“I made sure,” he says quietly. “I was careful.”
“Not careful enough.” She releases another quick stream of curses in French. Then says, “Okay, this is happening. You are compromised. Filo, your father, someone’s watching. Which means you cannot go back to your place, and if we aren’t good, we can’t go back to mine.”
“We can ditch the tail, but—”
“You will come with me. Adrienne, stand up, please. We will ditch your tails together, okay?”
Peter stares at her for a moment. “That’s a risk for you. Are you sure?”
“I don’t trust you to do it yourself and I still need your help. Besides, my apartment is clean and nobody knows about it. We ditch these men and you two can stay with me for a night. But one night, no more. Now, come on, let’s go before I realize how stupid this is.”
She marches off, around the bench, and down along the canal.
Peter gives me a completely bemused look. I get up and hurry after her with Peter on my heels. “Did you know she was so bossy?” he asks quietly.
“I can’t say I’m surprised. We’re sisters, remember?”
He snorts once and stops talking when Reina gives him a look.
An enormous white window-studded building with a large flat roof like a piece of paper and a jutting wing of offices and rooms looms over the park. It’s some kind of community center—I can’t tell exactly because all the signs are in Greek. Reina walks toward it at steady clip. We pass people out jogging, riding bikes, walking along together, couples laughing and smiling. Reina angles toward the big building and I realize it’s a library as we hurry inside.
The interior is cavernous. She practically runs down a side hall. Our footsteps echo off the marble floors. We have to sprint to keep up until she turns, takes a stairway, and moves down a series of corridors seemingly at random. “I had a contingency plan in place,” she says as we take another stairwell up. “In case something like this happened.”
“I have to admit, I’m impressed,” Peter says. “Now I see why Le Milieu values you.”
“They value results. That is all they value.” Reina glances at me with an unreadable expression. “Our mother got results.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
We keep going, down well-lit halls, and encounter only a few people. Nobody stops us. Nobody seems particularly surprised to see three ragged folks walking fast through the halls. Reina exudes a calm, confident competence that turns people away like a barrier. We take another stairwell, this time down, and end up in a ground floor atrium. She cuts across, down a side hall, and pauses beside an emergency exit.
She pushes the door open and we step outside.
We’re at the far side of the structure. There’s a crossing up ahead, and beyond that is a tangled warren of neighborhoods. Reina walks toward it quickly, keeping her head down. We follow at a slight distance. Peter’s hand slips into mine and when I look up at him, he winks.
“Camouflage. Now we’re just a nice young couple out for a walk.”
I grin at him and tighten my grip in his hand.
We reach the buildings. Reina takes us deeper and deeper into the city until finally, once we’re in a dense and crumbling section that looks like it hasn’t been rebuilt in at least fifty years, she leads us into a residential building and to a second-floor apartment.
It’s cluttered with books and ashtrays and smells like smoke, but there’s an extra bed, a big couch, and food in the kitchen.
“Welcome home,” Reina says as she kicks off her shoes and sits at the kitchen table to smoke. “You can stay a night and no more. I’ll have to burn this place when you go.” She sighs and looks out the window. “What a shame. I liked it here.”
In the extra bedroom, I give Peter the pilot’s business card. He slips it into his pocket and kisses my cheek. “I think your sister is starting to like you.”
“It’s hard not to.”
“Let’s get in touch with that pilot and figure out where we’re going next before she kicks us out.”
Chapter17
Peter
Adrienne throws my training gloves in my face and stands with her hands on her hips, fists already wrapped, wearing tight shorts and a sports bra. “Come on. I want to beat the crap out of someone and you’re all I’ve got.”
I try not to smile as I pick the gloves up off the ground. “We almost got killed yesterday and now you want to train? Maybe you should take it easy.”