He looked them over with poorly masked annoyance and huffed. “Here they are,” he said with a slight southern drawl. “The minions of He Who Never Visits.” His probing gaze swept over them one more time. “Which one of you is David? No, lemme guess. It’s this miserable boy,” he said, pointing his finger at Dave. “I’ll take a proper look at you later.”
He descended the three steps that separated them and stopped in front of the girls. His gaze snagged on Pain’s katana. “No need to hide that thing behind your back. I know who you are.”
His eyes were a striking blue, and she held his stare, shaking his hand with a straight face.
“You must be Jane,” he said, turning to her sister.
“Pleasure to meet you.” Jane shook his hand with an easy smile.
Albert turned to Chad next and studied him for a long, uncomfortable minute. “I am having the hardest time placing you, son.”
“Chad, nice to meet you,” he said with a smile, but the old man was already turning to Ryan.
“The tall one’s Ryan…” he mumbled to himself, and then there was Marco, with his mohawk, beard, Ray-Bans, and jean vest showing tattooed arms. “Oh, good Lord.”
Marco took off his glasses. “I’m Marco, sir.”
Albert shook his hand without a word and took a couple of steps back.
The doors creaked, and another man came out. From the way he moved silently to Albert’s side, Pain figured it was the old man’s assistant. He was wearing a black shirt and pants, and an expression of displeasure that Pain thought perfectly matched Albert’s.
“Well, no point in standing here like morons,” Albert said by way of invitation. “I’ll show y’all to your rooms. Not these two.” He pointed at Marco and Ryan, looking at his man. “They’ll stay in the pool house. Don’t want that big bag o’ booze stinking up the whole damn house,” he grumbled as he shuffled to the doors.
Marco stared at Pain. She smirked and shook her head as Albert’s assistant ushered him and Ryan down a path around the house, then followed her sister through the doors.
They hurried after their host, past hallways and nooks where dark wood and leather dominated all surfaces. If anything, it looked like a bachelor’s pad, not a seaside villa, and smelled of old tobacco and burnt logs.
Up a sturdy wood staircase, they got to the second floor, where the old man stopped. “Here are the guest rooms,” he said, pointing at the three doors to their left. “You can take whichever you like, and I don’t care who stays with whom, as long as you’re quiet.”
Pain turned to look at Chad, a question in her eyes, but caught Jane’s sullen glance.
“We’re taking that one,” she pointed at the last door without taking a look inside and grabbed Jane’s arm, pulling her down the hallway before Chad could say anything. Forcing her sister to stay with Dave was the last thing she wanted to do.
“Dinner’s in thirty minutes. Martha will take care of it. I’ve already eaten.” Albert grunted, and before any of them could say anything, shuffled back downstairs.
Pain shut the door behind her and looked around. Like the rest of the house, the guest room looked cozy with its thick carpet, sturdy furniture, and heavy curtains. She let out an approving sigh at the sight of two beds.
“Boy, do I look forward to meeting Martha,” Jane said, her words weighted with sarcasm. She walked to one of the beds and dropped her bag on the floor before sitting down.
Pain smirked, tossing the katana onto the other bed. She unzipped her jacket and peered out the window. It was quickly growing dark outside, and the backyard was already covered in shadows.
“You think Peter wanted us out of town because he’s going after the Commandos?” Jane’s sudden change of topic froze Pain to the floor.
“What? Nooo…” Pain drawled, even as a part of her went still at the idea. While Peter wouldn’t go through all this trouble just to get them out of the way, it did seem like a chance to kill two birds with one stone. “I don’t think they have enough intel yet. Peter wouldn’t send men there knowing the Commandos have AKs, not until he knows the layout.”
Jane looked at her for a long minute, her eyes troubled. “You’re right.” She went on to unpack her bag, opening wardrobe doors and drawers, but Pain stayed where she was.
She watched the sky turn dark outside, thinking about Dave and Elena and all the things that had gone wrong in the past week. Thinking that the Peter she had known her whole life wouldn’t send men to possible slaughter just to speed things up. But the Peter who had stormed out of the infirmary to hunt the Commandos on his own…
She took a deep breath and forced the thought from her head. He would come up with a better plan, no matter what. Because if he couldn’t do that, then they really were screwed.
* * *
“This is all we got?” Peter took the thin stack of papers from Skull, peering at the top one.
“Yes. This is the map we’ve compiled based on the data from the allies and the cameras we’ve installed in Greenpoint. We used the dog cam stats to pick the best spots for the ten cameras, plus two at the Commandos’ base entrance. Rooney has gone over what Chad found at the base and figured out some of the Commandos’ routes, so we put four more cameras there.”
Peter nodded in approval as he sorted through the papers. “This is the base?” he asked, pointing at the red dot on the map.
Skull came up closer. “Yes.”
“Have someone posted there to keep an eye on it, camera or no camera. Day
