He slid his gaze over her again, from the boots to the ponytail. He had to get to the bottom of this, then break it to Max after he did. The only reason he was following her was to make sure he wasn’t seeing things and hadn’t mistaken someone else for her. Max would bust his arse if he just let her go on her merry way.
Some things couldn’t be unseen.
She couldn’t possibly be a lady of the evening. No way in bloody hell. Not the Anna who had held her own in the jungle when they went after her brother in Paraguay to rescue him and Jugs.
He couldn’t stop the memory of that night at her sister Rhonda’s wedding. She had looked like spun sugar that night, so different from the hard-edged woman who didn’t miss a step in those I’ll tie you down and school you on who’s your master boots. The thought of Anna tying him down while she wore that outfit made his mouth dry because he was a twisted-up bastard. She started across the square, her boot heels clacking against the polished cobblestones, heading toward the Evzen Hotel on the other side. When she was partway there, the Evzen’s valet got her attention, then slipped her something, and Dodger swore under his breath. The handoff was very professionally done.
This was going to kill Max.
She’d gotten a john here at the hotel, and it was clear the valet was helping out hookers with room keys.
What she did and who she did it with was her business. Bollocks, he didn’t want to think about what she was heading toward and what she was going to do when she got there. It made him…angry.
But really. It was none of his or anyone else’s concern. He should go back to HQ and forget he ever saw her, keep her little dark secret so that Max would never have to know. Dodger was on a classified, active op, and he was already overdue. But instead, he crossed the square, his loyalty to his brother taking over.
A scoffing grin twitched the corner of his lips. Mistress Anna had never been anything but Grade A trouble from the moment he set eyes on her. Barreling in there to stop her would be reckless and draw attention to him. Not what he should be doing on an op. The police could get involved, and this was certainly not something Fast Lane needed with the black eye they’d gotten in losing Angar Said.
If this had been anyone else except Anna, it would have been an easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy decision.
As he entered the hotel after her, Anna slipped by some tourists chattering to each other, drawing eyes as she went. Dodger still couldn’t get his brain around Anna being a hooker. It just was not her.
Habit sent his gaze around the lobby, and he didn’t like the three Czech looking thugs whose oversized jackets could easily conceal weapons milling around in one of the corners along with a Chinese woman and a too-interested Lebanese character. All of them had their eyes on the elevator. He was starting to get a funky vibe, which did nothing to alleviate his concerns regarding Max’s sister.
What in bloody hell was going on here?
Anna disappeared up the stairs, and Dodger was torn between staying here and watching what was going on with the suspicious looking quint group. But his protective instincts told him to go after Anna.
He made a beeline for the stairs, sauntering to keep his own profile low. He got there just in time to see her disappear into Room 210. The only sound in the hall was the click of the door as it closed behind her.
He stood in the hall totally exposed to anyone who came out of their room. It was strange to loiter in a hotel because everyone who was legitimate had someplace to go.
It was also surreal. Mostly when Dodger was idling in a hallway, he was tacked up and ready to breach in the way his door-kicking team was trained.
But this wasn’t an op, even though it felt dangerous and risky. He moved down the hall to the door, keeping his eyes out for anyone who might leave their rooms. Inside he could hear voices, murmurs, then a distinctive, “Wow. When they send someone, they really send someone.” Male, American, and if Dodger got his hands on him, fucked up.
“Let’s get started. I have another appointment.” Yep that was Anna’s voice, smooth, straightforward, and commanding, but with a decisively Slavic accent. What the deuce was going on here? Then there was silence and Dodger clenched his fists.
Before he knew what he was doing, he knocked, loudly and decisively.
“Room service.”
Everything was still and silent. He couldn’t imagine…okay, he could imagine but didn’t want to…what was going on in there.
Room service? Anna Keegan thought. Had the schlub ordered food? Yeesh. She looked over to the man on the bed under the covers and doped up on liquid ecstasy. The tent the sheet made over his protruding stomach told the story. Yeah, most likely. She glanced at the progress bar on the laptop as it filled up, urging it with her mind to go faster. She had been instructed to not only upload the hidden program to monitor his actions when he was online, but download his files so the CIA could hopefully find something that would give them information about his back door to the satellite system and a security precaution if Miller wanted to delete everything on his system if the worm was discovered.
Fifty percent.
She only had a little while before he was fully conscious again, and she had to be here when he woke up or he would be as suspicious as hell.
She ignored the room service guy and unzipped her boot as Richard Allen Miller, hacker and extortionist, stirred. Luckily, he’d only been in sweatpants when she’d come in, and it was easy enough to get him out of them. Her outfit was deliberately constructed for that purpose.
Sixty-five percent.
Richard—or Dick, as she referred to him—stirred and opened his eyes, then closed them. He was coming out of the drug and she had to act. She propped her booted foot on the edge of the bed, sliding in front of and obscuring his view of the laptop. She bent over as he turned his head and looked at her. She slowly pulled the tab up to the top of the zipper and smiled in her most that-was-wonderful expression. “Is this for me?” she asked softly as she dropped her foot to the floor and took the three hundred bucks on the nightstand, tucking it into her tote.
Then she leaned down and said, “That was great. Call me anytime, pro čep.” She used the word for stud in Czech and Dick smiled.
The knock came again, this time louder. “Room service,” the man said again in Czech.
She glanced over her shoulder, the bar reading eighty-five percent.
“Shouldn’t you get that?” she said breathlessly, her voice even and calm, giving away none of the urgency she felt inside. “I’m famished. You worked me hard, big boy.” Oh, my, she was piling it on thick, but it would keep the groggy hacker lost a bit longer in the fantasy. She risked another quick glance, noting the fill was almost to ninety-eight. Come on, she growled inside her head.
When he got out of bed and reached for his sweatpants, she slapped him on the rump to keep his attention on her. It was second nature for computer geeks to want to know where their pacifier was at all times. She couldn’t afford for him to see what she was doing. He gave her a cocky smile as he put on his glasses, then stumbled for the door. She turned and grabbed the USB drive from the connector the moment it hit one hundred percent and closed the laptop’s lid.
Bingo! She was done.
She’d filled in for Dick’s normal hooker with her agenda perfectly in place. But all this would be for nothing if she didn’t beat feet and stay unidentifiable. She didn’t want the room service guy to see her here. That wouldn’t do.