Page 93 of Locked and Loaded

Dragan was quiet for a long moment. His face had gone completely still, the way it did when he was calculating something, weighing variables she couldn't see. The muscle in his jaw jumped once. Twice.

“Lennox, you want the whole truth? Here it is. Georgiou is going to be at the auction.” He didn’t give her a second to process that thought before he continued. “Men like him don’t buy a new toy until they’re done with the old one because every time he attends an auction, he’s exposed. Do you understand what I am telling you? That, coupled with the fake-you going to a reporter to talk about your sister and the Society, tells me that your sister must be dead. No one would risk her being alive. It’s not logical to take that kind of a chance, and if these people are anything, they are good at ensuring their own survival.”

It was as if someone had sucked all the air out of her lungs and smashed her skull at the same time. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She stared at him, her mouth open, trying to form the words of denial, but her mind and body were unable to lie to herself any longer. He’d said the thing she’d been thinking, only now his words rang true.

Then he said, "Be ready in an hour."

He turned and stalked toward the door. He paused, lowered his head, as if he meant to say something. His shoulders tensed, and then the carved wooden door clicked shut behind him, a sound so quiet and so final that she felt it in her chest.

Lennox stood in the middle of the tent, breathing hard. Her heart was pounding against her ribs like it was trying to break free, and her hands continued to shake. Guilt washed over her. She hadn’t managed to save her sister. That’s what Dragan was telling her. She’d failed.

The red velvet walls that had felt luxurious last night, rich and warm and almost decadent in the lamplight, now felt like they were closing in. Like a cage lined in silk. She pressed her palms against her thighs and forced herself to breathe, in and out, until the shaking stopped.

She finished dressing in silence. Packed her few belongings into the crossbody bag she'd arrived with. Toothbrush. Change of clothes. The small notebook she'd been using to track everything she knew about Chloe's disappearance, the writing on the pages growing sparser as leads dried up and theories crumbled. She touched the cover of it, running her thumb along the worn edge, and then she zipped the bag shut.

She could leave. The thought came to her, clear and cold, as she scanned the tent one last time. She could walk out of here and find her own way. She'd done it before. She could do it again.

But she thought about the auction in Malta. About the gala. About the network of people Dragan had access to, the information he could get, the doors he could open that she couldn't even see.

She thought about Chloe.

It didn’t matter what she felt or what Dragan had said. Until she saw proof that Chloe was dead, she had to keep going, and that meant using the best resources available. Dragan. It didn’t matter what had happened between them. That was over and done. A momentary lapse in judgment or a much-needed break… either way, it was over, and she needed to push through whatever she was feeling. There was no stopping until she knew one way or another about her sister.

And maybe, just maybe, if she kept going, she could spare some other sister the pain of knowing a sibling had disappeared in some heinous way, kidnapped, trafficked, sold into sexual slavery until they had no use for the woman any longer. Maybe she couldn’t save Chloe, but she could spare some other family the anguish she was suffering from.

She slung the bag over her shoulder and left the tent.

The desert morning hit her like a wall. The sun was already brutal, bleaching the sand to a white-gold glare that caused her to squint. The hot, dry air carried the faint mineral smell of sand and stone. Somewhere nearby, a generator hummed, and beyond it she could hear the low murmur of voices from the work tent.

Hassan was near the solar panels, adjusting one of the mounts with the kind of patient attention that suggested he'd been at it for a while. He looked up when she approached, and his weathered face creased into a smile that reached his eyes.

"You are leaving."

"So I'm told." She walked closer, her sneakers kicking up small puffs of dust that settled on the cuffs of her jeans. "Thank you. For everything. The food, the clothes, the setup. All of it. You've been kinder than we had any right to expect."

"It was my honor." He clasped his hands together in front of him, a gesture that seemed both formal and genuinely warm. "Perhaps when this is over, when you have found what you are looking for, you will come back. I will take you to ride the camels. They are very gentle creatures, despite what people say. Very loyal. Very sure-footed."

Despite the weight in her chest, despite the fight still echoing in her head, she felt her mouth curve into something that was almost a smile. "I'd like that. I promise. When this is over, I'll come back and ride your camels."

"You will be most welcome." He dipped his head. "Most welcome indeed."

A heavy, thumping sound cut through the desert quiet before she could say anything else. A low thrum at first, barely distinguishable from the generator, then growing, swelling into a rhythmic thunder that vibrated through her chest and into her bones. She turned toward the horizon and saw it: a black helicopter, sleek and predatory, skimming low over the dunes like a shark cutting through water.

It grew larger as it approached, the sound building until it was all she could hear. Sand whipped into the air as it descended, a stinging cyclone that flattened everything in a fifty-foot radius. She turned her face away, shielding her eyes with one arm, and felt the grit coating her lips and eyelashes.

When she looked up, Dragan was at her elbow. He'd appeared without sound, without warning, the way he always did. He didn't say anything. He didn't look at her, not directly. He just held out a headset and motioned toward the open door of the helicopter.

She took the headset. Their fingers didn't touch.

She climbed into the helicopter and strapped herself into the seat, the harness snug across her chest and hips. The interior smelled of leather and aviation fuel, cold and impersonal after the warmth of the tent. Dragan took the seat across from her, his long legs stretching out, his attention already buried in a tablet.

The helicopter lifted off. Her stomach dropped with the ascent, that brief moment of weightlessness before the rotors caught and they surged upward.

She pressed her forehead against the window and watched the desert fall away.

The camp shrank beneath them. First the tents, red and white dots against the sand. Then the solar panels, glinting in the morning light like scattered coins. Then the whole thing, the entire world she'd inhabited for the past few days, reduced to a speck of color on an endless sea of gold and brown. And then nothing. Just sand and sky and the shimmering heat haze that blurred the horizon into something that looked like water but wasn't.

Chloe had been taken by helicopter too.