Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
Milan, Italy
Ice pulled over, tucking the vehicle up against an industrial building before he grabbed the tablet. The silence of the empty car threatened to set his thoughts spiraling, but right now music would be a distraction he didn’t need.
Better to sit alone and focus on finding Kai’s signal.
He tapped the icon and started the scan. “Come on, come on.”
After tracking the comms earbud all the way across the Italian border, over to Milan, it had finally stopped. He’d seen the white van enter this warehouse. If they’d brought Kai here, then this was the place Ice would bust in and get his friend back.
No matter what.
“Bingo.” The location icon for Kai’s earbud showed up on the map, fifty feet away maybe. Northwest of where he’d parked on a narrow street between two buildings. Hemmed in was a risk if anyone decided to shoot at him from a window—or a roof. But it also meant he was out of the way.
His phone rang.
Ice snatched it out of the cup holder and answered, “Yeah?”
“It’s Noah. You’re on Speaker and everyone is here.”
“You finally answered the phone?” Jay called out from the background.
Ice said, “I had to take care of something.”
“Update,” Noah said.
Definitely an order. “How’s Adam?”
“I’m good.” But he didn’t sound it. Adam also sounded far away from the phone, his voice strained. “I’ll be good.”
“Glad to hear it.” Ice wondered if his friend would still be good after he heard this. “Stephanie told me that Vesper is her half-sister.”
“Seriously?” That was Noah.
“She said that?” Dan asked.
Ice wanted to see Adam’s face for this. “That’s what she told me.”
“Where is she now?” Adam said. “Is she with you?”
“I dropped her off. We don’t need—”
“You did what!” Adam roared across the phone line.
“—that complication. This is about getting Kai back and squaring things with Earthnet. It isn’t about Stephanie, and whatever family squabble she’s got going on.” When no one responded, Ice continued, “I tracked the signal to Milan. I’m about to make entry.”
“We’ll meet you there for pickup,” Noah said.
“I’m not sitting on this for three hours waiting for you. Not when Kai could be dead by then.”
“We know,” Noah said. “We’ll be there.”
Ice heard noise in the background. Chairs scraping, chatter he couldn’t make out. “I’ll get him out, and we can all bring him home. Then we need to have a chat with Earthnet about what’s going on.”
“Agreed,” Noah said. “Keep us posted.”
“You need backup?” Jay asked.
“Not badly enough to wait for it.” Ice probably had an associate or contact who lived close enough to pitch in and help him out. But that would only end up with him owing someone a favor, something he didn’t want to have to worry about. “I’ll check in when it’s done.”
Ice ended the call, grabbed the weapons he wanted, and exited the car.
He could hear the steady buzz of local traffic.
A police siren. But all of it was a street or two away from here.
If Vesper had chosen this place ahead of time, she either controlled the space because she’d bought the building, or she knew it would be empty.
He picked the lock on an entrance designated for employees, according to the sign beside the door, and stepped into the warehouse.
Ice slid a knife from a sheath that was sewn into the pocket of his pants and looked around. Down a hall to a door with a small circular window that gave him a view of the main warehouse floor.
A lone woman sat in the center of the room, on a wooden chair. Waiting for him.
Ice pushed the door open and walked to her, his senses working on whether her goons were somewhere around here waiting to kill him. He didn’t hear anyone else. When he stopped fifteen feet from her, he got the impression they were alone.
“Vesper.”
She lifted her pointy chin. “So you know who I am now?”
“I knew enough before,” Ice said. “I don’t really do messy family drama. Not my thing.”
“Interesting.”
She might think she knew who he was, or anything about him, but no one did. Not really. Ice shifted his stance, holding out the blade so there was no mistaking what was happening here. “Where’s Kai?”
“That’s his name? Hmm. He wouldn’t tell me.” She lifted her hand, the comms earbud between her fingers.
“Figured out it’s a tracker? Good for you,” Ice said. “Now give me my friend back.”
“I know who you are. Which is why it surprises me that you show up here, acting like you care about some American.” Vesper sneered. “Men like you don’t have friends.”
“So you know just enough you believe you understand me.”
“I could make life difficult for all of you, but I haven’t.”
Ice was supposed to thank her for that? “What do you want?”
She’d tried to kidnap Stephanie, shoving her over the side of the ship so her people could pick up the former CIA agent, fish her out of the river, and take her with them.
When that didn’t work—because Division Zero stopped her—she’d taken Kai instead.
Scrabbling for any angle she could get. Picking up whatever cards were put down in front of her so she could see what she had and formulate a play.
He stepped closer. “Seems to me like you’re working with Earthnet, not against them.”
She nearly launched out of the chair. “How dare you!” But caught herself and cleared her throat. Shifted in the seat.
“The enemy of my enemy?”
She actually laughed at that. “No deal.”
“Like I said, what do you want?” Ice let silence hang for a second. “Kai for that book you’re after?”
“Steph gave it to you?” Vesper shook her head. “That waste of space.”
Interesting that she assumed Steph had the book and would’ve turned it over to the team. Ice said, “Why keep trying to kidnap her?”
“Try?” She scoffed.
“So that was you in Turkey.”
They’d rescued her from Vesper, or men who worked for her, and brought her back. Then her half-sister tried to take her again. Probably a good thing she wasn’t here right now.
Vesper shrugged one shoulder. “She refuses to do anything but stubbornly cling to loyalty to that piece of trash she calls ‘father’ and will not give me what I want.”
A rustle behind him interrupted his train of thought, but Ice was pretty sure the sound came from a small animal. “I guess you just weren’t persuasive enough. Maybe you should try harder next time.”
Vesper laughed, but there was a shadow to it. “Do you want a job? I could use a guy like you on my team.”
Things weren’t going well for her. “I already have a job I like.”
A woman like this would never understand a man with a dark past and his need to do work with good people so he could feel clean. Live right.
Sure, he skirted the gray areas and kept to the shadows, but that was only to aid the cause.
Ice let out some impatience in his tone and his body language. “How do I get Kai back? Because I don’t really care about your sister, to be honest.”
“Don’t call her that. She’s not my blood.”
“You think I care?” Ice glanced around, then roared, “Where’s Kai?”
She didn’t flinch.
“Why did you take him?”
“Because I could,” was the only answer she gave him. “Too bad someone else wanted him more than me.”
Ice’s stomach clenched. “Where is he?”
“Not with me.”
“What happened?”
The skin around her eyes contracted. Almost a wince, but not quite. “Someone took him from me. Killed all my guys—the ones who were left.”
“They didn’t kill you?”
“I’m not that easy to take out.”
Ice said, “Who were they?”
She only shrugged.
“Kai is gone?” Ice stared at her, trying to figure out if this was just a game to her.
She knew more than she would ever tell him, even if he spent weeks torturing the information out of her—which he didn’t have time for. Besides, the man he wanted to be didn’t do that anymore.
Vesper represented a whole different kind of temptation.
Coming here had been a mistake, but not for any of the usual reasons in a situation like this.
She was a slippery slope, an invitation to things he didn’t want.
The past, and what he’d done, and who he could be instead—as long as he chose a better path.
Vesper studied him.
Ice’s jaw tightened. “You hung around just to tell me Kai was abducted by someone else?”
“‘You’re trying to take what I have rightfully stolen.’ Isn’t that what you said to me in Argentina?”
“Cute.” Too bad he wasn’t amused.
“You know what? I might’ve considered working for you. But I certainly don’t need the hassle of being your enemy. Neither of us has time for that.”
He flung the knife before he fully recognized what she was doing. She’d already hit the trigger on the weapon she pulled from her jacket.
His knife made impact, because he heard her scream. At the same time, twin barbs embedded themselves with hooks in his chest. One in the vest he had on, the other in the skin of his neck.
Lightning flashed through his body, and he fell to the floor.
“You and I might not be enemies—”
He managed to make out her face swimming in front of his. “—but if you hurt my sister, I’ll kill you.”
She touched her lips to his, ran her thumb across his lower lip, and then she was gone.
Ice didn’t know how long he stayed there on the ground, trying to wait out the sensation of getting zapped. She’d done something to that taser, because it wasn’t like any other time he’d opted to ride the lightning.
He was just sitting up when the door behind him opened and someone else came in.