Black Ops Chronicles: Dead Run Read Online Free PDF

can’t. She’s vanished. And she didn’t leave a forwarding address, so no one knows where she is.”
    “Nonsense. Why would she do that?”
    “I don’t know, but I’ve been trying to find her for months. Her attorney sold her business for her a while back, but he claims he doesn’t know where she is. Says he’s just holding the money till she comes for it.”
    “I see.”
    A log popped and crackled in the fireplace. Flames rose, making shadows dance across the polished hardwood floor. Jonas stared at the fire a moment. When he looked up, his expression was grim. “Would you like me to look for her?”
    Nick’s mind filled with horror. “No!”
    As soon as the word left his lips, he realized he’d said it too quickly and with too much feeling. He hurried to cover it. “If you find her, she’ll think I’m only apologizing because you made me. It’s better if I find her myself. She has to see that I love her enough to search for her, so she’ll understand that I’m really sorry, and it won’t ever happen again.”
    “Then get on with it. Find her before she marries someone else. In the meantime, I think I’ll make a few discreet inquiries myself, in case—” Breaking off, Jonas pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Just in case.” He waved a hand. “You may go.”
    “Yes, sir.” Nick hurried out, fighting to hide his panic.
    Lately, his life had turned into a series of disasters. It’d been a mistake to take Tess along when he shot that snitch. He’d only done it to bind her closer to him because he sensed her slipping away. But his plan had backfired. He told himself he wasn’t to blame. For any of it. Of course not. It was the stoolie’s fault. And Tess’s.
    But who would’ve thought she’d betray him like that? A man should be able to trust his fiancée not to go to the FBI over something as trivial as killing a canary—and his family, of course. It was just good business to remove all witnesses. What was wrong with her that she couldn’t seem to understand that?
    Outside, snowflakes swirled in the air like feathers from a pillow used as a silencer. Nick pulled his overcoat tighter around his body and ran to his red Porsche 911—where Tony sat waiting for him, shivering and impatient. “I didn’t think you were ever coming out. What happened?”
    Drained and shaky, Nick slid behind the wheel and collapsed onto the plush leather seat. “He wanted to know about Tess.”
    “What’d you tell him?”
    “I told him I was unfaithful and she left me.” Nick started the car and turned the heater on high. “He bought it. For now. But I think he knows something’s not right. He asked me if I’d lost my temper and beat her up.”
    Tony laughed. “And what did you say, ‘No, but only because she ran before I got the chance’?”
    “Very funny.”
    Nick hated Tony’s blatant lack of respect for him but could do little about it. When Jonas had given him control over a small sector of the family’s operations, Tony was a condition of the promotion—a sort of combination mentor and bodyguard. Though Tony was supposed to be working for him, he always made Nick feel more like a dimwitted employee than the boss. “While you’re busy yukking it up, Grandfather is going to make ‘a few discreet inquiries, just in case.’”
    “Oops.”
    “This isn’t a joke, Tony.” Nick loosened his tie, hoping to ease the lump in his throat. “Grandfather told me he considers Tess part of the family. You know what that means.”
    Tony snorted. “So she’s entitled to the family’s protection. So what? Doesn’t change the fact that we have to rub her out.”
    “It may, if Grandfather sends Levi to find her.”
    Nick feared Levi Komakov, Jonas’s troubleshooter, almost as much as he did his grandfather. If Levi’s reputation could be believed, though only thirty-one years old, the guy could out-stalk a leopard, hit anything and everything he shot at, find whatever or