Page 78 of Sinner's Salvation

“He was pissed. He said Homeland was up to its neck in bullshit over Anna and Brian, and heads were going to roll.”

Anna had her fingers tangled together. “They’re going to hurt him.”

Evan and Baz exchanged a look. Yeah, she was probably right.

“Is there a way to find out where they took him?” she asked.

“You’re not going to rescue him, mom,” Baz said.

“It’s my fault he’s mixed up in our family business.”

“Technically, it’s Yvgeny who involved him,” Baz said. “Then it’s Ledger’s fault.”

“Nah,” Evan said. “Ledger deserves all the blame.”

“What are we going to do?” Anna asked. “We can’t just stand idly by while they torture him.”

“You’re not going to do anything,” Baz ordered. “I don’t even know where they took him.”

“Marek might be able to find out,” Evan said. “He’s got friends in Homeland.”

“If I start asking for favors, all kinds of people are going to take a closer look at me,” Baz said.

Anna nodded. “I think you should go to the hospital to stand guard over Nika,” Anna said. “It’s the right thing to do. It’s also the expected thing to do.”

“What about the hotel and all the Chinese tourists?”

“Mason and Magnus can run the hotel. If they need advice, they can come to me,” Anna said.

“I’d like to go after Brian,” Evan said.

“No,” Anna and Baz said, at the same time.

Evan laughed. “You two have the exact same irritated expression on your faces.”

“Evan, you’re not—” Anna began.

“Marek is my handler and my commanding officer. He knows I can get myself out of tight situations. I’ll pretend I was down in the subway all this time. I’ll say I made sure you got to the Slovenian embassy, then tracked him down.”

“How do you know he won’t just arrest you or something?” Anna asked. “You were worried about that earlier.”

“Because I’m not the one who fucked up, Ledger is. And now there’s enough people who have witnessed his unhinged behavior to make my actions acceptable.” He paused, then added, “Mostly.”

“That’s not as reassuring as you think it is,” she said, with a shake of her head.

“Your camo is going to make you stand out,” Baz said.

“Good,” Evan replied. “I want Marek and anyone else to see what they expect to see. If I’m in nice clean civilian clothing, they’re going to wonder where I got it.”

Anna stared at him, her expression becoming more and more pinched. “You won’t have anyone to watch your back.”

“I often work alone, and we’ve got to get intel on Ledger or whoever at Homeland who believes him. This is the most efficient, safest way to do that.”

Evan glanced at the security screens again. “Everything is stirred up thanks to that detective. Now would be a great time to pop up out of nowhere. Just one more weird occurrence among a bunch of weirder ones.”

Baz stared at him so hard Evan was surprised there weren’t any holes in his face.

“Okay, yeah,” he said, finally. “Let’s do it. I’ll go to the hospital, you’ll go on your distract and destroy mission, and Mom will stay here, out of sight, and keep an eye on things inside the hotel.”

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