Page 27 of Stuart Woods' Smolder

Chapter 9

Nico arrived at work around the same time Stone’s jet left Teterboro that morning.

Angry and wound up about the failed mission at Barrington’s house, he’d managed only a couple of hours of sleep. His mood was not improved when he woke up to several missed calls from Petry. Nico hadn’t called back. As much as he wasn’t looking forward to it, informing his boss what had happened would best be done in person, where he might be able to direct his boss’s ire somewhere other than at Nico himself.

Petry’s assistant was waiting for him when he stepped off the elevator on the fourteenth floor.

“I know,” he said. “He wants to see me.”

The assistant nodded. “He said you are to go straight to his office.”

Nico motioned toward the hallway. “After you.”

Petry Innovations occupied the entire floor, and Petry’s office was in a corner, far from the elevators. When they arrived, the assistant pulled the door open and said, “Mr. Savage is here.”

Petry grunted from somewhere inside, and the woman stepped out of the way so that Nico could enter.

Petry was standing at the floor-to-ceiling window behind his desk, looking out at the city. As soon as the door closed, he whipped around.

“Why didn’t you answer my calls?”

“I was gathering information.” This was true to a point. Nico had talked to a contact at the police station to get details of what had gone down, but that had happened before Petry had tried to reach him.

“I didn’t see anything on the news. Did it happen or not?”

“There was a…complication.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Barrington’s security system was better than expected.” This Nico’d learned from his friend with the NYPD, something he wished he’d known prior to the job.

“And?”

“And the people we sent must have set off an alarm that woke up Barrington.”

Petry’s face began to flush. “Are you saying they didn’t do anything?”

“Barrington was waiting for them with a gun. He killed one of them, and the others got away.”

Petry stared at him, slack-jawed. “Are you shitting me?”

“I wish I were.”

Petry grabbed a tablet computer off his desk and hurled it at the wall. “It was a simple job and you fucked it up!”

It wasnota simple job, nor did Nico fuck it up, but he wasn’t going to say that.

“There’d better be no way my name gets dragged into this!” Petry said, his tone harsh and threatening.

“The only person on the team I had direct contact with is the man who was killed.”

“Well, that’s a small miracle. You’re sure none of the others knew about us?”

“I’m sure. I set it up that way on purpose.”

“Can the police find us through your contact?”

Nico shook his head. “I never met him in person, and for all calls, I used a burner that’s already been destroyed.”

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