Human nature was her friend. When barreling through a door, almost no one used his or her bodies to slam a door open. It was normal and natural for a hand to press through first, and she used it to her advantage. The minute she saw that hand start to slip through the door in an attempt to push it open, she slammed her body weight against it and caught the arm with a hard crunch. She was rewarded with a shout and a moan, but she doubted she’d done more than bruise him.
“Goddamn it, Phoebe!”
She took off again. That hadn’t been Taggart. She recognized Jake Dean’s low growl and knew he wouldn’t let a little pain stop him. She couldn’t stay in the stairwell. She needed cover and she wasn’t going to get it here.
She flew out the door that led to the fourth floor and immediately knew she’d gotten lucky. Phoebe had been in the business long enough to know skill wasn’t enough. She needed luck and the ability to see the possibility of that big cleaning cart in front of her. Most people would see an obstacle to be avoided, but Phoebe saw something more. She saw sweet, sweet chaos.
As Dean bounded out of the stairwell, she tipped over the cart, spraying the entire hall with toilet paper rolls, fresh towels, and mini toiletries.
But what was a little chaos when she could make big chaos?
“Help! Help! Please don’t let him kill me!” Phoebe screamed as she ran past the shocked maid. “He’s trying to kill me.”
“Well, I wasn’t before!” Dean yelled as he tried to maneuver through the ruin.
Phoebe ran even as doors opened and she could hear people calling for security and the police.
Yes, she might have to deal with them, but she suspected it would be far easier to get away from a couple of cops than it would be to slip past Taggart and his boys.
“We’re about to have guests,” she heard Dean say.
She could practically hear Taggart cursing her name.
An elevator opened in front of her.
“Hurry!” a masculine voice cried out.
Thank god for helpful bystanders. She took off and managed to make it into the elevator right before the doors closed.
She dragged air into her lungs, her body against the back of the elevator. She felt it start to move. “Thank you so much. My boyfriend went a little psychotic.” She realized something was wrong. Why were they going up instead of down?
“Oh, sweetie, that’s no way to talk about Jake. He’s not psychotic. He’s just grumpy most of the time,” Adam Miles said with a grin on his face. He also had a needle in his hand. “Now, do you want to go the hard way or the easy way? Seriously, you should try the easy way. This is some good shit and that way you don’t have to listen to Jake yelling about you breaking his arm or deal with Ian’s really poor driving. The man has road rage. Now come to Papa and we’ll have you out in no time at all.”
Shit. She hadn’t even thought about Adam.
She kicked out, trying to catch him in the gut, but he sidestepped her and before she could move, his arm wrapped around her and she felt the sting of the needle going in.
The world immediately started going hazy and soft. Adam was right. That was some good shit.
“Yeah, I got her. I know. You always underestimate me because I’m the pretty one. Meet me on six. I’ve got a way out.” He easily picked her up, and she could see him looking down at her. “I hope you survive this, Phoebe. Serena really likes you.”
She could feel tears slipping out of her eyes. So soft. She’d gotten so fucking soft. “Like her, too.” Something. She had to say something before the very nice fog took her. “Save Jesse. Try again. They will try again.”
And then everything was blissful darkness.
Jesse looked up and down the street, but no one seemed to notice the big van stopped in front of the hotel. Traffic moved around them. Everything out here seemed perfectly normal, but Jesse was focused on what was happening in that hotel. Nothing was normal in there. Normal had just been blown out of the water.
“You know you’re about to get the lecture of a lifetime,” Simon said, opening the doors on the van. It was custom made, with bench seating in the back on either side and plenty of room for equipment. It reminded Jesse of a military vehicle. Tag was as well prepared as any unit Jesse had ever served in, but he supposed one could take the Green Beret out of the Army but you couldn’t take the Army out of the Green Beret.
The side of the van was decorated with a magnetic sign that they could easily exchange before an op. For this particular mission, they’d chosen the sign that read Clean Freaks Laundry Services. Yep, they’d let Tag design the signs. There was also a Master Painting Crew sign, Dig It Deep Plumbers, Little Bro Catering, and Adam’s Dog Grooming Services. But it looked like they were in the laundry business today.
Where was Phoebe? There was a knot in his gut that wouldn’t go away. Simon had knocked his comm unit to the concrete when he’d tackled him and it wasn’t working now. He couldn’t hear anything. He could only watch Simon wince when someone screamed in his ear. It was the only indication he had that anything was happening at all.