Page 163 of Secret Weapon

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EMMY

Alex and Darya had an interesting dynamic.

As evidenced when they walked out of the pool house, four and a half hours late.They exited holding hands, but as they rounded the pool, Darya pulled hers away.Words were exchanged.She folded her arms.Then she just sort of…gave in and let Alex tuck an arm around her waist.Somehow, he’d worked out how to tame the Siberian tiger, which basically made him a magician.

But would his charms be enough?I had a proposal for Darya, and I had a feeling Alex would be the deciding factor in whether she accepted it.

At least the extra four and a half hours hadn’t been wasted.Ana and Sam had taken Tabby to see the La Brea Tar Pits as part of their losing battle to turn her into a normal almost-five-year-old child, Alaric and Ravi had taken Hallie and Dan out for lunch, and the rest of us had gone surfing in between calls with the various agencies tasked with sweeping last night’s fun under the diplomatic carpet.The beach behind the house had decent waves, and what better way to unwind than face-planting in cold water?

“Iknewthose boots would suit you,” Bradley told Darya when she walked through the door, and I had to agree.The four-inch spike heels made her look like even more of a bitch than usual.“Do you want the matching purse?I didn’t buy it because it wasn’t big enough for a gun, but I can go back to the store.”

Was there even anything left in the store?“No more shopping, not today.Don’t you have cookies to bake?”

Tabby grabbed his sleeve.“Yes, cookies.”

As she dragged him to the kitchen, I raised an eyebrow.“Sleep well?”

Darya turned to face me, one hand on her hip.“No, but the sex was fantastic.”

Alex made a choking sound and looked away, laughing, but Darya just stood there, chin jutting, almost as if she was daring me to complain.Why would I complain?Black had fucked me in the shower twice after we’d finished surfing, so I’d have been the biggest hypocrite ever.

“Glad to hear it.Any requests for dinner?We’re about to order food.”

“I’m taking Dasha out for dinner,” Alex said.

“Need a ride?Bradley can arrange a car.”

“Thanks, but I’ll drive.”

“Then let’s get this discussion over with.Everyone’s waiting in the living room.”

Someone had found snacks, and I grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bowl in Dan’s lap as I passed.Hallie was sitting next to her, legs curled onto the cushion.Pale was stretched out on the floor, and Barbie was lying on a couch with her head in Spider’s lap and her legs across Vance’s.Darya and Alex took half of the third couch beside Quinn and Ana, and I perched on the arm of Black’s chair, partly because I loved him but mostly because he was holding a bowl of tortilla chips.The only people missing were Alaric and Ravi—they’d flown back to DC after lunch because Sirius was hella busy these days.

“First of all, I want to thank everyone for doing a great job under difficult circumstances last night.The shit might have hit the fan from several directions, but ultimately, we achieved our goals.”

And more—the disposal of Stepanov had been a bonus, and I very much suspected that champagne corks were being popped in both DC and Moscow right now.

“Do we know who called the cops?”Vance asked.“That’s what really screwed everything up.”

“We do.”That little snippet of information had been revealed in the last conference call.“It was Santoro.Kind of.”

Last night, he’d barely said a word, which had been understandable.When the shooting started, he’d thought he was being abducted again, this time by a different set of people.So he’d clammed right up.Slug’s team had collected him and the weapon while we’d sanitised the rental house and retrieved Ana, Hallie, and Darya.

“How?”Spider asked.“He was chained up, and I bet the laptop he was using didn’t have internet access.”

“It didn’t.Timonenko’s people removed the wireless card, but they probably didn’t realise that the weapon has its own wireless network adapter.”

“He used it to communicate?Why did it take him so long?”

“Because when Ottie wiped the software, she did a thorough job.Santoro had to rewrite half the program because the copy Timonenko obtained was months out of date.He couldn’t talk because there was always a guard in the room, but as soon as he established an online connection, he submitted a tip to Crime Stoppers.”

“The cops were looking for a kid, though?Charlotte McGuinn?”

“Yeah, he figured that trying to explain the logistics of a top-secret weapons program to whoever staffs the Crime Stoppers desk would be tricky, so he went with a story that he thought would get a better response.”

“How did he know McGuinn was missing?He got snatched before she did.”

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