Maya Banks - Shades of Gray

She flew down the six flights of stairs and burst out of the building, at full sprint as she ran down the street to where Cole was parked.

But the car was gone.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

No way they had Cole. No fucking way.

She yanked out her cell and punched in Cole’s number.

“Come on, come on,” she said anxiously.

But it wasn’t Cole who answered. It was a voice she’d heard in her nightmares every night for the last six months.

“Didn’t believe me?” he asked in amusement. “I have your boyfriend here. He’s pretty pissed. He’ll be lucky if I don’t kill him before you get here, but a deal’s a deal. You for your teammate.”

“Where?” she croaked.

“Be watching your email. I’ll provide the location at nine in the morning. Until then, sleep well, P.J. Rutherford. And remember this. If you’re so much as a minute late, your friend here is dead. If you show up with anyone, if I even think you have backup, he’s dead. If I find a single weapon on you, he’s dead. Are you getting the picture now? I have no use for this man. But you . . . You, I have use for. We have unfinished business. Get here on time and follow my directions. Do that and he goes free. Understand?”

Before she could respond, Brumley cut the connection, leaving P.J. standing on the street corner numb to her toes.

P.J. returned to her hotel, packed her shit and immediately checked out. She moved to a hostel across the city, provided a fake name, and paid cash—more than triple the cost of the room so she didn’t have to provide her passport.

She was a wreck. A complete and utter wreck, and she was so pissed that she knew she had to get a grip or she was going to get herself and Cole killed.

She didn’t believe for a minute that Brumley was going to let Cole walk away once P.J. surrendered. The dumbass must think she was a complete moron to swallow that line of bullshit.

The first thing she had to do was call Steele, and it was a call she dreaded with every fiber of her being. But for Cole, she’d do anything. Even if it meant never working for KGI again. And this would likely do the trick. She could only push her team leader so far. He wasn’t exactly known for his understanding.

He expected you to obey orders without questions and do your job. You did those two things, you got along fine. If not, there was a serious problem.

She made the call with a huge knot in her stomach. He answered on the second ring.

“Steele,” he said shortly.

“Steele this is P.J. We have a situation.”

Steele immediately became alert. “Give me the rundown.”

Never one to mince words. He wanted things short and concise and to the point. No unnecessary bullshit and no excuses.

“Cole and I came to Vienna to follow up on a lead from a contact I made while I was over here. She led me to believe that Jakarta was a false lead and that something big was going down over here. Cole and I planned to check it out because my contact will only talk to me. After we learned what there was to learn we were going to call in the team.”

P.J. had to hold the phone away from the ear as blistering obscenities poured through the other end.

“What the fuck were you two doing going off without telling me a damn thing, and furthermore why the hell did you two go alone?” he demanded.

She didn’t have time to answer his questions.

“My contact was dead when I went to her apartment. Brumley’s calling card. Brutalized and she had her throat slashed. Just like I killed three of his men. It was a clear message to me. And he left a note saying he had Cole.”

“Son of a bitch. You went in alone? Without backup? Have you lost your goddamn mind, P.J.? You’re acting like a wet-behind-the-ears rookie recruit and I expected better from you.”

“Look, we had our bases covered. We went in prepared. Brumley set us up. He got to my contact first, killed her and then sent me an email from her laptop. While I was inside, they nabbed Cole, who was parked a block away waiting for me to come out.”

“And what now?” Steele snapped.

“He wants me to trade myself for Cole.”

“Over my dead body,” Steele said icily.

“Look, I don’t believe for a minute he’ll let Cole go free once he has me. Which is why I’m calling you. I’m not stupid, Steele, even if you think so. I’ve thought this through. If you and the others get on a plane now you can make it pretty damn close to the time I’m supposed to meet Brumley. Problem is I don’t know where yet. But I have a tracking device I’ll wear so you’ll know how to find me. I need you to get your asses here as quick as possible so we have backup. I can’t wait for you before I go in because I do believe he’ll kill Cole out of spite if I’m so much as a minute late. But if I get there, I can stall for time until you guys make it in. I’ll do whatever I have to do, whether it’s seduce his sorry ass or let him take another shot at me. As long as Cole survives, it doesn’t matter what happens to me.”

“You aren’t trading yourself for Cole,” Steele said tersely. “Do you honest to fuck think he’d ever be able to live with himself if you did that?”

“At least he’d be alive,” she said softly. “No one on my team is going down for me.”

Steele cursed again.

“How soon can you be here?” P.J. demanded. “I meet him at ten in the morning. I figure it’ll take you guys all night and into the morning to get here. We’ll be cutting it close. I need you there as close to ten as possible. I don’t know what his plans are. He may just kill us as soon as I show up. I’m hoping to play with his ego a bit to buy us some time. Just be here, Steele. I’m counting on you.”

“We’ll be there,” Steele snapped. “You just stay your asses alive until we kick some fucking ass. You got it, Rutherford? That’s a goddamn order and one I expect you to follow.”

It was one order she had absolutely no problem following.

P.J. didn’t sleep that night. She went through a dozen scenarios in her head, but none of them did any good, because she had no idea what she was up against.

And the bastard was toying with her. She checked her email repeatedly, hour after hour, and no information came through.

It wasn’t until eight thirty the next morning that the email popped into her inbox.

She pounded the table in frustration, because all it said was that a car would pick her up at nine thirty at the Stubentor subway stop.

With no information to leave for Steele, she was going to have to rely solely on the tracking devices and hope to hell they weren’t discovered before Steele arrived and got a bead on her location.

She affixed one of the patches to the bottom of her foot, and the other she attached to the elastic she used to pull her hair into a ponytail.

Praying Steele and company arrived soon, she left her room at the hostel, asking directions to the nearest subway station.

It was funny that she couldn’t remember any other mission. Didn’t remember how she felt, if she’d been scared, if she’d worried about dying or getting one of her teammates killed.

The old P.J. had been cocky and self-assured. The new P.J. had a much better grasp of just what could go wrong, and she was certainly more in touch with her mortality and that of her teammates.

No one was going to die if she had anything to say about it.

She rode the subway in tense silence, wondering if Steele and her team had arrived, hoping that they’d been able to pick up the signal on the tracking devices.

The bastards would probably frisk her pretty hard, but her hope was that if they found one of the tracking devices, they wouldn’t even bother looking for a second. And she’d purposely worn a plain T-shirt and jeans because there wasn’t a possible way to conceal anything, and she wanted Brumley to think she’d complied one hundred percent with his orders.

When her stop arrived, she got off and glanced warily around. She wasn’t entirely certain what she was looking for, but she figured the assholes would find her quick enough.

And she was right.

She hadn’t taken more than a few steps off the platform when she felt the barrel of a gun pressed painfully into her back.

“Keep walking and don’t do anything stupid.”

The accented voice was an assault to her ears. She wanted nothing more than to let loose and kick the fucker’s ass, but she controlled her rage and walked meekly in the direction he pointed her.

She was shoved into a waiting car and ordered to lie down on the seat.

She did as she was instructed and waited an eternity as the car drove for what seemed like forever before stopping again. She waited for the man to open the door and tell her what he wanted. She didn’t want to risk pissing him off this early in the game.

Patience was the word for the day. Stall. Whatever it took to get Steele and the team in position.

“Get up and don’t try anything stupid,” the man barked.

She rose slowly, making sure her hands could be seen.

As soon as she was out of the car, the man shoved her toward the entrance of what looked to be a damn fortress.

She cast a quick glance behind her, taking in the wrought iron gate and high security fence, not to mention the armed guards that patrolled the perimeter.

It wouldn’t be easy, but she had every confidence that Steele would expertly handle whatever obstacles he encountered.

Her main focus now had to be Cole and making sure he was alive and okay.