“Fine.” I kept my gaze trained on Giovanni who was still staring at me.
“There’s still stuff you need to tell me too, Xander Cage. Did you ever work out who the joker was? I still can’t.” He gave me a wicked smirk. The menace behind it suggested he knew I knew by now that I’d been played.
“Ethan Ranger, the man who hired me. It was him,” I replied keeping my tone even to tamp down my rage.
Giovanni smiled and started clapping. “Sometimes I really love myself. I have a beautiful mind. You know, had you told me something I would have figured it out. I would have figured out that someone was playing us. And you’re an agent.”
“I am not. I was doing a job I thought was for the greater good. I didn’t realize I was just another piece in a game. A pawn.” I intensified my glare on him. Frankie mentioned the Russian government as the leads in charge of the whole operation. Now was a perfect time to get answers. “What about you? Who were you holding these for?” I waved my hand over the blueprints.
“Does it matter?”
“If I didn’t want to know I wouldn’t ask the question.” Actually it didn’t matter one fuck, but it added to the details of what I knew.
“The Presidency of Russia,” he answered, sharing. Actually telling me. Frankie heard right.
“Okay. Now we know the back story. Do you have any idea where they might have taken Jia?” It was time for action. We’d talked enough about shit we couldn’t do anything about.
Giovanni shook his head. “Not a damn clue. I have no idea. For all I know they could be in Timbuktu. The only consolation I have is that they’d have to move with the speed of light to get there. I just have to wait for the call.”
“They’ll be watching,” Jack suddenly said.
Giovanni looked to him. “Of course they will. Those people never stop watching. They know I’m here but do not care about that. They just want the prints. That is all. They don’t care about the details, that is the power of The Ra.”
I wish to God we were dealing with anyone else besides them, anybody else.
Fucking hell.
A shiver ran down my spine when his phone started buzzing.
He reached for it and answered it.
I had my eyes peeled on him but out the corner of my eye I noticed Dorian pull something from his pocket too.
“Hello,” Giovanni said into the phone. He pressed it to his ear. His face hardened and my heart sped up its beat to a hundred miles an hour.
It was beating so fast as I waited.
“I will see you then,” Giovanni stated and hung up. He grit his teeth and growled. “Twin Falls. They want me to come to Twin Falls at noon tomorrow with prints. I get to the civic center and they’ll send a fucking address.”
“I got the address,” Dorian announced, pulling our attention to him.
“What?” I asked.
He held up the device he’d taken out earlier. It looked like one of those battery charger units but it had a more slimline look to it.
He smiled. “My device tracked them within seconds.”
“It said unrecognized number on my phone,” Giovanni stated widening his eyes.
Dorian waved his hand as if that was nothing. “Ugh, that’s nothing lad. I can get round that piss easy with my wee device, so much the better when they’re live in conversation for longer than a minute. I picked up your number when you got here and set my device to track any number that made contact with you.”
I knew I would like this guy. A plan was brewing in my mind.
“Dorian, can we locate the address and hack the systems? Do you have anything like that?” I asked. “I’d just need something to rewrite a few algorithms and codes.”
Dorian smiled. “Now you’re speaking my language.”
“Perfect. Now we have a plan.”
“Care to let me in on that plan?” Giovanni asked.
“Sure. We’re not getting anywhere for noon tomorrow. We’re getting there before sunrise, before the dawn of the new fucking day. If we can check out the location we know what we’re doing and where we’re going. We go in and get Jia.”
“I have to take the prints in case it goes wrong. I won’t sacrifice my daughter for them.” He pointed to the prints. “I won’t do it, I don’t care what they’re worth.”
For the first time since this storm happened, I actually respected the guy.
“We take the prints but we’re leaving with her, alive.” I nodded. “Wes I need you with Dorian to be my eyes.” I looked over at Wes who gave me both thumbs up.
“Eyes like an eagle bro.”
“Frankie stay here with Jack.”
Both men looked at me like I was crazy.
“Are you insane? I’m not letting you go on this mission by yourself.” Jack protested.
“I won’t be by myself. Giovanni’s coming with me.”
Giovanni straightened and focused his gaze on me.
“The two of you can’t just go on this suicide mission by yourselves. I won’t allow it,” Jack flared. He lowered his gun on Giovanni and stared me down. The wealth of seriousness mingled with worry in his eyes.
It was times like these when I was grateful to have someone who cared for me. Wes was my best friend, but it was different. I wondered how it was I’d lived without it for the last five years. It was the same as how I wondered how I’d existed for the first sixteen years of my life without him and Claire.
“Jack, you are injured, badly.”
“Like fuck am I injured. You are … you are my son. You are like a son to me and I just got you back. I’m coming whether you fucking like it or not.”
When Jack spoke there was no point arguing. I could imagine me trying to talk him out of it and then just getting pushed back. I gave him a curt nod, agreeing. I supposed the more muscle we had the better.
“Okay.”
“I’ll assemble some guys,” Jack added. Hope filled me when he said that because I knew he meant guys who were like twenty of me.
“Thank you.”
“I’m coming too,” Frankie chimed in. “Don’t expect me to sit here and scratch my ass until you come back.”
Giovanni gave him the same hard look he had when he first came in and saw him.
“How touching. All aboard. Traitor,” Giovanni hissed.
I was glad when Frankie made his way over to him and squared off with him.
“I don’t care what the hell you call me boss,” Frankie countered. “I’m not the traitor, you are. To your country. Greedy mobster, getting in shit and not getting all the details. The fine print.”
The look in Giovanni’s eyes hardened. “That is none of your concern,” he answered.
“You get involved with something like that, sacrifice your best men and now look where your daughter is.”
“Frankie, she wouldn’t be in danger if you didn’t take her,” Giovanni countered. The sting of his words got me.
Frankie shook his head though.
“It wouldn’t matter where you sent her, those people would have found her. Send her to the moon and they would find her. Believe me, it was inevitable no matter where she went. Armand, that asshole would have saved himself first before her if shit had gone down in Italy. And your family there are no match for The Ra. Your people here or there are no match for them. It’s the reason why you’re here.” Frankie stepped back away from him but wasn’t finished with him yet. “Be grateful she was taken somewhere where we still have a chance to do something about it.”