16. Vadim
VADIM
I don’t go back to her.
That’s the first decision I make after leaving Sloane on the balcony, and it’s probably the only sensible one I’ve made since I first met her.
I take the adjoining bedroom instead, shut the door behind me, and stand there for several seconds with my hands braced against the edge of the dresser while I try to force my body to understand something my mind already knows.
Sloan may have been used to track me. There was a device sewn into the lining of her bag, the same bag she brought aboard my aircraft, the same bag that sat unsecured beside the galley when I first met her, and the same bag that remained with us all the way to Bucharest.
Someone knew exactly where we would land despite precautions designed specifically to prevent that.
Sloane may be innocent. She may not be.
Until I know which, I should not touch her again.
The problem is that my cock apparently has no interest in operational security. I’m still hard enough that the pressure has become painful.
I sit on the edge of the bed and immediately regret it because my mind supplies the image of Sloane on the other side of the suite, wrapped in that hotel robe, her mouth swollen from mine and her body still flushed from everything we almost did.
I close my eyes. That makes it worse.
I see her naked beneath me again. Her breasts in my hands. Her thighs open around my shoulders. The way she came against my mouth, completely unable to hide what I was doing to her.
My cock throbs. “Fuck.”
I should take a cold shower. Instead, I wrap my hand around myself. The first stroke produces enough relief that I exhale through my teeth.
This is pathetic. I’m nearly fifty years old, I’ve been with more beautiful women than I can remember, and I’m sitting alone in a hotel room jerking myself off because I can’t stop thinking about a flight attendant who may have delivered a tracker onto my aircraft.
I stroke harder, and my thoughts refuse to become more reasonable.
I remember her hand around my cock, tentative only for a few seconds before she realized what pressure made me react.
I remember the expression on her face when she saw me fully hard, that mixture of surprise and challenge that made me want to put her beneath me and remove the smugness one orgasm at a time.
My hand moves quicker.
In my head, the phone never rings. Anton doesn’t interrupt.
I push inside her.
I imagine how tight she would feel after my fingers and mouth already made her come, how her thighs would close around my hips, how she would try to keep quiet and fail.
I imagine her saying my name.
That’s what does it.
My orgasm hits hard enough that I have to brace one hand against the mattress, my jaw locking while I come across my fist and stomach. For several seconds, I simply sit there breathing.
Then guilt arrives. Immediate and unpleasant.
Not because I masturbated. I have no moral objection to my own hand.
Because less than an hour ago I accused Sloane of being involved in an attempt on my life, kissed her while I was angry enough to hurt someone, then left her alone in a foreign city after she had already been assaulted, shot at, and dragged through half of Bucharest in the same fucking uniform.
And now I’m getting myself off to the memory of her.
I clean myself up, take the cold shower I should have taken in the first place, and dress.
Sleep doesn’t come. I lie down for perhaps twenty minutes before abandoning the attempt completely.
Every time I close my eyes, I see the tracker.
Then Sloane.
Then the tracker again.
By four in the morning, I’ve reviewed everything I know often enough to become more irritated rather than less.
Anton returns shortly after four thirty.
I hear voices from the sitting room and leave the bedroom.
Marek is already there, sitting on one end of the sofa with his jacket off and a glass of mineral water in his hand.
Anton stands near the dining table, placing two phones and a small evidence bag beside a laptop.
I look around. “Where is Iosef?”
Marek glances up. “Hospital.”
I stop. “For what?”
“Shock.”
I stare at him.
Marek takes a drink.
Apparently, he’s serious.
“Shock.”
“Yes.”
“He wasn’t shot.”
“No.”
“He spent most of the attack behind a baggage trolley.”
Anton gives me a tired look. “The doctors said his blood pressure spiked, he became dizzy, and then he almost fainted in the security vehicle.”
I consider this. “What a weakling.”
Marek nods. “Finally, something we agree on.”
Anton sits down. “He is a mathematician.”
“So he keeps reminding everyone,” Marek says.
“I didn’t ask him to storm the building. I would have settled for not collapsing afterward,” Anton says. “Fucking pathetic.”
Marek looks toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms. “Speaking of people who didn’t collapse afterward, where is she?”
Anton follows Marek’s gaze. Then looks at me. “Where is Sloane?”
I gesture toward the other bedroom. “There.”
“Did you…” Marek lets the question trail off.
“No.”
His eyebrows rise. “No?”
“No.”
“That sounded painful.”
I look at him. “It will become painful for you if you continue.”
Anton ignores us and opens the laptop. “Can we discuss the men who tried to kill us?”
“Yes.”
Marek sighs. “You never let conversations develop naturally.”
I sit opposite Anton. “What did you find?”
“Three attackers are dead. One was taken alive but unconscious, and another vehicle got out through the eastern service road before our people sealed it.”
“Identities?”
“Two local. Romanian passports, both genuine. The third used a Serbian identity that appears false.”
“Professionals?”
Anton shakes his head. “Not military, at least not current. One of the Romanians worked private security until two years ago, the other has arrests for weapons trafficking and aggravated assault. The Serbian identity belongs to a man who supposedly died six years ago, so we’re still working that one. ”
“Who hired them?”
“We followed the payment from one of the dead men’s accounts.” He rotates the laptop toward me. A series of transactions fills the screen. “The money moved through two companies registered in Cyprus, then through a consulting firm in Belgrade. That firm has been used before.”
I already know what he’s going to say. “Petrov.”
Anton nods. “Indirectly. The Belgrade company is controlled through a nominee, but the nominee’s brother works for Viktor Petrov’s logistics operation.”
Marek leans forward. “So Viktor finally stopped pretending Warsaw was finished.”
“He never pretended,” I say.
“He did publicly.”
“Public statements are for people who believe them.”
The younger Petrov brother should have known better than to point a weapon at me, or to come near my family at the first instant. He has of course never succeeded before. But last night, they came close.
“Tonight they got very close,” Anton says. “And now they’re getting more creative.”
I know exactly what he means.
None of us says her name.
Marek reaches for a thin folder lying beside him and places it on the table between us. “I had more inquiries made.”
My attention moves to the folder. “About Petrov?”
“About the attendant.”
I look at him. “When?”
“While you were at the hospital.”
“You investigated her without asking me.”
Marek gives me a flat look. “You were shot, Vadim. Then you disappeared into a hotel suite with a woman whose bag contained the device that led armed men straight to our runway. I decided curiosity was justified.”
Anton doesn’t look up from the laptop. “It was justified.”
“You are both becoming very comfortable tonight.”
Marek pushes the folder toward me. “I can put it away if you would rather know less.”
I take it.
The first page contains the basics I already saw in the crew records: Sloane Mercer, twenty-six, American, six years in commercial aviation, recently terminated, no adult criminal record, no obvious connection to Viktor Petrov or anyone associated with my organization.
Then I turn the page.
There is considerably more.
Marek watches me. “She has a sick brother.”
“I know.”
He pauses. “What?”
I continue reading. “Her brother is sick.”
“Yes, I heard you. I’m asking how you know.”
“She told me.”
That surprises him. “She told you?”
“Yes.”
“Voluntarily?”
I stare at him. “What exactly do you think happened in that car?”
Anton clears his throat. “She did tell him.”
I slowly turn toward him. Anton remains focused on the laptop. I say nothing, and after a few seconds, he realizes the silence has become dangerous and looks up.
Our eyes meet.
He knows immediately.
Sloane was right in the car. The partition was open. Anton was in the front passenger seat while she told me about her brother, which means he was also sitting there for everything that happened before the conversation about her family.
His expression doesn’t change much, but his eyebrows lift slightly in a restrained, almost apologetic gesture.
I scowl at him. “You heard us.”
Anton’s eyebrows rise a fraction higher. It’s apparently his version of an apology.
Marek looks between us. “He heard what?”
“Nothing.”
Anton answers at exactly the same time. “Nothing.”
Marek’s face brightens. “Oh.”
“There is no ‘oh,’” I say.
“There is absolutely an ‘oh.’”
“Continue with the report.”
Marek is still smiling as he taps the folder. “Her brother’s name is Ethan Mercer. Twenty-nine. He has lymphoma.”
The humor leaves the room.
I look down at the page. The medical information is limited, which is how it should be, but there is enough.
Multiple rounds of treatment. Periods when he was unable to work.
Insurance disputes. Outstanding bills connected to several facilities.
Their mother has taken out loans. Sloane has sent money home regularly for years.
“How much debt?”
“Hard to know exactly,” Marek says. “Enough that money matters.”
Anton looks toward me. “That supports motive if someone wanted to recruit her.”
“It also explains why she took a last-minute job twenty-four hours after being fired,” Marek says. He folds his arms. “We should have made more enquiries the moment you started showing interest in her.”
“There was nothing suspicious about her,” I say.
Did I make a mistake? Was I so blind that I didn’t read through her devious intentions? Was all of it fake?
“Until now. You can’t ignore the truth in front of you,” Marek says, pointing at the documents.
I keep reading. There are old addresses, employment records, school history.
Then I reach a section that makes me stop. “What is this?”
Marek already knows what I found. “Juvenile detention.”
I look up. “Sloane?”
“Apparently.”
“For what?”
“Assault, initially.”
That doesn’t fit neatly with the woman sleeping in the next room, though after watching her deliberately pour champagne on me and kick Hale hard enough to nearly incapacitate him, perhaps I shouldn’t be entirely surprised.
“How old?”
“Sixteen.”
“What happened?”
Marek reaches over and turns one page. “The official record is sealed, so getting details was a pain in the ass, but we found enough from local court references and an old police report. She got into a fight outside a convenience store. Another girl ended up with a broken nose, and Sloane spent several weeks in juvenile detention after violating probation.”
Anton looks over. “Why was she on probation?”
“Shoplifting.”
I stare at Marek. “Shoplifting.”
“Apparently she stole groceries. Her mother had lost work around that period, her brother was already having health problems, though not the cancer yet, and the family was struggling. Nothing indicates organized crime, fraud, or anything remotely sophisticated. She was sixteen, angry, broke, and apparently very willing to punch people.”
I glance toward the bedroom door. “That part has remained consistent.”
Anton almost smiles.
Marek turns another page. “There was also a trespassing incident at seventeen.”
“Why?”
“She and two friends broke into a municipal swimming pool after hours.”
I look at him. “That’s what you consider relevant?”
“I said I had inquiries made. I didn’t personally choose every stupid thing she did as a teenager.”
Anton reaches for the folder. “Anything since she turned eighteen?”
“Nothing criminal. A few traffic tickets. One complaint from a passenger three years ago that went nowhere. Excellent employee reviews until the incident that got her fired.”
“What happened there?” I ask.
Marek’s expression becomes more serious. “The airline’s report says she behaved aggressively toward a first-class passenger and violated service protocol.”
My jaw tightens. I have an idea of what must have happened. That explains several things about the way she reacted to Hale even before the assault. It also explains why she had no patience for his behavior from the moment we boarded.
Anton looks at the documents. “So we have financial pressure, but nothing that ties her to Petrov.”
“No,” Marek says. “No unexplained deposits, no foreign contacts that stand out, no travel pattern that matches his people, and nothing in her phone records we have access to that suggests she knew anything about Vadim before the assignment.”
I close the folder. “Then why are we still discussing whether she planted the tracker?”
“Because it was in her bag,” Anton says. “And she’s the only person who’s been a regular on our flights for the past few weeks. You’re the one who told us that there are never any coincidences.”
I look at him.
He doesn’t back down. “She may be innocent, but until we establish who had access to that bag, we can’t treat that as fact.”
I know he’s right.
I dislike him for being right.
“She poured champagne on you, and we all know she did it deliberately. Maybe she wanted your attention for some reason,” Marek says.
“And it worked,” Anton adds.
“Shut the fuck up,” I say. “I saw through her, didn’t I?”
“And what were you doing when I called you last night?” Anton asks.
This time I don’t say anything. I open the folder again and look at her photograph. Professional expression. Hair pulled back. Calm eyes.
The file gives me pieces, not answers.
Sick brother.
Money problems.
A juvenile record that sounds more desperate than dangerous.
A career she nearly lost because another wealthy man thought he could put his hands on her.
None of it clears her. None of it condemns her either.
What it still doesn’t explain is who had enough access to her bag to open the lining, place a tracker inside, and close it again without her noticing.
And that matters more than anything else on the table.