He directed his gaze up and down the busy street. Most appeared to be locals rather than tourists. The sidewalks were dirty and crowded, the scent of cooked meat and spices filling the air. This wasn’t the team’s first trip to Egypt.
Over the years, they’d found a favorite spot that was away from the hotels and popular tourist traps. They settled in with the locals, which gave them access to restaurants that made great molokhiya, tarb, hamam mahshi, and macarona béchamel.
Tonight’s dinner was hamam mahshi, and he was eager to see Alexei’s and Isidore’s reactions to eating stuffed pigeon. But even that excitement dulled thanks to his worries over Max.
“What…what if we can’t find him before it’s too late?” Ed mumbled without looking over at West.
West took one last draw on the cigarette he was smoking and snuffed it out on the wall of the restaurant. He drew a tiny pouch from his pocket and stuffed the butt inside. That was another thing that was bugging him. West’s smoking habit had ticked up. The gang could call him a “momma bird” all they wanted, but he noticed these things and worried about them.
The silent sniper had been a casual smoker for years. When all was right with him—or as right as things could be with West—he would have one or two cigarettes when they went out for drinks.
But West was a battered soul with a fractured psyche. He needed breaks between their jobs. And as much as he loved the team, he needed time away from them. West hadn’t gotten that in a while. They’d gone straight from the Ehren job in Turkey to the Will job in Argentina to the Isidore chaos in Greece. Now they were in Egypt. On the case for job number four in roughly three months.
Ed wanted to tell West that they could handle this without him, that he could go take a break for a while, but he couldn’t say it. West would get pissed and hurt. He would never leave the team. Even if it was for his own good.
So as West’s nerves worsened, the smoking increased.
It was some help that he appeared to be growing close to Alexei. The young man was probably great at keeping West’s mind off things he didn’t need to think about. Plus, Ed suspected there was an added kinship between them, considering Alexei’s former occupation as an assassin who was raised by assassins. There were things they could talk about that the rest of them couldn’t understand.
West swept a hand through his lanky dishwater-blond hair and arched a skeptical brow at him. “When have we not found someone before it’s too late?”
Ed opened his mouth to remind him of that time…but stopped. There wasn’t an example. Luck had been on their side so far. They always reached a kidnapped target in time. Sure, there were roadblocks, but they always found their way around them.
“Deep breath, Ed. We’re going to find your leprechaun.”
“He’s not mine,” Ed mumbled. He stared at the ground and slid the toe of his shoe along a crack in the sidewalk.
“Uh-huh. Not yours.” West chuckled, low and dark. “He only chose you out of the millions of people in that crowded airport.” His friend snorted. “I saw the airport security footage. He didn’t even glance at Kairo or Izzie. He took one look at you and went right to you.”
Okay, maybe that made his heart all warm and melty on the inside, but he wasn’t about to admit it to West and turn himself into the sniper’s next teasing target. Right now, West had his eye trained on Kairo and Charlie. He gave up on Izzie because the man simply beamed at him and agreed with all the sappy things West accused him of.
“Pfft, it’s probably more like Dr. Jones said. He saw me and thought I’d be an easy target.”
A rare burst of laughter jumped from West, startling Ed. “Easy target? Only for a sniper. The rest of the world looks at you and sees an intimidating Black man.”
He might not like what West had said, but he couldn’t disagree with him. It was why he hung out with West so much—the man didn’t sell sugarcoated bullshit. He loved Kairo and Charlie, but both tried to protect his feelings too much. West laid it out and expected Ed to deal with it.
“So, why choose me? No one seems more trustworthy or safer than Izzie.”
“Because he was with Kairo, who always looks like a shady motherfucker.”
Ed coughed as he tried to hold in his laugh and gave West’s shoulder a shove. “He does not. You’re just always worried he’s going to hack your phone. You’re the shady motherfucker, and we all know it.”
“Not compared to Soren and Alexei,” West muttered under his breath.
Ed rolled his eyes heavenward. “I don’t need to hear this.” He wasn’t surprised, though. If the assassin and cat burglar weren’t shady, there was something wrong with the world.