Page 171 of Taming Seraphine
“No, thanks.” I point at the balcony door. “Is there any way I can climb into his apartment from there?”
Miko swings his chair in the direction I’m looking and frowns. “You’d have to smash through the glass partition. What’s wrong? I thought you two were joined at the hip?”
“He had a visitor,” I say. “The man downstairs said it was his father.”
Miko snorts. “You might as well sit down and get comfortable. Anton is a bit of a windbag. They’re going to take a while.”
My heart skips several beats.
“Anton?”
“Leroi didn’t tell you how he became an assassin?”
“He did but...”
Anton is a common enough name, isn’t it? I don’t know how many older hitmen work in New Alderney, but it’s too much of a coincidence. Leroi would have said something if my handler and his mentor were the same man. Wouldn’t he?
“Oh!” Miko says, his excitement cutting through my confusion. “I think I found Gabriel.”
“Where?” I rush to his side.
He launches into a long, garbled explanation about finding an alias for a live donor who matched Gabriel’s credentials in a Mexican hospital and then cross referencing these details, giving Miko an address.
I grab his shoulder. “We should go.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for Leroi?”
I glance at the door. This mission likely requires a professional. Even if Dad didn’t hire guards to keep Gabriel from escaping, he’d use high-end technology to keep him locked up.
But Miko is Leroi’s tech guy, and I’ve seen him handle a gun.
“Call Leroi,” I say. “If he doesn’t reply, then we’ll go without him.”
With a nod, Miko taps his phone and puts the call on speaker. It rings twice before Leroi answers.
“I’m busy,” he snaps. “Is this urgent?”
“I’m with Seraphine?—”
“Stay where you are and keep her busy.”
I flinch at the harshness of his words. Fifteen minutes ago, I was the center of his attention. Now, he makes me sound like a nuisance.
Miko frowns at his screen. “He hung up.”
“Let’s go.”
“Don’t you want to get dressed first?” He gestures at my nightshirt.
Any other time, I would shrink away. Miko isn’t a threat, but I can’t stand the thought of a man who isn’t Leroi looking at me when I’m barely dressed.
“Do you have anything I can borrow?” I ask.
* * *
Less than ten minutes later, we’re driving down the highway toward an apartment building owned by Dad’s lawyer, Joseph Di Marco. The afternoon sun shines through the windshield, making me pull down the brim of my borrowed baseball cap.
On the way, Miko shares his backstory with me. It’s similar to Leroi’s, except he was an only child that took the brunt of his stepfather’s abuse. I nod at the right places to show him I’m listening, while trying to find an opportunity to bring up Anton. I need to know if he and Leroi are connected to the Anton I want to kill.