26. Bloodthirsty leather – Seven
26
BLOODTHIRSTY LEATHER
SEVEN
B ehind us, the dark sedan pulls closer, weaving through the thick Paris traffic as I shove out of the hired car and circle it.
The driver saves me having to rip him out of his seat, kindly opening the door and stepping out to argue with me in rapid-fire French.
“Seven!” Eli shouts from the back seat.
I turn to see what’s got him yelling and my teeth clench when I lock eyes with one of the goons stepping out of the sedan thirty meters back, his hand reaching for something on the inside of his jacket that he’ll regret ever touching.
“ Desole ,” I bark, pushing the driver out of the way as I slide into his seat and shut the door in his face, gunning the engine.
The traffic stops me almost immediately and I slam my palms on the steering wheel, glancing in the rearview to see one goon split into two, both of them weaving through the vehicles in perpetual standstill. They’ll be on us in seconds, and I’d really rather not traumatize a bunch of Parisians tonight. There’s a kid in the car next to us, for fuck’s sake.
I know what that sort of thing can do to a child.
The driver catches up, banging on the window, shouting loudly as he tries the handle. If the guy hasn’t called the cops, I can bet all our asses someone in a neighboring car has by now, and we don’t need to deal with that on top of everything else.
“Fuck it,” I mutter, cranking the wheel. “Hold on.”
Laying on the horn, I drive the car up onto the sidewalk, scattering tourists as I gain speed to get to the break in traffic ahead at the intersection.
“Move!” I shout, honking again as more people jump out of the way. We clip the edge of a bistro table outside of a boulangerie, and Aurora gasps as it sails high into the air, crashing down somewhere behind us as I swerve to avoid hitting people.
“Who is it?” she shouts over the rev of the engine as I cut off the driver at the head of the line in the intersection, getting us out in front of everyone else. “Who’s chasing us?”
I want to tell her. I really do. But knowing that the same sadistic fuck who kept Eli under lock and key for almost two years and now wants all three of us dead is just around the block might not sit so well with her, even if murder and grand larceny did.
“Someone you don’t want to meet,” I answer, speeding to get to the next intersection, taking a right-hand turn, not even realizing until we’re on Rue de Maubeuge that I’ve unconsciously started to head in the direction of Céline’s. If I can lose the tail, we can hide out there for the night and make a run to the airstrip in the morning.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Aurora demands indignantly, twisting in her seat to try to lay eyes on them.
“Did we lose them?” I ask.
“I think so,” she says. “No. Wait. They just took the turn. Nine or ten cars back.”
“Damn.”
“Someone needs to tell me what’s happening.”
In the back seat, Eli’s phone rings. “It’s Atticus,” he says, and silences the ringer.
“We’ll call him back. Keep eyes on them. I’ll try to lose them at Place Blanche.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket and the Jaws theme song ringtone blares in the car as I ignore Atticus’s call and take the next right. I honk incessantly as I speed along the narrow shoulder of the road to get ahead of the slowing cars.
“Shit!” Aurora curses when a metal post scrapes along the side of the car, throwing sparks onto the road behind us in a wave of fiery orange.
My phone rings insistently in my pocket, distracting me just enough that I nearly hit the idiot pedestrian trying to cross in the middle of the goddamned street.
Jerking my phone free, I smash the answer call button, and then the speakerphone button, dropping the cell into my lap. “A little busy right now, bro.”
“You went to the fucking art district?”
I was wondering how long before he traced our phones and figured it out. Honestly, I thought he’d be quicker about it.
“Yeah, about that?—”
I jerk the wheel, bouncing the car back up onto the sidewalk to pass a parked van before jarring us back onto the road. “You want the good news or the bad news first?”
He mutters something unintelligible before growling through the receiver, “What happened?”
“Well, you know that Van Gogh Eli’s always wanted to get his hands on?”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
My grip tightens on the wheel as we squeeze between two city buses, and the tires scream as I take a hard left.
“What was that sound?” Atty shouts.
“He did great,” I tell Atticus, ignoring his question. “It was just like old times, man. You should’ve seen him.”
Silence on the other end of the call. That shut him up.
“So, that was the good news. Bad news is we have a tail.”
“Is it police? I still have that contact at the préfecture de police. I’ll call?—”
“It’s not the police, Atty.”
“We didn’t see them until they were already tailing us,” Eli adds from the back seat, and I can picture Atticus’s expression, face reddening, gears turning behind his eyes as he tries to think through what we should do.
“How close?” he asks finally. “How close did they come? Close enough for them to swipe anything from your phones?”
I flinch. We haven’t been being as careful with our phones lately, but that’s because we haven’t fucking done this in a while and usually leave them at home when we’re trying to intercept and destroy any and all of Ambrose’s US deals.
“I don’t think so,” Eli answers him, sitting forward in the back seat.
“Fuck,” Atty says as I take a short, narrow one-way street to another road, hoping our tail wasn’t close enough to see the move.
“I thought you said our shit couldn’t be cloned?” I ask, turning onto the next road only to slam on the brakes as we hit an impenetrable wall of traffic. I throw it into reverse, but a fresh wave of traffic blocks us in from behind, and I curse.
“I said it would take a really advanced system to—you know what, never mind. Even if yours are safe, hers isn’t. Now, assuming you didn’t lose the girl in Paris, she’s still with you?”
“Present,” Aurora says from the back seat as if he were taking fucking attendance, and I smirk at the light in her eyes when they meet mine in the rearview mirror. She’s amused by this.
“Great. That’s just fucking great. I’ll wipe all the data I can, but you’ll need to go dark. Do not go to Céline’s. Do not?—”
“Why not Céline’s?” Eli interrupts.
“Aurora’s location data will show you were there this morning.”
“Is she in danger?” Aurora asks with concern in the lines of her face and I know that Céline has already made an impression on Ro.
If they hurt Céline, I will use her fancy scissors to cut away pieces of them until they look like human fucking doilies.
Eli leans in close to her side to comfort her, whispering words of assurance while I scan the traffic all around us, looking for a familiar car or two familiar goons. We’re barely moving. If this traffic doesn’t clear up, we won’t be able to stay here.
Eli reaches forward through the divider and takes the phone from my lap, holding it closer to his mouth. “We don’t even know if they swiped any data, right?”
“No, but just to be— fuck. Did they see her? Did they see Aurora?”
“What? I don’t know, why?”
“Because if they did—” He chokes himself off, and I remember his plan. She was part of it, and judging by the frustration in his voice, them seeing her now, with us, would ruin that plan.
“Why does it matter if they saw me?” Aurora asks, confused and still trying to keep eyes on our pursuers.
I still don’t think I’m down for using Ro to exact whatever plan Atticus has cooked up, but what if she wanted to help? She could want to, couldn’t she?
I don’t know what to say to her, so I reply to Atticus instead.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“No, Sev, leave it. We’ll find another way. It doesn’t matter.”
I don’t answer. He won’t like it.
“We should go,” Eli says, and I don’t know if he’s talking to me or to Atty, but Atty is the one who answers.
“Right. Go dark. No usual places. Do not contact me unless it’s completely safe. Lose them and head straight for the airstrip. I’ll let Troy know to expect you and be ready.”
“Got it,” Eli says.
Atticus exhales loudly before he speaks again. “And, Seven…?”
He can’t say it, but I know what he’s thinking. He can’t lose Eli again. He can’t lose me, either. For all his cold indifference and insufferable control, the fucker knows damn well he can’t live without us.
“I know,” I say in answer to his unspoken question. “I’ll get us home.”
I reach back and take the phone from Eli, ending the call while I put the car in park in the middle of Paris traffic.
“Ro, your phone?”
Her throat bobs as she pulls it from Eli’s coat pocket and hands it to me. I turn it off at the same time I turn off mine and Eli turns off his own. When I hand it back to her, she clutches it tightly between white-knuckled fists. “Don’t turn it back on,” I tell her. “No matter what.”
She nods tightly, and I pull the Beretta from my waistband and the Glock from my jacket, holding the latter out to Eli through the divider.
“Oh fuck,” Aurora says on a breathy exhale, her arms pulling in tight to her body as if she can protect herself from what’s about to happen, but that’s my job now.
Eli hesitates, his expression darkening.
“You got this, man,” I tell him. “Just like old times, remember?”
He hasn’t had to use a gun since he came home. I’ve made sure of it. But right now, he may not have a choice.
Come on, take it.
He glances at Aurora and his nostrils flare.
Finally, he snatches the Glock, checking the mag before reloading and chambering a round as if it’s easy when I know it’s anything but.
I nod. He nods back.
I’m up and around the car in seconds, pulling Aurora’s door open and reaching a hand inside to help her out.
“We’re just leaving the car here?”
I scan the traffic behind us, but this time I’m hoping I find them. If we lost them, I won’t be able to fix the little problem we created tonight, and I’m nothing if not a problem solver.
My attention snags on a car way back by the intersection. I know it’s them when one of Ambrose’s men steps out again, gesturing to where we are. I grin. Perfect.
“Stay close to me.”
The trunk pops, and Eli reaches inside to grab the bags.
“Seriously?” Aurora says in astonishment. “Leave the clothes.”
“No way. This was why we came.”
He slides the Van Gogh into the largest of the bags, compiling everything of Aurora’s into that one tote before slinging it over his shoulder. He tosses me my jacket, and I quickly shuck off the Hermès blazer and leave it in the street, sliding into the blood-thirsty leather.
“We’ve got to move.”
Ambrose’s men are coming.
“Oh my god, is that them?”
Eli follows her line of sight, snatching her hand when he sees them. “I got her. Lead the way.”