“You shall have your order on time, Mister Donovan.”
“We’d better. My customers have paid a lot for their playtime and I aim to deliver. So you’d better.”
“No worries, Mister Donovan. I told you Ming Kow is the best in the business. He will have the shipment to you on time for the big game.”
Nat stilled. Sweat prickled her brow. Her palms went clammy. Because she knew that voice. She knew it damn well. She swallowed heavily and backed away from the door, willing her pattering heart to quiet.
What the hell was Gregor doing here?
Had he found her?
Well, what a stupid question. Of course he had. The coincidence was too great for it to be anything else. Besides, she knew Gregor. She’d known him her whole life. He’d been the man who plucked her from the hands of slavers when she was a kid. He was the man who’d recruited her, trained her.
He was the closest thing to a father as she’d ever had; he’d been the one who had instilled in her the ethics and standards of the agency. He would never be in cahoots with a man of Ming Kow’s ilk unless he was on a mission.
The only question was…what was that mission?
To shut down Ming Kow’s operation?
Or to bring Nat back into the fold?
Mind spinning, she returned to the stairwell and made her way out of the building, but she didn’t head home. She found a shadowed spot with a good view of the door, and she waited.
When the three men finally emerged, laughing and joking and puffing on fat cigars, she let go a whistle. A light trill of a thing that could have been the call of a night bird, but wasn’t.
Gregor was good. He barely reacted, other than a slight stiffening of his shoulders. When Ming Kow invited the men to return with him to the hotel, to the party that was probably still going on, Gregor demurred, mentioning a need to take a walk.
When Ming Kow’s limo pulled away and purred down Lung Wo Road, he strolled toward her hiding place. He made a big show of pausing to stub out his cigar against his shoe and murmured, “Hello, solnishko.”
Nat frowned at the endearment. She wasn’t feeling like his sunshine right now. In fact, she was torn between annoyance and frustration.
Not just because he had found her so quickly.
Not just because he was interfering in her mission.
Not just because it was five fucking o’clock in the morning.
She frowned at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Isn’t that obvious, dorogaya?”
“So many things come to mind.”
He smiled, but it was a wicked offering. “Did you think I would not follow you?”
“I thought you would give me more time. You know how important this is to me.”
“It is a foolish quest. Haven’t I taught you better?”
A foolish quest? To find the man who murdered her father? He man who sold her? “You taught me to follow my heart.”
“Not when your heart is blinded by vengeance.”
She couldn’t hold back a snort. “That’s rich. Coming from you.” How many times had he been blinded by vengeance? How many times had he used her and the other young agents he ran to fulfill his desires?
“Can we have this conversation elsewhere?” He stamped his foot. “It’s cold.”
“Fine. Meet me at my apartment.” They both knew better than to be seen together. She started to give him the address but he held up a hand.
“I know where you are staying.”
Of course he did. “Fine. Be there in twenty minutes.”
“Of course, dorogaya.”
Her nerves hummed as she watched him stroll away into the night. Sometimes he was so aggravating.
Still, somehow, it was good to see him.
* * *
He was already at her apartment by the time she got there, sitting on her sofa looking out at the Hong Kong skyline…smoking that filthy cigar.
“Put that out,” she barked. He was her superior, her mentor, practically her father—but this was her apartment, and the damn thing smelled.
“You needn’t be so cross, dorogaya.”
“Stop calling me that.” It was a rhetorical command. He always called her darling and she always objected. She dropped into the chair facing him in her austere apartment. She’d rented it furnished because she didn’t intend to stay long. In fact, she’d been here longer than she’d hoped.
“How is your search going?”
“Oh? Are we going to leap right in to the frigid lake?” A reference to one of her early training sessions. His lips quirked up in recognition of that.