13
KAIRO JONES
“Tellme again why you’re here instead of West?” Ed demanded while he searched for a good place to stash the rental car.
Kairo narrowed his gaze on his friend. He got it, though. When the teams were made, Ed was usually paired with their sniper. “West would shoot him in the head and call it quits. He doesn’t specialize in getting answers.”
Parked cars crowded the old narrow streets in Delphi, as tourists wandered the city and grabbed food following their visit to the Delphi ruins. This was already going to be complicated as hell. The shit parking situation wasn’t helping.
“And here I thought you wanted Vanko dead,” Ed teased.
His friend wasn’t wrong. He wanted to see Vanko die after laying his hands on Isidore. More so now that he’d gotten the chance to know him better.
No more. No one was allowed to harm his Isidore again.
“We need to at least try to get information out of Vanko before we kill him,” Kairo said.
“Fine. Then Alexei. Why wasn’t I given Alexei? He’s admitted to squeezing more than a few people for information. He’s had the practice.” Ed released a little shout of joy as he spotted an opening at last.
With frightening ease, he parallel parked the sedan, placing it the perfect distance from the curb. The man could seriously drive and park anything with wheels. Or even wings. He was the guy you wanted to drive when there was a car chase. No one escaped him and no one could keep up with him.
“You’re stuck with me because I know what Vanko looks like,” Kairo claimed. While Alexei’s contact had come through with some information on the low-life criminal, they failed to get a clear picture of the guy. Everything was grainy and low res, making his features indistinct. “What’s your deal? Why don’t you want me on this job with you? We work together often enough.”
“His problem is that you’re too emotionally invested in this job, and your head isn’t screwed on straight,” Charlie grumbled through the earpiece he had in place. Kairo rolled his eyes. He’d completely forgotten they were both wearing earpieces and that Charlie was listening in on their conversation.
“I’m not letting my emotions get in the way. This was not my first kidnapping,” Kairo shot back. “I was barely kidnapped. How can you call it a kidnapping without a little torture? It was more of an inconvenience.”
Ed turned off the engine and stared at Kairo, not saying a word.
But West was soooo fucking happy to chime in.
“Your brain is stuffed full of that cinnamon roll you call a boyfriend.”
“You can’t deny that you’re ready to get even with the man who bruised your roll,” Alexei chimed in.
“Fuck! Can we not call Isidore a cinnamon roll, please?” Kairo shouted. The woman who had been walking past the car at the time jerked her head around to gaze at him with wide eyes. With any luck, she didn’t speak English.
“So, this is a bad time to ask if you licked his icing off yet?” Soren drawled.
Screw shooting Vanko. He was ready to shoot his friends.
“Gang, lay off him,” Ed said with gentle force. Kairo breathed a sigh of relief that they were finally moving on and returning to the mission at hand. Then Ed continued, “We all know Kairo is the kind of guy to eat the center out of the roll first and then lick up every bit of icing.”
“Fuck all of you!” Kairo balled up his fist to punch Edison in the shoulder but stopped himself at the last second. He couldn’t remember which shoulder Ed had injured, and his friend was still healing. He wasn’t going to hurt him even if Ed was being an annoying shit. “Assholes. All of you. Assholes.”
“All right. All right,” Charlie interjected, though it sounded like he was trying hard not to laugh. “Everyone check in.”
Kairo shot a grinning Edison an evil look as they listened to Soren, West, and Alexei check in from their position between Itea and Delphi. If things went wrong today and Vanko escaped him and Ed, their job was to make sure Vanko didn’t get one step closer to Isidore and Athena.
“We’re parked. We’re about to wander in the direction of the bar,” Ed said.
“Fuck you,” Kairo grumbled and then added in a mumble, “Ready.”
“And I have eyes on our precious assets,” Charlie confirmed. “Will is talking with them while they play with Joey. Izzie can’t hear anything that’s happening on our end.”
Kairo released a breath, tension rolling out of his shoulders he hadn’t even realized was there. “Thank you.”
Three days had passed since Isidore had handed over the list of names of possible culprits behind the attack on him and his sister. For three days, Kairo had shifted through endless piles of information from bank statements to investment portfolios to social media posts and comments. Because there was so much data, he’d been forced to outsource some of the hacks to some trustworthy friends to speed things along.