Chapter 4 Labyrinth Mateo
Labyrinth
Mateo
Aspike of pain drives through my skull in a steady beat. My mouth is a desert. It tastes like the acid of vomit and blood-soaked sand. When I crack my eyes open, the room has a pinkish hue.
“Oh, look,” Rolland’s gravelly voice calls from somewhere in the room. “He lives.”
I groan, an IV tube dangling from my hand as I rub my eyes and take stock of my surroundings.
We’re in the safe house in Milwaukee, the basement studio flat of an old 1920s foursquare home in Riverwest. It smells like antiseptic and pizza.
Rolland shoves the last bite of a slice into his mouth before hastily wiping his fingers and coming to my side.
“You were pretty touch and go.” He lifts a glass of water to my lips, and I take a long, grateful sip. “You’ve been out for three days. Doc Leighton says you should be out of the woods now. But you look fucking crazy with those red eyes.”
I grunt.
“How do you feel?”
I take another sip of water and level my gaze at my rosy-hued friend and business manager. “I think I’m in love.”
Rolland blinks at me, the trenches of his wrinkles set in an expressionless mask. “Excuse me?” I shrug, watching him over the lip of my glass. “With who?”
I’m not sure how I’m going to explain this in terms he’ll understand.
Rolland has been in the industry much longer than me, and I’ve already seen enough horrors in this world that I don’t trust anyone but him or the man in the mirror.
He won’t understand what it’s like to be saved by someone who could—and should—kill you.
I’m not sure I fully understand it myself.
And I don’t know if I would have made the same choice had our roles been reversed.
I just know she’s not like anyone I’ve ever met.
I drink more water, trying to work out what to tell him until Rolland pulls the glass from my hand. “The woman who poisoned me.”
“And her name is . . . ?”
“I have no idea.” I wince inwardly when Rolland lets out a disappointed grumble. “She thought I was a Michelin inspector. She was very concerned that I would hold it against the restaurant. It was . . . endearing.”
“Endearing,” Rolland echoes. “Seriously?”
“And she could have taken the bounty. But she didn’t.”
“So, what? You think that means she likes you?” Rolland’s gray eyes turn to daggers when I shrug. In one blink, there’s a gun pointed at my forehead. “The poison has clearly melted your brain. You’re compromised.”
I whip the gun from Rolland’s hand and release the empty magazine before tossing it onto the nearby couch. “It works better when it’s loaded. And you’re too slow.”
“I’m retired. I’m allowed to be.” He pivots in a circle, the brief flash of amusement in his face gone the moment he puts too much weight on his braced left leg.
He limps back to the small table shoved against the wall and sits, running a hand through his silver hair before he picks up another slice of pizza. “She must have been after Nowak too.”
I nod, sitting up a little more on my bed. “And I’m assuming she didn’t take him out in the parking garage, correct?”
“He’s back underground.” Rolland takes a bite and chews for a long moment, his eyes fixed to mine.
There’s something he doesn’t want to tell me.
And I already know what it’ll be when he finally says, “Worden is not happy that you failed. They have a lot of money on the line, and they expect you to do your job. And clearly, they are not the only ones who want Tomasz Nowak dead. Any idea who your mystery woman works for?”
“No. Maybe Worden hired her, too, just in case I missed. But Nowak has many enemies.”
“Well, whoever her employer is, they won’t be happy either. She might be dead already.”
He’s right. It’s a thought that’s been lurking in the back of my mind since the moment I woke up, and now he’s thrust it into the light. I have no idea who she is. Who she works for. If she’s even still alive.
And it shouldn’t matter. But somehow, it does.
I get up from the bed to the sound of Rolland’s protests, gripping my IV pole for support, my hospital gown fluttering open at my back to smack my naked ass with cool air. “Nowak will meet with Anthony Baptiste in Madrid in March. If she’s still alive, she’ll be there too. I will find her.”
I give Rolland a single, decisive nod. And then I pass out on the laminate floor.
Months tick down to weeks. Weeks become days. Then hours. And finally, I’m boarding the plane to Madrid.
It feels like it’s taken a lifetime to prepare for this trip.
I’ve spent every working hour uncovering Nowak’s clandestine deals or researching his likely security setup or strategizing about his next moves.
And every off moment trying to find the poisoner but coming up empty.
No matter how hard I try to refocus on my mission, the possibility of seeing the mystery woman again has my blood humming through my veins.
And no matter how badly I want to rationalize my interest in her or will it into dissipating, it still remains.
People in our business don’t save one another. Especially not with $5 million on the line.
So why did she save me?
The question dogs me, night and day. And when I touch down in Madrid, it feels like it’s biting at my heels, propelling every step I take.
Rolland has already spent a week in the city, setting up our base of operations and gathering weapons. By the time I join him at the apartment on Calle de Lagasca, we’re fully stocked and ready for Nowak’s arrival.
But according to Rolland, “We have a problem.”
I raise a brow in question as I strap a bandolier of throwing knives across my chest. This is only a reconnaissance visit to the hotel where Nowak’s meeting will take place in three days, but I know better than to assume it will be straightforward. “Sounds like fun.”
“It’s decidedly not fun,” Rolland says, spinning his laptop screen to face me.
There’s a photo of a man wearing sunglasses in the foreground, Nowak standing behind him on a busy street.
There are more grainy figures in the background, all of whom carry the air of authority. “I just received these from Alvaro.”
“Is that Slange?” I ask, pointing to the man in the sunglasses. “I thought he was dead.”
“It appears that the rumors were misleading.”
“Well . . .” I stare down at the photo, unmoving. “Shit.”
“Yeah. Shit.” Rolland passes me my gun, sliding several magazines across the table. And then a few more. He frowns as his eyes travel across the ammunition and then my body, as though I’m woefully underprepared. “This changes the game. A lot.”
I lock down my expression as I start sliding the magazines into their pouches on my belt.
The old bullet wounds in my leg and shoulder sing with the memory of my first and last encounter with Henrik Slange.
“I still have to get the job done. It’s the only hope I have to wipe the bounties from my name. ”
Rolland nods, his wrinkles etched in grim lines across his skin. “Good luck, kid.”
With a salute and a weak smile, I stride out the door. And in twenty minutes, I’m slipping through the service entrance of the hotel.
I navigate the labyrinthine halls, the layout burned into my memory from the hours I’ve spent scouring the floor plans and sifting through the security footage.
With meticulous precision, I install surveillance cameras at key locations throughout the hotel.
The trick about navigating places like this is to know them so intimately that you feel like you belong in them before you ever set foot on the hideous carpet.
And I’ve done exactly that. I know every hallway. Every corner. Every blind spot.
Even the ones not on our list.
My final stop on Rolland’s schematic diagram of the hotel is the northwest corner service elevator on the sixteenth floor near where the meeting will be held.
With a glance in each direction, I drop to one knee and remove the panel of the electrical outlet, replacing one of the screws with a miniature pinhole camera.
“Last one is in,” I say over my earpiece as I rise, slipping my multitool into my pocket.
“They’re operational. Time to go.”
I march toward the stairway around the corner from the ice machine. “Yep.”
There’s a pause. I can almost feel Rolland glaring from behind his laptop screen. “You’re going to scope out the kitchen, aren’t you.”
“What if I need to pose as a banquet server as part of my cover? I should at least check it out.”
“Jesus Christ.”
A grin flashes across my lips as I start my descent.
Seventeen stories later, I’m in the basement level, cracking open the door to the sound of distant voices and the scent of food.
When I’m sure I’m alone, I sneak into the hallway, grabbing a clipboard of worker schedules from its hanger on the wall before making my way toward the kitchen.
I pass a pair of servers who spare me little more than a glance. They’d be within their rights to ask who the hell I am, but everyone looks official with a clipboard. I’m nearly at the double doors of the kitchen when I pass the staff break room.
My steps lurch to a halt.
It’s her.
She’s listening to a colleague’s animated story.
Her glossy chocolate hair is pulled back in a high ponytail, hazel eyes dancing as she smiles at the other woman.
She doesn’t see me pass the small window in the door.
She doesn’t realize I stop around the nearby corner that leads to a service elevator, or that I wait for her in the shadows.
She doesn’t hear me come up behind her as she exits the room alone. She has no idea I’m in her territory.
Not until I press my blade against her throat and drag her into a storage closet.
She smells like cinnamon and brown butter. I take a greedy breath of her scent, my lips so close to her ear that they tingle with the urge to touch her soft skin.
“You’re just the woman I’ve been looking for,” I whisper as she shivers in my grip. “And I’d like to propose a deal.”