“The Arcadians, and their…hunting skills.” He cleared his throat. “That’s not a half-bad guess.”
“What?” Z spat. “Why?”
“Because I was the dipwad on the footage. And also the idiot on the tarmac at Bourget, and in the plane.”
“What?”
“Well, the plane ride wasn’t part of the plan. But that got changed courtesy of a few knocks of lead, courtesy of the Gendarmerie that an Arcadian asswipe called out on us. Since one of them grazed my dome, I wasn’t exactly snapping the right Legos together, and—”
“Wait. Fuck.” He really choked this time. “Want to connect me from one to ten in a logical line this time?”
“Depends on what you want to define as one,” he returned. “There’s the part about Jayd Cimarron sneaking off of Arcadia in the first place. Then there’s the part where they learned she’d made it to Paris, but nobody could find her there.”
“I assume the girl had a good reason besides wanting to grab the limited-edition Louis Vuitton boots?”
“It’s so terrifying that you know shit like that now.”
“Whatever keeps my woman happy. So stop evading.”
He clamped an automatic snark-back into silence. The guy was right. It was best to just get on with shit. “Oz Demos got pulled in on the search efforts. And once he heard I was in the city too—”
“The wizard?” Z cut in. “He was just strolling through Paris too?”
“Not exactly.” Keeping his original assumption in play, that there were Arcadian bunker rats listening to their every word, he jumped ahead to evade the reasons—more specifically, one reason, named Jagger Fox—behind Oz’s involvement with the mission. He hadn’t been awake long enough to nail the extent of the Arcadians’ knowledge about Jagger and Oz’s relationship. “Anyhow, he chased me down. Gave me all the air in the balloon. They were basically hanging in the wind, with a misplaced princess also being hunted by some nasties from the kingdom’s Pura rebel group.”
“Crap.” Z punctuated it with a harsh grunt. “Never had the pleasure of waltzing with those guys, but I’ve heard tales. Why’d they want to get their paws on her?”
“Tale for another time.” To others, the toss-back was a casual enough write-off line. Between Zeke and him, it was a deeper code standing for more layers of the story. Just not the stratagem he was free to reveal right now.
“Whatever,” Z muttered, playing along with the dodge. “Just clears the deck for the question I’m more interested in asking.”
“Save it.” He went kneejerk because he had to. There was no need to squeeze harder on his Asha-sized wound. Between his woo-woo brain lapses back in Paris and even his painkiller-inspired dreams, he’d done a fine job of that already, thank you very much. “For the record, I hesitated plenty. Even told Oz I’d have to think about it and tried walking off the cobwebs to think clearly. Also for the record, he was offering a truckload of flow for the gig.”
“Because that’s always been your deciding factor…how? Further, because you didn’t make enough off of the job for Reece Richards a couple of weeks ago?”
“Hmmm. Good point and even better point.”
“But you’re still a wuss for a damsel in distress.”
“Distressed wasn’t exactly how I found her.”
And now he earned all the points for clever evasion. Better yet, without lying. Though so many words rushed to mind about his first face-to-face encounter with Jayd Dawne Cimarron, none of them came close to the descriptor. He’d just peeled a shithead off her who clearly hadn’t been after a sweet little courtship in the alley behind the Hotel Particulier. And she’d been so…
Defiant.
Dazzling.
Brave.
Beautiful.
“So what happened, then?”
So unspeakably beautiful…
“Brickham? Shit. Max? Did I lose him? Why do I still hear him breathe—”
“Everything.” He forced it out, despite accepting it as another shitty stand-in for the words that really belonged. Or perhaps the words that would never be enough. “It was just that…everything happened.”
“Everything.” The guy repeated it with such deliberation, it sounded like he’d hit slow playback mode. “Which means exactly what?”
But slow hadn’t robbed Z’s ability to stab in with a distinct bite. It nipped Brick from his reverie, driving his free hand over his skull in a nervous sweep. Goddammit. He hadn’t had a chance to run a razor over this shit in more than a week. His hand was going to come back as a bloody stump.
“You already know what,” he snapped. “Aren’t you the one who just told me it’s all over the news?”
“And are you the one who expects me to buy that crock?” Zeke flung. “Shit. You’re being as cagey as Taylor Swift fretting a breakup. You, the king of nothing happening, ever. Not with any woman you’ve seen or subbie you’ve screwed in the last two years. So you’re counting on me buying your story when that’s not part of your narrative?”
“Hayes.”
“Sometimes it’s all about what’s not there, buddy.”
“Zeke,” he finally bit out. “Jesus fuck.”
He pushed up straight until his wounds actually did pang, only to hunch over with new awareness of their possible—probable—audience. The bunker buddies were probably tossing grins while frantically writing down the time stamp for this part of the exchange, unless fate decided he was owed a miracle and the Arcadians just assumed Z’s crock was a slow cooker and his subbie was a long sandwich filled with twelve varieties of pastrami. None of it framed Brick in a flattering light, but at least they wouldn’t assume he’d been messing with their princess in that way.
“Fuck what?” Z volleyed, hanging on to his hound dog side—only with his wolfish mode on. “I mean…did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Fuck her. Your new little…asset.”
“You mean the official princess of a complete country with which our government is allies?”
Or so he was assuming, about that official stuff. But he’d been out cold for three days now. Many coups had happened in half that time. And though neither Samsyn nor Jayd had said anything to the contrary, it wasn’t like the subject had conveniently rolled around.
Still, he persisted, “Honestly, man. You really think I’m that special brand of idiot?”
Zeke sighed. It was long and contemplative. “I think you’re the guy who was doing his buddy a solid and found yourself in a high-octane situation with a grateful, gorgeous girl, and—”
“Woman.” He bit it out like the Doberman he now felt like.
“Ermmm…huh?”
“Jayd Cimarron is a woman, Z, not a girl.”
And God help the Doberman who barked without thought. Right away, Z was pouncing like the words were juicy T-bones. “Ohhh, damn.” And relishing the feast with a hefty chortle. “You really did get biblical with her.”
“Fuck you.” But it sounded as desperately angry as it felt. The frantic pounds of his heart were ample confirmation.