Page 83 of Out of Control

Drago’s eyebrow arched. “And you don’t?”

The guy had him there. “The way I figure, it’s my turn next.”

Drago grinned. “Bring it.”

Spencer fell silent as they walked out of the restaurant without looking at the two men seated just inside the door. He noted that Dray turned away from the restaurant such that their backs were to the pair, who were seated to look out onto the street.

“Suspicious of those two?” Spencer asked under his breath.

“Oh yeah,” Dray breathed.

They walked quickly, without talking, for several blocks. Spencer stuck with Drago as he took abrupt turns, ducked into storefronts, and sprinted down alleys. He recognized all the tactics as checks for tails and maneuvers to lose a surveillance team—or at least to make one reveal itself.

“We’re clean,” Drago eventually murmured.

“Now what?”

“Now we call the first name on that list and set up a meeting.”

“Why the first name?” Spencer asked curiously.

“Because people write down the things and people most familiar to them first when they make a list. Whoever Samara thought of first for her list was probably the person she saw Khoury with the most often.”

“Do they teach you all this cool human psychology in spy school?”

Drago snorted. “No. You learn it on the job or you die.” He crossed a street and jogged down a set of concrete steps into a Metro station. “Good thing it’s a Friday. The Metro runs late. We’ll have to take a cab back to our hidey-hole, though.”

“Where to now?” Spencer asked as they dropped into seats in a mostly deserted subway car.

“René’s house. You did want a firearm, didn’t you?”

“Thank God.”

Drago grinned and just shook his head.

“Hey. When it comes to a shootout, I’m the guy you want around. I fire three thousand rounds a week, and that’s in a slow week of training.”

Drago reached across him and turned over Spencer’s right hand, caressing the hard shooter’s callus at the base of his thumb. “I already knew that. I felt this on my skin.” He threw a sly sidelong look at Spencer. “It was hot.”

Drago’s knuckles brushed against his crotch, and on cue, his maypole came to life. “Zero to sixty, man,” Dray muttered.

“Behave.”

“Me? Never.”

Spencer sighed. Drago would never be a color-inside-the-lines guy. But Spencer wouldn’t have him any other way.

They emerged at the end of the Metro line in a quiet suburban neighborhood.

“Bougie,” Spencer murmured, taking in the tree-lined streets and neat townhouses.

“You have no idea. C’mon.”

“Who’s René?” Spencer asked cautiously.

“Jealous?”

“No!” he blurted, startled. “You’re not the cheating kind.”

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