"Is it right that military guys say I've got your six when they mean that they have your back?" Louisa asked as he led her to the door.
He stopped by the doorway and looked over his shoulder at her as the double meaning in her words hit him. She looked so fucking cute in the gray hoodie, and her words were so sweet, that on any other day he would have stopped what he was doing, lifted her up, and carried her back to bed to show her just how much he had her back covered. Instead, he nodded and swallowed hard.
Their eyes held for a moment that felt like forever.
"Good," she said with a nervous smile.
* * *
Louisa's first thought was that she'd obviously drunk too much. Her head spun and her stomach clenched. In fact, she wasn't entirely certain that she wasn't going to throw up. The details were hazy. Had she and Six been out celebrating?
She struggled to open her eyes. They burned the way the chlorine in her pool burned them if she stayed in the water for too long.
Holding her head, Louisa tried to sit up and look around. She was on a metal-framed twin bed draped in a plastic cover in a bedroom with old pine wood furniture and an overabundance of floral fabric and lace. It most definitely wasn't like any emergency room or hospital ward she'd seen before. Dread started to fill her. Something had happened, but she couldn't remember what or how. Everything was muddled. She put her hands to her face. A sweet scent lingered around her. The sample. The car. Six and his team and helicopters.
Fuck. The guy used something on me in the car.
Her heart raced as her chest tightened, making the pounding in her head worse. Louisa pressed her fingertips to her temple.
She leaned forward, clenched her stomach, and looked down at her feet quickly. Thank God. Her sneakers were still on her feet. They never take your shoes. She remembered his words on the beach. Always keep your shoes on. You need to be able to run, should you have to. Six had been right. Which meant if the GPS that Bailey had installed in her sneaker was working, and Buddha had confirmed the location, Eagle Securities had the place surrounded.
Her skin peeled away from the plastic mattress as she stood. Dizziness overtook her, and she threw her arm out toward the wall to gain her balance. Her limbs felt … disconnected. They weren't doing what she told them. Sweat clung to her body, her damp T-shirt confirming that she'd been there for a while. How long, she wasn't certain. There were shutters covering the windows, but there was a door at the other end of the room from her cot. With the way her legs were shaking, the ten yards could have been a hundred miles.
Water.
She could barely swallow but gave herself a few more moments to find her composure and stop the room from spinning.
Six.
Nothing would stop him from finding her. She knew it. She just needed to stay alive long enough for him to get to her. The words he'd said to her in the gym before they left came back to her. Operative teams have a reputation for being rapid response … not the preferred way … have time to build a foolproof plan.
While he was close by, it might be a while until he came. Her initial thought had been to scream and yell, to overcome the fear she had of whoever was on the other side of the door and demand to know where the hell she was. But now she thought it would be better to simply pretend she was still sleeping in case anybody came by to check on her. Anything that would bide time.
She crossed her fingers and prayed that this was Vasilii's new home and that he and Ivan were both here.
Louisa scanned the room, anxious to see if there was anything she could use as a weapon, but with the exception of a small bronze paperweight next to the bed, there was nothing in there. Six had said they wanted her alive, and she hoped that was true.
She curled back up on the bed, the ache in her head dulling as she lay down, but turned so she could see the door. If someone came in, she'd study them carefully before jumping to her feet. Now was the time for her to be clever. Not reckless.
Moments dragged by endlessly. Occasionally, a dull thud or the sound of metal banging against metal would sound in the hollow space.
When the door finally pushed open, Ivan walked through it. A man with a gun stood behind him and yelled something in a language she assumed was Russian before slamming the door shut.
When Ivan finally looked at her, all she could see was a broken man. Whatever had happened, Ivan wasn't the mastermind. Or if he had been at one point, he wasn't any longer.
"Louisa," he said, his voice hoarse. "I'm sorry." Tears filled his eyes as he spoke.
"Who are they? What do they want?" she asked quickly, her eyes flitting between the door and Ivan.
Ivan sat down on the edge of the mattress. "They want the drug we created."