Free Found by Tara Crescent Page A

visit,” he told me. “I need assistance with my finances.”
    Damn right he did. My lips curved into a satisfied smile. Dylan would be feeling the pinch. The amount of cash readily available to him had been shrinking rapidly, but he’d been too busy training his latest slave girl to notice.
    “Do you?” I said coolly. “I’ll check my schedule. Hanoi is a bit too far to fly to on short notice.”
    He cleared his throat. I knew Dylan well. He was getting ready to ask for a favour and Dylan hated asking for help. Triumph flashed through me. Finally. I had him where I needed him.
    “Can you do something remotely?” he asked. “I appear to have something of a liquidity problem.”
    “Of course,” I said smoothly. I didn’t gloat – I didn’t need to. “I will transfer some money into your account in the morning. Now, you will excuse me, Dylan. I have matters to tend to here. And no doubt, so do you.”
    He’d made a miscalculation with his latest kidnapping. This girl had family. Dylan was hemorrhaging money to keep them off his trail. To add further complications to an already tangled situation, Sylvia Anliker was in the process of shifting her allegiance away from Dylan as well and moving over to my camp. Dylan McAllister didn’t know it yet, but he was in trouble.
    “Goodbye,” I said, ending the call.
    As I walked back to the bar, I tried to relax. Every time I talked to Dylan, I walked away with a pounding headache. I didn’t need this today.
    But when I saw Jean-Luc’s face, I knew my problems were just starting.
    “What?”
    “A wrinkle. Maybe more.” His face was etched with concern. He was already pushing himself onto his feet. His beer remained on the stained wooden counter, half-drunk and abandoned.
    My palms were sweaty with nerves. Durov was scum. We couldn’t fail again. “What happened?”
    “One of Durov’s guards was just discovered, his throat slit. He was off-duty, spending some time in a whorehouse. But now Durov’s crew is on high alert.”
    “Fuck,” I swore, glancing around instinctively to check if anyone was listening to our conversation. Hassan, the wiry Moroccan bartender, was on the far side of the counter, chatting amiably to an old man, both of them denouncing the tyrants at the European Union and the spinelessness of Francois Hollande in equal measure. They were paying absolutely no attention to us. “What do we do?”
    “You do nothing. You stay here.” Jean-Luc’s voice was firm. Though I was his employer, when we were under attack, Jean-Luc was in charge. During war there was room for only one general and Jean-Luc was a soldier who had forgotten more about battle than I’d ever learned. Besides, as aggravating as it was to admit, Jean-Luc was right. Durov could never find out that I was trying to kill him.
    “Should we abort?”
    “I don’t know, Marc.” Even during a period of high stress, Jean-Luc remembered the cover story. “I’m going to go find out. You stay here. Drink. If a pretty girl walks in, flirt a little.”
    I rolled my eyes as he left. The chances of a woman walking into a bar in this desolate corner of the Parisian suburbs were slim. In any case, I didn’t flirt with women. My life was too complicated. The relationships I had with women were carefully controlled interactions. There was no room for spontaneity.

Chapter 2
    Ellie / Rachel:
    I looked down on the body of the man I’d just killed in a Parisian whorehouse and all I could think was – there was so much blood .
    Ivan Klimov hadn’t died easily. When recognition had flashed in his eyes, he had fought tooth and nail for his life. Had it not been for the Bowie knife in my hand, I would have been overcome. After all, as my mentor Lucien pointed out to me with depressing frequency, I could not become a master assassin in four years.
    But the combination of four years of hard training and the sharp blade had been enough.
    I glanced at the body for a few seconds, imprinting the