Page 131 of Secret Weapon

When Scott said they had the social media side of the project cracked, he meant it.Callie had a new-generation digital army at her disposal now, and some of those kids would one day grow into decision makers.Budget holders.If they ever needed to hire a security firm, we wanted Blackwood to be the first name they thought of.

“Really?Wow.”Callie beamed at us, then glanced at Scott.“That’s a good deal, right?”

“It’s a good deal.”

The marketing department would be so proud of us.Quite honestly, the business side of things bored me to death, but it was a necessary evil.

Bradley must have been listening from the wings because he practically ran over with a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and five glasses.

“Fantabulous!We should all celebrate.”

I groaned.Black groaned.Even Scott groaned because he’d visited Riverley with Nick a time or two, and once you met Bradley, you never forgot him.

“We’re technically working here,” I tried, but Bradley ignored me completely and popped the cork.

“You can have one drink.”He shoved a champagne flute at me.“It’s an excellent vintage.”

“No can do, champ.Today, I’m embracing sobriety.”

“Fine.”Bradley passed the champagne to Callie instead.“If someone had warned me, I could’ve picked up a bottle of Nozeco.I hope everyone likes waffles?And poached eggs?And smoked salmon bagels?Hash browns with bacon?Avocado toast?Pancakes with fresh fruit?”

How much food had he bought?

The answer: all of it.He sent the Loweses home with a fucking doggy bag.Scott rolled his eyes, but Callie was polite enough to take it.I figured we could palm the rest off onto the folks who’d stayed inside—Alaric, Ravi, Pale, Barbie, Spider, Hallie, and Vance—but oh no, Bradley had thought of that.Alaric’s face still bore traces of powdered sugar when we went inside to view the surveillance tapes.

“Waffle?”he offered, holding a piece out on a fork.

“I never want to eat carbs again.”

“Next week when you’re sneaking out for a cheeseburger, I’ll remind you of that.”

“Please don’t.”I nodded towards the laptop beside him.“Did we get anything?”

Under cover of darkness, we’d set up miniaturised cameras on the boat, on the terrace, and in an upstairs window.Combined with the drone overhead, we now had eyes on the house twenty-four-seven, and our remote teams could take some of the surveillance burden.

“Svetlana spotted Lowes, I guarantee it.One moment she was reading a book on the terrace, the next, she ran inside and came back with Angelou.”

“Scott walked right up to the back railing with Callie midway through the meal.Spent a few minutes looking across the water and pointing at shit, just to give them an eyeful.”

“Good sport.”

He was, but possibly not as good a sport as Armand Taylor.Armand was another A-lister who used Blackwood’s services, and over the years, he’d grown tight with Dan.When she asked him nicely, he’d put out feelers via his own network in an attempt to get tickets to the party.

“It was a fruitful meeting all around.”

“What’s the plan now?”

“Now?Now, we wait.”

Shortly after two p.m., Bryant and Svetlana walked across the footbridge to their dock and climbed into a boat—a medium-sized RIB, nothing too flashy—with Ilya following.As soon as Svetlana had settled herself onto a seat at the rear, Ilya fired up the engine.He didn’t look happy.

Good.

I popped another marshmallow into my mouth and offered the bag to Black.He shook his head, jaw clenched.James had come through with the care package, and now I had six kinds of gourmet marshmallows, two kinds of coffee, and a box of artisan chocolates.Well, half a box of artisan chocolates.They were moreish, okay?

To give Team Ilya their credit, they made an effort.We watched discreetly as the trio puttered around with the engine on tickover, visiting five other houses before they reached ours.Aw, how sweet.They’d come up with their own cover story.

An hour later, they drew up at our dock, and when Bryant and Svetlana crossed the road and rang the intercom at the back gate, Alex headed out to meet them.Five minutes passed before he returned with a card.

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