Page 17 of Sweet Little Spies

She’d been under her father and Aidan, but she’d managed towatch Tristan stand beside Cooper and take down the helicopter in seconds.Cooper had ducked, but Tristan had stood there and watched, his eyes hard.

He hadn’t cared if he’d gotten hurt. He’d wanted the stormto sweep over him.

There had always been a darkness in Tris. Since they werekids, he was the one who could brood and lose himself in dark thoughts.

Like she could. She’d needed Aidan’s light and Tristan’sdarkness to balance her own needs.

Her dark side was so fucking hungry.

She took another sip of martini. If there was any vermouthin there, she couldn’t tell. Her cousin had a heavy hand. “He needs to be withhis kids. Diana was upset.”

“Well, Rand told me it was the best wedding he’d ever beento,” her mom said with a shake of her head. “MaeBe had to haul him away becausehe wanted to go out and see the wreck.”

They were huddled in the bridal suite while her uncles andTristan handled the situation.

Actually, she was now surprised her cousins were still here.“Shouldn’t you guys be meeting with… What did Uncle Ian call it? The cleaners?”

Kala’s nose wrinkled. “In this family men deal with thebodies. I know I seem like I would enjoy body disposal, but it’s kind of gross.I have no use for them once they’re dead. Also, I just had my nails done.Personally, I think we should have gone through with it. Diana was way moreupset Kyle yelled at her for climbing the trellis than she was about thechopper going boom. The kids are all right, if you know what I mean. I feellike we kind of quit.”

“Hey, we couldn’t go through with the ceremony. There’s awhole-ass helicopter burning right outside the ceremony,” Kenzie argued. “Youcan’t expect the wedding to keep going.”

“I don’t see why not,” Kala replied. “She wanted fireworksand they wouldn’t let her have them. So we got organic fireworks.”

Only Kala would call those blasts organic fireworks. Shechuckled. Maybe the vodka was already doing its work if she could see somehumor in the situation.

“Uhm, personally I think you did the right thing by decidingto reschedule.” Louisa Ward appeared to also be a member of themen-body-disposal movement. She worked with her cousins’ team, likely behindthe scenes since Lou was a certifiable genius when it came to computers andmath and engineering. She was also TJ’s girlfriend, though she was fairlycertain they would get engaged soon.

Everyone seemed to be starting their lives. Daisy wasengaged to Nate. Tasha and Dare’s wedding was coming up, though they might needto think about eloping after today.

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll try this again.” Carys shook herhead. “Nope. I am listening to the universe, which is telling me in nouncertain terms I should have a small wedding. Maybe at a courthouse. Or adrive-through chapel in Vegas.”

If they stayed in their car, they would have a good chanceof getting away if someone started shooting again. She’d never considered exitroutes from her wedding. It had been a definite mistake.

Or they could live happily in sin. Sin was fun.

Sin left doors open.

“Don’t say that.” Her mother somehow still looked perfect,like she was ready to greet guests and look elegant while she made everyonecomfortable. “You know we can try again once we get everything sorted out. Youruncle and aunt will make sure they take care of the situation.”

Carys was pretty sure she looked like she’d survived theapocalypse. “I don’t even understand what the situation is.”

She looked around, and Kenzie and Kala were perfectly blank.Tasha took a long drink.

Lou had gone a nice shade of pink.

Lou was the weak link among the Agency set. Oh, she wouldn’tgive out classified intel, and Carys was sure if a bad guy was in the room, Louwould also be perfectly blank. But Lou had never truly learned how to shut itdown when she was with her friends and family. Lucky for her, most of herfriends and family had high levels of security clearance. “So this has to dowith you? Or TJ?”

“Why would it have anything to do with TJ?” Her mother tooka drink from Tasha, who was working through her anxiety via bartending.

Her mom was right to ask the question since TJ was an overlylarge golden retriever. Not that he wasn’t deadly. He was a Taggart and was inthe military, but he was sweet and helpful, and she couldn’t imagine himpissing off someone so much they decided to ruin a perfectly innocent wedding.

She was pretty sure the photographer was going to needtherapy. At least all the catering staff had come from her dad’s restaurant andwere therefore mostly ex-military who knew there was one freezer you did notwalk into.

“I mean it was probably about TJ.” Kala shrugged and lookedat her sisters. “Don’t judge me. She just had her wedding raided by assholes.She deserves some explanations.”

Kala was the one she could see attracting vengeful killers.But right now she was also the most reasonable. “Yeah, what Kala said.”

Kenzie sighed. “Okay. In broad terms TJ might have a fakeconnection with a worldwide arms dealer, and said arms dealer is apparently theonly one who supposedly has the number to this person who makes bombs betterthan anyone else, and so the bad guys might be putting together one and one tomake an unknown two.”

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