Page 15 of Never Enough

Not fucking likely.

Dark-blond hair perfectly glued,and clothed in his typical T-shirt, jeans, and running shoes, Nemo blew out any remaining melancholy with an exaggerated breath. Inserting his double-flared ear gauges, he whistled for Scheherazade, and together, they took the fire stairs down to the second floor where the conference room and offices were.

“Well, look what the St. Bernard dragged in,” drawled TB, a six-foot-seven, two-hundred-forty-pound giant sitting in his regular seat to the left of the head at the conference table.

Midas, the big gossip, already filled in the details of his dog park adventure for them.

“Technically, it was a Belgian Malinois,” Nemo corrected in imitation of a snobby dog breeder.

“Either way,” Demon grumbled, “I probably need to start you on a rabies shot series after the meeting.”

“Scheherazade, kill,” Nemo commanded, pointing to Demon, silently imagining the dog grabbing the surfer dude by the dark-haired man bun and dragging him under the table to maul him to death.

The men in the room laughed at Nemo’s fake command. Since it wasn’t in Afrikaans or one of their silent signals, Scheherazade leapt into Demon’s arms at the opposite side and end of the table, attempting in every way to lick him to death. “Thatta girl, Zade. Show your daddy who you love more.” Demon baby-talked the dog trying to roll around on his lap.

Nemo shook his head in fake disgust. She was not a small dog, probably about the size of a pointer in terms of height and length, but there the shameless hussy was—on her back in Demon’s lap, gazing at him adoringly as the grouchy medic scratched her belly in apparently all the right places. Didn’t matter which of the guys was paying attention to her, she would fall apart like a cheap suit, ignoring everyone else. Heaven forbid she latched onto any of the women. They were worse than the guys when it came to spoiling her.

Although he feigned hurt whenever she paid attention to anyone else, Nemo knew that he alone was her best friend. Her devotion to him was absolute. Not a moment went by when he wasn’t thankful he had rescued her and her puppies before fleeing Sallum. Hadn’t been easy sneaking them out of Egypt, and Steel had been pissed at the inconvenience of having to burn three markers to get safe passage across northern Africa by land to make it happen, but it was so worth it. Those puppies were happily homed with Kubrick and Flame and were already often reunited with their sibling and mother for playdates. Waters and TB might grouse about having dogs, but he knew they were secretly happy that the women would have someone at home with them when the men were gone.

Totally whipped. Ka-cha!

“You’ve got to work on your training regimen, bro. If that’s what she does when you say ‘kill,’ I hate to see what she does when you say ‘search,’” Midas teased from the head of the table behindhis laptop.

“You know she only follows verbal commands in Afrikaans.”

“Shouldn’t they be in German?” Demon asked.

“Most are, I’ve heard. I don’t speak German. I speak Afrikaans. My dog, my choice of language. Besides, how many terrorists do you know speak that language?”

A notification bell binged from Midas’ computer, and a moment later, the telescreen at the other end of the room powered up to reveal a trio the team knew well. Loki, the face of the triad, looking for all the world like a blond billionaire CEO. Gilgamesh, the dark-haired, walking, talking poster child for a metrosexual male, looking like he stepped out of a photo shoot for sports cars. And Medusa… He had no idea how to describe her. Trademark smokey sunglasses over her eyes, dark-brown hair pulled back by a hairband, and her usual emotionless expression. A frozen Lara Croft. She even out-froze Waters in the blank stare department.

Extracting a piece of gum from his pocket, he unwrapped it, popped the pink blob in his mouth, and a brief flash of a pixie in curls hit his brain as his teeth did their first cut through the sugary confection. Instantly, he felt more grounded.

That’s better.

He crumpled up the wrapper and pelted his brother with it. Midas scowled, picked the wrapper up out of his lap, and pelted Nemo back. He grinned, winked, then spun his chair in the direction of the triad.

“Good to see you, gentlemen,” Loki opened. “We’ve got some information for you.”

“Loki,” Waters acknowledged. He nodded to Gilgamesh and Medusa. “What have you got?”

“Five days ago, one of our associates was in Africa doing some sample gathering for us?—”

“Thieving, you mean,” Nemoconjectured.

“I prefer professional terms, but yes. We weren’t invited in, and we didn’t want anyone to know we were there.”

“What does your ‘sample gathering’ have to do with us?” Waters wondered.

“She’s an expert on these stones and a master… or mistress, I guess… of getting into and out of tight spaces. We found her in Great Britain. Has quite a reputation for her craft. While on her assignment, she sent us some pictures and a request for an exit contact because she’d been made. Guess who we got a glimpse of?” The telescreen split in half. On the left was the triad. On the right, a picture flashed up on the screen of three men.

“Ka-Bar,” Steel answered.

Gilgamesh pointed at the screen. “Give that man a prize.”

“When? Where?” Waters asked, shotgun style. “This is the closest we’ve been to finding Kubrick’s brother.”

“This photo was taken five days ago in Zimbabwe. And he was being escorted by the two men in business suits,” Loki answered as he hit a button on his computer to show another photo.

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