Page 25 of The Bait

Jak Logisicka.

Harry could figure that out. Logistics.

The man spoke in polite Bosnian, smiling but wary, and trying not to look twice at Harry. Asher replied, fluent and overly pleasant, but then he gave Harry a smile and for his sake, Harry assumed, he switched to English.

“We’d like to see Mr Daris Guli please,” he said, still smiling.

“Do you have an appointment?” The woman asked, tapping away on her keyboard.

“No, we don’t. We’ve just got into the city,” Asher explained. “I’m a very old friend of Daris’s. Just tell him Asher is here to see him.”

The woman gave a nod and disappeared through a door behind the desk, and the man stood there watching them. He seemed astute, Harry allowed. He was neat and tidy and probably good at his job, but Harry could tell he was no threat.

Asher gave Harry a nudge. “Smile, you’re scaring him,” Asher whispered, his lips not moving.

Harry tried to smile, which made Asher have to cover his laughter with a cough. “You still haven’t answered my question,” Harry said, not giving one fuck who heard.

“I’ll tell you later. We’re not discussing that now,” Asher said.

Which meant yes. Yes, they had a personal history. Yes, Asher had slept with this guy.

It’d been a while since Harry had wanted to kill someone he’d never met.

The door opened and the lady appeared. “This way, please,” she said, holding the door for them. The woman turned, Asher following, Harry last, and he didn’t like the fact he had no idea what they were walking into.

It was a warehouse, yes. Rows of heavy-duty metal shelving, a man on a forklift, another man with a clipboard, and two small pantech trucks at the loading dock, other staff with hi-vis vests, everyone busy working.

So it was an actual working depot, and not a front.

The woman showed them to an office. Decent sized, an arched window letting in sunlight, bookcases of folders, a long desk at the back wall, and a man, waiting.

He was maybe forty, wearing black pants, a black polo with the same logistics logo. Handsome enough, greyinghair, olive skin, full lips with a cautious smile, and a hint of fear with the fondness in his dark eyes.

He stared at Asher for a long beat, then looked at Harry, wincing almost, before his gaze went back to Asher.

“If you were here to kill me, I’d be dead already,” he said, his accent similar to Asher’s.

Asher laughed and nodded to the window. “It’s a big window. You’d make the shot too easy for me.”

The man laughed then and gestured to his desk. “It’s a beautiful window and I still can’t have my desk in front of it because of you.” Then his smile faded away to nothing. “It’s been a long time, Asher.”

Asher nodded and put his arms out, the man quickly collecting him in a fierce hug.

Oh yeah. They had a history, all right.

But from the way they both closed their eyes tight, a moment of pain brought to the surface for both of them, Harry realised that maybe they had more than just a history.

Harry cleared his throat and it made Asher pull back. He had the audacity to smile. “Harry, this is Daris. We were in the orphanage together.”

Ah, shit.

Asher looked back at Daris. “And then... and then we went to camp together.”

Jesus Christ.

Camp. Where Asher had told him boys were taken and trained, military style. Where, as a young boy, he ran drugs and information between camps. No older than eight or ten years of age, shot his first human target at fifteen.

The same camps where many boys never survived.

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