Chase Me (Paris Nights Book 2)(54)
But of course when had Chase ever for one moment really considered that her job was important?
She was twenty-eight years old, a Michelin two-star chef, and yet to him, just like to every other man, she was still some cute little woman whose career could never possibly be anything but fluff, easily brushed away when the man’s important job took precedence.
A man who considered his job so important he couldn’t even tell her about it. What the hell had he been doing this past week? Had he had anything to do with Al-Mofti’s death that had been all over the media that morning? Was it coincidence that the dropping of the salmonella investigation happened at the same time? Could anyone possibly tell her what the hell was going on that put her restaurant at the center of this? Was the connection some figment of her imagination?
Lina came by, carrying an open bucket of liquid nitrogen, vapor rising off it as she called, ironically, “Chaud, chaud, chaud! Chaud devant!”
Mikhail shaved red tuna with a knife so sharp each slice was transparent.
One of their newer cooks dropped slices of beef into a pan with three centimeters of hot oil, and Vi leaned over him, grabbing the handle. “Not yet. Like this. Watch—”
And a wave ran through the kitchens, a stiffening in shock, like the moment when a lion appears and every member of the herd responds to the reaction of the first gazelle to spot it. In that alert kitchen, reaction time was probably shorter than half a second.
Secret Service? Vi spun and—
Black mask. A man struggling with a machine gun as if something was wrong with it, yelling at everyone to get down, and…
Holy f*cking shit.
She swept the pan she was holding around in one hard arc and threw it, oil and all, at his head. Lina heaved that whole bucket of liquid nitrogen straight into the man’s chest. Mikhail reversed his knife and threw.
And…oh, shit, there was another man, surging behind this one, and his gun was not jammed, and…
Vi leapt across the counter toward him, grabbing more pans as Lina threw herself on the floor and toward his legs and Adrien grabbed a blow torch, lunging in from the side as he squeezed out flame, and…
The second masked man staggered again, again, again, his machine gun giving a little spurt—her brain managed to process that she was seeing the impact of bullets on his body. And then she heard the bullets, in strange delayed echo in her brain, sounds it was finally identifying. She’d never heard bullets except on film. And at a distance that night…that night in November when…
“Vi, get the hell down!” someone was yelling. “Get down!”
But she’d already slammed the pot she held as hard as she could into the second man’s face.
He went down, and she went down on top of him, her legs going right out from under her as if she’d slipped or something.
She landed in a seated position on his body as it hit the ground, his gun bony and hard under her butt.
“Is he wearing a vest? Vi, get the hell out of the way!” Chase was surging into her view, gun in hand. He grabbed her shoulders and literally threw her over the nearest counter. She bumped and slid and fell hard, and there was a lance of pain up from her side through her whole body.
“Thank Christ.” Chase’s voice. Then: “Two attackers. Everyone needs to go on full alert. This may not be the only location. Let me know when the streets are cleared and get me back-up as soon as you can. You, lock the door. Everyone else, get back.”
Vi dragged herself up—which was ridiculously hard to do, anyone would think she was a wimp or something—and managed to get an elbow onto the counter and pull herself upright enough to look over it.
Adrien was the one who had been sent to lock the door. Oh, God, in case there were more attackers. Chase was speaking into something, some kind of communication device she couldn’t even see but it was obvious he wasn’t talking to them, and he had ripped the second guy’s shirt open. There was blood everywhere.
Human blood. Vi was used to blood. Most of her best dishes held some kind of meat. She sliced up flesh and caught the blood from roasts all the time. And her brother had a farm these days, had escaped Paris suburbs to seek their grandparents’ peasant roots. She’d seen living animals butchered. She knew where her food came from.
But…this was like when a cow was butchered only…human.
“That’s not a vest?” Adrien’s voice sounded strained.
Vi felt strained. First of all, she couldn’t seem to stand upright, and second, that looked exactly like suicide vests in the movies.
“It’s C4.” Chase’s voice was clipped. “And he didn’t detonate it.” He yanked something out as he spoke. “If it had been TATP, we wouldn’t be here. Will you people get the f*ck clear?”
He looked up at Lina as if he was about to grab her and throw her after Vi.
Lina reached down suddenly and ripped the mask off the first man.
Vi stiffened. Was that Lina’s weaselly, creepy, rapist cousin Abed?
He’d tried to shoot up her kitchens?
He’d tried to hurt her people?
“Vi, stay the hell down!” Chase yelled, but it didn’t even penetrate as she threw herself back over the counter—everything hurt like hell—and threw herself at Abed.
“You pathetic coward * putain de merde de connard de…!” Vi kicked him, the nitrogen-fragilized sweatshirt fragmenting under the toe of her stout kitchen shoes, and Lina was kicking the other side of him, yelling at him, and…