Page 19 of Capture
She waited until they were gone before repeating, “Because you’re like a barnacle.”
I scoffed, not seeing the connection. “A barnacle? Because I attach myself to Riley to get a free ride.” I almost repeated the name Annika, but caught myself before it left my mouth.
“Pretty much,” she replied breathlessly. “Well…it’s like she’s your lifeline.” Her words danced about my ears as she spoke, as truth bombs fell, destroying my protective shell. “You can’t survive without her. Your food. Your breath. Your everything.”
She glanced up at me as I was staring down at the floor, not looking at her but a million miles away, in the past, in Larsson with Annika. My heart thudded in my aching chest as my mouth dried up from those brutally honest words spoken by our Russian enemy.
I finally foundherafter three years. I finally found her, and it’s like I had been holding my breath for so long that I got used to it. Finally, I could breathe again. Food tasted sweeter, the colorsin the world seemed brighter, and I was happier because my purpose had returned to me.
I nodded in agreement as I came back down to earth, but she was gone. The Russian geek had vanished without me knowing, leaving me yearning to see Annika, lying on that bed alone.
I turn around and come face to face with Frankenstein in a suit, and he wasn’t alone. There were three of them built like linebackers, smug expressions on their faces as if I’d been sprung. The thief who hadn’t stolen anything was about to get nicked.
“Can I help you?” I asked them casually, pretending that I didn’t know what was going on and who they were. Russian or cops? I was betting they were the Russians, the lackeys of Ivanov, and oh fuck, the geek girl just outwitted me.
“Gunner Kaiser?” Frankenstein asked in a tone like he already knew because they’d been following us for some time.
“No,” I replied casually, inching my way to the stairs to make a run for it. “I think you’ve got the wrong person.” I tried to create doubt in their minds to distract them for half a second so that I could flee.
But Frankenstein’s reaction was to grin from his big square head, and even as I turned to run down the stairs, they didn’t follow. There was no panicking or rushing to chase me. Something didn’t seem right, and I patted my pocket searching for my knife, then remembered again that I left it in my car. Damn.
It wasn’t until I came to the landing and smacked hard into another suited brick that I realized that they had me surrounded.
I was outnumbered and outclassed, and our strategy to expose the Ivanovs and flush them out into the open was working precisely as planned.
9
My phone buzzed on the desk as I sat in class, and the smiling, flirty girls who liked to sit near me immediately raised their heads in curiosity to see if it was from an admirer. There was only a handful of people who had this number, so I knew it was probably the boss.
I was wrong.
It was from Gunner, who should be in class if he were doing what Mikky told him. His mother would be very disappointed if he failed this year, and I suspected he was behind in his studies. He was intelligent but lacked commitment, often grew bored, and was easily distracted.
I opened his message, but it was blank, and immediately, alarm bells went off in my head. A blank text indicated that he was in trouble. This had been common knowledge between us for years, started by Lars Kaiser. Yet, this was the first time Gunner needed to use it.
Instantly, I excused myself from class and slipped out into the hallway. Once there, I swiped for Mikky’s number and waited for him to pick up. After several dial tones, it switched over to voicemail.
“Mikky, they’ve got him,” I swiped to end the call, then switched the tracker on my phone to see where they’ve taken him.
We knew they’d take his phone off him, so we stitched the tracker into the hem of his underwear. They’re likely to pat him down, searching for a weapon, but they’d have to strip search him to find the tracker. I hoped they didn’t do that because that might be the end of him.
Katerina Ivanov had been hanging around like a bad smell since the beginning of the term. We knew she created a fake ID for Annika, and we also knew that was a setup. What we hadn’t quite joined the dots with was whether Ivanov knew who Riley was or was using her as a mule in some way, since Gunner had taken so much interest in her.
It was like dropping a trail of breadcrumbs to our Russian enemies so that we could entice them into our trap. My only concern was that they don’t hurt him. We predicted that they'd use him as bait, so we’d come running to rescue him, and then they’d bamboozle us in some way. Or they might want a trade. Gunner in exchange for money or territory.
These guys were so predictable that we knew they’d send their little geek to follow Gunner, and we also suspected that campus would be where they’d kidnap him because he was more likely to be alone and easy to corner.
Mikky: Have you got a trace on him?
I breathed a sigh of relief when Mikky finally replied, as I couldn’t possibly pursue and achieve our objective without his help.
Me: It’s working, but it’s not giving me a location yet. I’m on my way to my car right now.
Mikky: Keep me posted.
My feet started pounding the cement, heading quickly toward the parking lot, yet my instincts were telling me that they hadn’t left campus yet. The college landscape was huge, so discreetly moving their luggage in daylight without raising suspicions would be possible but difficult.
I could see the top of the roof of my vehicle parked in the third row, then checked the map on the tracker to find that it was highlighting a location. My hunch was correct. They’re still on campus.
