Page 99 of Lethal Obsession

Andrew’s grim expression makes me pause in the act of spinning Ofelia around in the pool.

“What is it?” I say, still holding her close, her arms entwined about my neck.

“Call.” He pauses. “In the secure room.”

Fuck.

Only a few people place unscheduled calls to that room, and none of them are likely to call with good news.

I nod, and Andrew leaves. I turn to Ofelia, automatically searching for excuses. But she just smiles wryly and kisses me. “Go,” she says, turning to swim to the pool edge. “I’ll practice.”

I forget sometimes that she grew up amid the darkness and secrecy that is our world.

Then she strips off her bikini and steps under the outdoor shower, and for a moment I debate telling that world to just go to hell. Seeing me watching her, Ofelia giggles. “Go,” she says, waving me away. “Very life-and-death bratva things, remember?”

My eyes run over the long, slender lines of her body. “Barely,” I mutter, tearing myself away with an effort.

It’s not a lie.

Ofelia has been on the Quantum Drift for a week, but my world has shifted so profoundly in that time that it may as well have been a year.

Unfortunately, something tells me that our sybaritic existence is about to be rudely disrupted.

I towel off and head into the secure room, waiting until the lock clicks closed before waking the screen in front of me.

“We’ve got a problem,” Dima greets me.

“I figured.” I pause in the act of tightening a towel around my waist as Lars’s face suddenly appears in a separate box onscreen beside Dima’s. “What the fuck,” I say blankly, looking between them. “Since when do we do group calls?”

I’m diligent about maintaining separation between Andersson Technologies and the Petrovsky bratva. Even if the paparazzi might occasionally capture Lars and me together, partying on a yacht or out in a nightclub, for a hundred very good reasons we never, ever make the mistake of blurring the lines between the businesses.

“Shut up and open your second screen,” Lars says, not remotely cowed by my reaction. “I’m sending you a picture.”

A man’s face appears on the screen to my left. Mid-fifties, good-looking, olive skinned with a vaguely European feel. He’s familiar in a way I can’t quite place.

“What am I looking at?”

“John Owens,” answers Lars promptly.

“No, it isn’t.” I frown. “I sat across the table from Owens, Lars. This isn’t him.”

“Oh, but it is. So is this.” Another image appears, this one a bland-faced Caucasian. “And this.” Another photo, this time of a squat-faced redhead.

Lars gives me one of the loose, slightly insane grins that means he’s just discovered something important. “John Owens is an AI creation. One identity, used by multiple people, some real, most fictional. We couldn’t find him because he literally doesn’t exist. While hiring the Paris team who hunted you down, he was simultaneously attending a fundraiser for Marty Hunter Jr. in Miami and a college campus debate in Louisiana.”

“How did you track this down?” I shift my eye to Dima. “And why are you both calling me with this? I thought I’d made it clear this is Mak’s party.”

“Answer to your first question,” Lars says, “is bitch, please.” He gives me an arch look. “When it comes to intelligence in the field, Mak is the best there is. But one of the reasons he’s the best is because when it comes to the tech end, he’s smart enough to work with guys like me. And when I say guys like me, I’m being modest. Because we both know there’s nobody actually better than me.” He tilts his head. “Okay. Maybe you. And Mickey. But you take my point.”

I’m laughing, despite myself. Sometimes I think that one of the reasons our friendship survived the horror of the Orlov years is because somehow, even at the very darkest moments, he always found a way to make me laugh.

“And you?” I turn to Dima.

“I understand this is Mak’s party,” he says, “but it’s still our town, and we’ve hit some problems I wanted you to be aware of before I brief him, so I contacted Lars.”

Good thinking.

I nod. “Go ahead.”