Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Stay put. Can’t collect yet. More details soon.
What the ever-loving fuck? He couldn’t stay put. People were trying to kill him. He’d said as much in his message. Was this person a moron?
He needed to find out what was on this hard drive now because it was going to get him killed. It was the only way he was going to find another buyer.
It was probably a good thing that Alexei didn’t know that his buyer was having issues. The assassin probably had a better shot at getting his five million for killing a cat burglar than ever getting his ten million.
Tucking his phone away again, Soren reached to adjust his bag on his shoulder only to remember that he’d left his stuff at Alexei’s. Fuck. He missed his gear. It was like a safety blanket. His lock picks and other digital gadgets had gotten him out of a lot of tricky situations. Right now, he felt naked. He didn’t even have his folding knife on him.
Of course, he’d never been much of a fighter. He could defend himself in a pinch, but his strength was in not getting caught in the first place. It had been a few years since he’d last used a gun, and he hoped he didn’t have to start again. He liked to think he wasn’t a killer. At least not anymore. There had been a few in the past, but he’d not had a choice.
He looked around at the classic Paris architecture with the pale stone, long windows with black swirling accents, and flat-topped blue-gray roofs. A very easy place to run and escape. It was a beautiful city. He should have been enjoying his time there. Just a shame so many people were trying to kill him.
Which was a clear sign that something had gone horribly wrong on this job. Most of the danger occurred during the theft. There usually weren’t so many people intent on killing him after the item was stolen. For that matter, it typically wasn’t so hard to hand over the goods to the buyer.
The problem with the buyer was puzzling. Why would this person refuse to meet with him? Or at least arrange a courier. The person would go to a location that Soren decided and recover the goods. The courier would then contact the buyer that the goods were there. From there, the money would be wired to Soren’s bank account. Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy. Why was this asshat making everything so difficult?
He needed to get rid of the hard drive fast and make it clear to all the different players that he didn’t have the thing in his possession any longer. It was a shame to give up the ten-million-dollar prize, but it wasn’t worth his life.
Unless maybe he found a way to use these killers to his advantage…
Before he could work out that angle, a car engine roared down the street toward him. He twisted around, his breath catching in his lungs to see a black Mercedes with darkly tinted windows speeding toward him. He wanted to believe that they weren’t after him, but it was obvious at this point that his luck was shit.
Jerking around, he started to run as the car roared past him and came to a screeching halt at the end of the block a few yards away. Rather than trying to turn back, Soren ran fast toward the car. Three men climbed out from the shiny vehicle in a variety of jeans and T-shirts. He didn’t see the guns yet, but they’d be there. They were always there.
Darting outside the reach of one man, Soren leaped and slid across the hot hood of the car, landing easily on his feet on the other side and kept running. He grinned to himself as he raced away, already eyeing a narrow alley that would likely hold trash bins or maybe a fire escape. Something to help launch him up toward the rooftops. He’d be happy with a low window. Once he got a leg up, most French buildings were easy to climb. Paris was a grown-up jungle gym waiting to be explored.
But he didn’t get to the narrow side street. Another car raced up the street from the opposite direction. It stopped a short distance away and two men jumped out.
Oh, this is fucking bad.
He slid to a stop on his sneakers and looked to find the other three men running toward him. One of them shouted instructions in French, but there was something about the accent. This guy was not French. Hell, he was willing to believe none of them were.
Pedestrians on the street shouted and screamed before running away. Traffic honked and then flowed around the stopped cars parked half on the curb. Where were the damn cops when you needed them?
Soren scrambled toward the nearest building, putting it to his back, while holding his hands out to his sides. He tried to keep all five men in view as they approached him.