Where are we going?”
“Let me get kitted,” Liam said, and then, “Wait a minute—which one of us is bleeding?”
He’d seen the traces of blood on the floor of the comms van, as well as some of the clothes.
“You,” Chuck said, at the same time Hunter said, “Chuck,” and Michael said, “Hunter.”
“Wait, me? Where?” And that was all three of them.