Page 140 of Secret Weapon

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EMMY

“No, no, a thousand times no.Is he crazy?”

The good news was that Armand Taylor had procured us two more tickets to Bryant Angelou’s party.The bad news?Armand thought that achievement entitled him to use one of them.

And frustratingly, Dan was taking his side.

“It’s not the absolute worst idea.If he shows up, nobody’s going to be paying attention to anything we’re doing.”

“But we can’t guarantee his safety.Ilya Molotov is a highly trained Russian assassin.Having gone up against one of his former comrades last week, I can assure you that he’s not a man to mess around with.”

Without thinking, I touched a finger to my nose.The swelling had gone down now, but the bridge was still tender.Ilya had six inches and seventy pounds on Darya—if he’d been in the forest in Baldwin’s Shore that day, I’d have needed to get my entire face reconstructed.

“It’s a covert operation,” Dan said, as if I might have forgotten that fact.

“Exactly.Covert.Softly-softly, fly under the radar.The last thing we need is the Armand Taylor circus.”

“He’s landed the lead role in a new spy thriller, and he sees this as a research opportunity.There’ll be other guests there too.”

“Who will also be in danger.”

“He’ll sign a waiver.”

“Oh, hurrah, a waiver.Like that’ll help if his ugly mug gets splattered across the deck.The media will have a field day.”

“So, here’s the thing—I don’t think we can stop him.He says he could use a little excitement in his life.”

“Excitement?Excitement?He’s a Hollywood actor.In his last movie, he base-jumped off a mountain and waterskied behind a helicopter.”

Even I hadn’t waterskied behind a helicopter, probably because I didn’t want to get chopped to pieces by the tail rotor.

“That was CGI.”

“He was still involved.If he wants excitement, why doesn’t he take a vacation?He’s loaded—he could go anywhere in the world.”

Dan rolled her eyes.She’d flown in this morning and swung by Armand’s place before she drove down to Naples, and by a miracle, she’d got here without putting any dents in Armand’s Mercedes.He was a brave man, lending it to her.Brave or monumentally stupid.In light of our current conversation, I was inclined to go with the latter.

“You think I didn’t suggest that?”Dan asked.

“Can’t Hans talk some sense into him?”

Hans was Armand’s boyfriend, not that the rest of the world knew that.America’s heartthrob was so far in the closet that if he fished around, he’d probably find the pink spangled catsuit Bradley had misplaced four years ago and still reminisced about to this day.

“Hans tried and failed.Armand is coming, whether we like it or not—all we can do is give him stage directions.”

Bloody fucking hell.Anything else want to go wrong?This job had been jinxed from the start.

“You’d better keep him on a damn short leash.And next time he wants to hire a bodyguard, give him a penknife and a water pistol and tell him to do the job himself.”

At least we’d had more luck with the third pair of tickets.Several years ago, Black and I had invested in a production company for some kind of tax break.Our finance manager thought it would be a good idea, and for the most part, he’d been right.Apart from a zombie movie that bombed at the box office, Black Hole Entertainment had turned a steady profit.And tomorrow night, Alaric and Hallie would be representing BHE at Angelou’s party.The two of them would position themselves on the back terrace, ready to sound the alarm to Ravi and Spider if they attracted any unwanted attention.The party planners had been kind enough to set up tables at the rear already, so we knew the terrace would be in use.

This close to the water, a hidden basement was unlikely, so if the weapon was in the house as Dasha believed, then upstairs seemed the most probable location.It would be easy enough for Angelou to position a man at the bottom of the staircase to keep guests out of the way, which was why Ravi and Spider planned to go in via the balcony.That would take masterful timing and a distraction, which was where Barbie came in.Alex would play boat captain, and Pale would stay in our rental house with Vance to monitor operations and step in if the shit hit the fan.

“Emmy, we have to choose your outfit.”Bradley bustled in with an armful of garment bags.“I’ve gone with pants and shorter dresses just in case you need to kick anything, and plenty of draped fabric to hide your weapons.”

He knew me so well.

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