“It’s time to talk negotiations, eh?” she asked, her gaze stopping on the prime minister.
The man smiled at her and nodded. Greed echoed in the curving of his lips. Greed and death. He thought to eliminate Dresden, but Dresden had one up on the leader of Russia. He had Ella.
“Prime Minister, what would you have of Dresden?” She opened the foray.
“I want Ukraine,” he returned simply.
Ella nodded and contemplated the napkin folded in front of her before once again meeting his gaze. “My employer is aware of what you want. So the question begs, Prime Minister, what are you willing to pay to have what you want?”
The prime minister snapped his fingers, and a very large, very heavily armed security officer stepped forward with an envelope. The prime minister motioned for the man to take the envelope to Ella.
Ella’s hand fell to the folds of her skirt, finding the slitted opening in the fabric that allowed her hand to wrap around the butt of her weapon. The officer brought the envelope to her and placed it on her plate before stepping away. Ella relaxed and inclined her head.
Markov sat back in his chair, also relaxed and waiting—for what, Ella didn’t know. A secret smile played about his lips. She wondered about that smile, knew it meant bad things.
“Open it, Ms. Banning,” Segorski encouraged, dollar signs making his eyes bright. Or maybe that was fear.
Ella glanced at Loretta. The woman’s eyes were glued to the envelope, but stress masked her face, lines making her look older than Ella had ever known her to look. Baron Meadows looked infinitely bored.
But they all had a part to play here, didn’t they? Ella really hoped Endgame was close. She was a lamb among lions here, and it was about to go down.
She carefully peeled back the flap on the envelope and pulled out a gold-engraved card. There was a phrase in Russian on the card, simple and succinct.
Kak poseyesh’, tak pozhnesh’.
Ella smiled as everything inside her tightened, then expanded. As a man sows, so shall he reap. She’d known once Svetlana Markov had gone down under a sniper’s bullet that the trip to Russia was leading to this. Dresden wanted Markov dead because the bastard was betraying him. Ella would be forced to put a bullet in the head of a man she found herself ironically wanting to high-five.
Because she hated Dresden as much as Markov apparently did. Or at least as much as he wanted to betray the man.
“Perhaps you’ve given me the wrong card, Prime Minister?” She infused steel into her voice because this was about to get very, very ugly.
The three security officers in the room all stiffened and palmed their handguns. Loretta and Baron both reached under the table, clearly palming their own weapons. Segorski wiped a bead of sweat falling down his temple.
Markov grinned outright.
The prime minister laughed. “I would have preferred to eat first, but that was never really an option, was it, Ms. Banning?”
Ella cocked her head and ran a finger over her lips, seemingly contemplating the prime minister. What she was really doing was praying her shot was straight and true. “I can’t help but feel a certain affront. I came here in representation of my boss, and you gift me with this vague threat as a way of answering my query. Mr. Dresden will be disappointed.”
She allowed a sigh to color the air. Infinitesimal movement behind Markov, air moving a heavy curtain, as the red dot of a scope appeared on the green silk above the Russian’s head. Endgame was there.
Markov picked that moment to lean forward. “You’re a killer, no?” he asked Ella.
“I am whatever I need to be whenever I need to be that particular thing,” she answered, pulling her gun out and placing it on the table. No need to hide anything anymore.
“Dresden is a nuisance. There are riches beyond measure if you accept our proposal,” he said into the tension.
“You can’t ask that of her, Markov,” Loretta said in a furious whisper.
Markov glanced at Loretta dismissively and to Baron he said, “Keep your bitch quiet.”
Segorski stood then, outrage pouring off him. “You promised I’d have her, Markov!”
Ella got it then, and it was so much worse than Dresden had thought. Both Segorski and Markov were betraying him, the prime minister simply a means to an end, a moneyman. Segorski had aligned himself with his countrymen, and Ella wondered why Dresden hadn’t seen that coming.
“Oh, Segorski, I am no one’s but my own,” Ella said with a laugh.
“So you are not even Dresden’s?” the prime minister interjected.
Ella sat back in her seat, hoping to portray calmness she in no way felt. “Your card, Prime Minister, while so very short and eloquent, is probably not the response to Dresden you want to give. I’ll allow you a single minute, that’s sixty seconds, to contemplate changing who you’ve allied yourself with. Otherwise, you’ll leave here very much an enemy of the one man you never wanted to be an enemy to, if you leave here at all.”
The prime minister went red in the face. “You dare!”
Loretta gave her a quick nod. Ella knew what that meant. She moved fast, as she’d trained to move, raising her gun, but before she could fire a shot, another one rang out. A single shot right into the forehead of Yevgeny Markov. The man fell back into his chair with a smile on his face.
Segorski sat down quickly, placing his smoking gun on the table before he wiped his forehead with his napkin. “He promised me” was all Segorski said by way of explanation for the assassination of Markov.
Ella trained her gun on the space between Segorski and the prime minister, prepared for anything.
The prime minister’s security team moved to flank his chair. Shit was about to hit the fan.
“You
