The Fall(51)

“Will do.”

Goodbyes weren’t exchanged, both lines going dead simultaneously as I lifted my ass off the bed.

Hmm.

Getting vertical so fast wasn’t such a great idea. My arm extended and caught the wall as my feet stayed in the same spot even though I swayed like a tree in the breeze.

“Fuck.” I tried again, hoping this time my legs might decide to actually operate.

“Let me help you.” Sofia’s shoulder shifted under my arm, not waiting for me to accept her offer. “And before you say anything, I know you don’t need it, but it will make this go quicker so just let me do it.”

I had to hand it to her, she had a point. And I wasn’t really in a position to argue. “My desk.” The only direction I gave her as we made our way out of the bedroom and into the space next door.

It was interesting I still had my phone, I would have assumed when Franco took my guns he would have taken it too so either he had been sloppy—not likely—or it was part of a grander plan. Either way, the thing was history, the SIM card snapped into two a second after I’d messaged Jimmy some new contact details.

“There’s a furnace all the way toward the back, it’s in the boiler room. I need you to toss this in and burn it.” I handed her the broken SIM and the phone.

“You don’t want me around when you talk to him.” She took the pieces but stayed where she was standing.

“No, I don’t and I also should have gotten rid of this last night, but I had an issue with consciousness so need it taken care of now. You still so sure you weren’t followed and everything is fine?”

“Fine.” She turned, her dark hair flicking over her shoulder as she moved toward the direction of the boiler room. I had maybe five minutes—ten if she stayed and watched the f*cking thing burn.

While my head wasn’t pleased with being upright, my body was happier with the change in position. It was also good to have access to a gun again, the forty I had in the top drawer of my desk finding its way into my hand before I had even pulled in my chair. You never knew when the next threat was going to come and that steel against my skin was going to make me feel better than anything else.

As far as secure lines went, my computer was as locked down as I could make it. I was running two fifty-six bit encryption with routers bouncing my IP address every thirty seconds. And one of my newer toys was a program which had end to end encryption on voice and data calls.

I’d barely rebooted when I was alerted of an incoming call, my finger accepting it a second later.

“So talk. And no more surprises.”

“He offer you money? Santini?” Even though the call was secure, Jimmy was being cautious. His emphysemic spluttering, the punctuation mark.

“What does it f*cking matter?” I couldn’t believe he was wasting time with this shit. “I would say what’s more important is that everyone seems to know where she is, considering what you hired me to do, that doesn’t speak wonders for your housekeeping.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t take the deal.”

“I didn’t say there was one.”

“You didn’t say there wasn’t.”

“How did he know?” I was done playing this bullshit back and forth, and Jimmy knew a lot more than he was telling. I didn’t like surprises and I especially didn’t like being blindsided.

“You need to bring her to me, Michael.” He took a long raspy breath. “Things have gone further than they should have.”

“No offense, * but how did you not see it going this way? Someone in your camp has been talking out of school.” Oh, and he was still avoiding which was starting to piss me off.

“We’ll rectify that. Bring me the girl.”

The plan had always been to keep Sofia safe until he made other arrangements. Whatever those arrangements would be weren’t my concern, that’s not what I was hired to do. So bringing her back to her father seemed logical, sensible even, but the timing was off. He’d had days to call me in, and his insistence to have his daughter back seemed too desperate. It didn’t sit well in my gut and that had nothing to do with the beef stroganoff I’d eaten for breakfast.

“What did you do?” I asked slowly, the leather of my office chair creaking under curled fists.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” He sighed, regret not something he was known for.

“Like what?”

“Why did you think I hired you in the first place?” he shot out, impatient I hadn’t put together whatever f*cking puzzle he’d supposedly given me.

“Jimmy, enough with the f*cking riddles.” It was my turn to be impatient. “Either say what you f*cking mean or get off the phone.”

“This was supposed to be done already. The incentive was there. I gave you ample opportunity.”

“Sofia?”

“Yes, the bounty on her head? That was my doing,” he cursed out with so much annoyance, I could almost feel him in the room with me.

“What. The. Fuck.” The headache I had was nothing on what was taking up in my frontal lobe right now. “Why the hell would you hire me—” There was no reason to finish the sentence, I knew why.

It all made sense.

The reason why it was me and not one of his own men who had been tasked with the job. He wasn’t worried about loyalty; he was worried about saving face.