Game of Dust and Ashes (Book Two in the Covert Operations series)

Eight

Park Central Hotel, Manhattan, New York. January 27, 2021. 7:37 p.m.

"You're sure you didn't see anything?"

I glared at Max. He was pacing through my disheveled hotel room, pausing every few steps to ask me questions I'd already provided answers to several times. Now, with a pounding headache and just general irritability at the situation, I was getting rather annoyed.

"Yes. I'm sure. It's like I said. He came out of nowhere and was wearing a ski-mask and gloves. We fought and destroyed this place. I managed to get to my gun and then he ran when he realized that he was at a disadvantage. I couldn't get anything from him except height and build and I already told you those."

He opened his mouth, preparing to ask me something else. I was just about to throw the bag of ice I had pressed against my temple at him but Lia entered the room instead and my attention flitted to her.

"Security cameras inside the building were down," she said gravely. "This was a thought-out, deliberate attack on you. We managed to get some footage from outside of the building but its nondescript. We can't make out a face or anything really to help us figure out who he is."

Anger. That was what passed through me. White-hot rage. Not just at the situation but at the fact that I'd allowed myself to get beaten so badly. It truly felt as if I'd gone a round with an MMA fighter and lost badly. My arms and legs were covered with small bruises and lacerations and there was a sizeable lump forming on my head. My left side was already purple and bruised from where I'd been shoved into the corner of the coffee table. It had broken a few moments later when I'd somehow managed to deliver a solid blow that caused him to fall back and break it. It had been one of my only hits on him.

I was used to sparing and fighting and getting hurt but whoever had attacked me as in a league of their own. A superb fighter, one of the best I'd ever seen. Not only driven by instinct but also evidently well-trained. I'd only ever seen one person with the same unmatched skill I'd just been presented with but I knew for a fact that person was not the one who'd just attacked me. His name was Scott Holcomb. He was an old professor of mine, ex-CIA, and long dead.

And the room was trashed. Coffee table smashed, lamps broken, chairs upturned. The bed had gotten unmade as I'd tried to reach my gun on the bedside table. The screen on my laptop had a small crack on it—nothing that would hinder its ability to function but just enough to annoy me even more when I looked at it.

Max sighed. "We should move hotels. Someone knows we're here and I don't think we need three guesses to figure out who."

"Scorpion," Lia murmured. "Probably one of the other three from the bank heists. I don't think they'd risk sending Daniel. Not when he's the only asset they've got to draw you out."

There was a grimness to Max's face. "I'm going to go make the arrangements to move. I'm going to use new IDs and bank information. Hopefully they won't be able to track us."

He strode out of the room before we had the chance to argue. Once he was gone, Lia placed a hand on my arm and regarded me solemnly. "Are you sure you're okay?"

I nodded and winced as the action made my neck ache. In the scuffle, I'd been thrown against a wall. "Fine. Just mad that I couldn't take him down."

"We'll get him," she promised.

"Yeah."

Her cell phone rang. She pulled it out and checked the ID. "I should take this. It's Chief Graves. You okay if I step outside for a minute?"