Mixtures of different languages, Dutch, Slovakian, Hungarian, Russian, German, and plenty of English mixed together in a melody that could only happen in Europe.
Leo tapped his token on the bar and patiently waited.
When Olivia looked at others, she noticed half a dozen tokens of different colors weaving between the fingertips of the patrons in the establishment.
Olivia lifted her drink and left her spot to find another angle.
C’mon, Friedrich . . . where are you?
Half an hour passed with Leo and Jax making small talk with each other. The bartender insisted he would be with them to discuss what he’d learned shortly. But time slowly slid by.
Olivia looked around.
The waiting was a test.
The question was . . . Whose test? The establishment’s? The bartender’s? Or was Friedrich watching and waiting?
Olivia circled the room and realized the vantage point from the floor level wasn’t optimal. Above their heads was a balcony space. “I’m going upstairs,” she whispered to herself and the team on the other end of the microphone.
A single ping in her ear told her someone had heard her.
She found the staircase and started to climb.
The scent of cigars and cigarettes was strong, the lighting dim.
She looked down and saw Leo and Jax more clearly. She stood in the shadows and searched the room again with her eyes. Other than a couple of men admiring the feat it took for Jax to stay in her dress, the two of them went unnoticed.
Olivia was about to give up when she noticed the flicker of flame as someone lit a cigar several yards away.
The light cast by the flame illuminated a face. A face staring at the floor of the ballroom.
The extra senses on the back of her neck began to tingle as she moved closer to get a better look.
Very few people moved around the balcony space of A Róka, allowing those that were there an extra layer of privacy and quiet.
The man was tall and lanky. Long fingers stretched over the cigar as he sucked the smoke down deep into his lungs.
“Take your shoes off, Olivia. We’re gonna get caught.” Friedrich held his shoes up in one spindly hand to show her the way to the stacks.
Olivia’s pulse caught in a rapid fire, brought her to stand just outside of his view.
She waited.
“Hello, Friedrich.”
The man froze, took a deep breath, and then pulled the stogie from his lips. “I knew it had to be you.”
Olivia cast herself into his light.
It was then he turned to look at her. “You look better than the last time I saw you.”
“That’s not hard to do. All I have to be is vertical.”
Friedrich’s face was drawn, the kind of exhaustion Olivia knew all too well.
“I have questions,” she told him.
“Nothing I’m obligated to answer,” he said.
“I took your bullet. That deserves some kind of payment.”
He narrowed his eyes, then looked down at the floor of the nightclub.
Leo and Jax were on the move.
“Get rid of the mic,” Friedrich told her.
She hesitated with the sound of a beep in her ear.
She looked at the man and saw the boy within. Nothing about him said he wanted to pounce or escape. Olivia took a chance and pulled the tiny microphone from a button on her jacket.
She dropped the device in her drink and set it aside. “Why?” she asked.
He nodded toward his right and started to walk.
She followed.
“Damn it, Olivia.” Leo looked at Jax at the same time the team in the van told them Olivia’s microphone was dead.
“No one panic,” Neil said through their earpieces. “She hasn’t left the building.” He gave them her location, and Leo and Jax split up once they were in the balcony space.
Leo saw her silhouette as she moved deeper into an alcove. “I see her,” he announced.
That’s when he noticed her hand reach out, palm flat, as if telling Leo to keep his distance.
“Hold up. Give her space,” he told the others.
Jax stopped her forward motion from the opposite side of the balcony.
For now, Olivia was flanked.
All Leo could do was wait.
“You may not believe this, but it’s good to see you.”
Olivia sat opposite Friedrich. While he sat with his back against the chair, arms stretched out with his cigar hanging from his long fingers, she kept herself upright, both feet on the ground, ready for anything.
“Considering you tried to kill me . . .”
“I’m told you have people poking around in my life,” he said.
Olivia thought of Neil’s team asking questions throughout Europe, looking for Louis Schmidt.