Page 48 of Dangerous Chaos

“Oh. Never mind then.” Wit snorted.

Ayelish stood next to Cane, glare pinned on Hen. “Maybe only he dies.”

Bozz rolled his eyes and pushed off the wall, focus directed on the battle of wills being acted out before them. “Are we done? You did your obligatory big brother thing, followed by the twin sister act. We good? Did you instill enough of the wrath of O’Reilly in Hen yet? Look, I will personally vouch for Hen. He’s annoying as hell, but a good guy.”

“Thank… you?” Hen hesitated, unsure if that was a backhanded compliment or an insult.

Bozz turned his attention to Hen. “He fucks this up, and I’ll personally kick his ass and bury him alive.”

“Jesus, Bozz.” Bewildered, Hen clutched his chest with disbelief. “I thought you had my back.”

“I do.” Bozz tossed his hands out to the side. “This is me having your back. Don’t fuck shit up, and you’ll be fine.”

“Okay?” Hen looked between Cane and Bozz, unsure who the real threat was at this point.

“Good talk.” Bozz patted Hen’s chest. “Now that we got that bullshit out of the way, let’s get back to the case –– or cases, rather.”

“Right,” Killion picked up. “Someone with inside information alerted both women who happen to be elite ops and sisters.”

“Twins,” Relay added. “Not sure that matters, but worthy of noting.”

“Right, twins,” Killion agreed as he smiled at Relay. “This person or persons warn Aye and Ash about the incoming apprehension related to a bounty with pending murder charges on operatives from opposing teams –– who also have an extensive history with a corrupt organized crime ring within our own government and international elites… Chalice. What we’re trying to figure out here is how the common denominator –– Chalice –– fits in with the rest of the pieces to the puzzle.”

“Right,” Relay confirmed. “This is the one piece we need to work through to get a whole picture. We’re almost there. We almost have answers or at least something to move this case forward.”

“What is this?” Cane said, shifting his pointer finger between Killion and Relay. “What’s up with you two?”

Relay and Killion looked at one another with baffled expressions and shrugged.

“What do you mean?” Killion asked.

“He wants to know if there’s anything going on here.” Ashlyn grinned, having been the one who walked in on the two originally. “You’re very much… in sync.”

“Oh.” Killion cleared his throat. “Similar IQs and strengths. We, uh, work well together.”

Cane nodded slowly. “Okay. That’s all?”

“No,” Relay answered. “It seems we both get excited over this stuff, and well, you know, we speak each other’s language. It’s not often we get to work with someone like… us.”

“Got it,” Cane said, shaking his head as if he didn’t believe a word out of either of them.

“I, uh…” Carter Landry chimed in, bringing focus back to the task at hand. “I’m still on leave from the US Attorney’s Office, but it’s voluntary so I still have full access and clearance. The cases against Wit and Hen are assigned to a single federal special prosecutor, both are linked to their respective case by DNA and an eyewitness account.”

“They can’t have our DNA linked.” Hen took a nearby chair and leaned back, kicking his feet out in front of him. “We aren’t in anyone’s databases. I’m sure y’all handle your operators like we do and scrub the shit out of our records, right?”

Wit took the seat next to him and matched Hen’s position, then laced his fingers together behind his head. “He’s got a good point. That’s been bafflin’ me all along. And an eyewitness? Same person or just same story?”

“We’ve actually been comparing notes on that,” Relay confirmed. “And we both handle operator identities very similarly, though there is DNA on file in our own databases in case we ever need to make an unfortunate ID on someone who is… beyond recognition. But you can be confident in our ability to store said information like we do everything else in our worlds –– like it’s in an impenetrable vault, and only Killion and I have the keys.”

“Geez,” Gannon said. “They really are alike.”

Nico turned to him. “I’d say our teams are fairly matched and mirror each other pretty similarly. Creepy.”

Relay tipped her head to the side, unimpressed with the assessment. “Killion and I put something together really quick to do advance analysis.”

“With an expedite feature which means the software will first run through a…” Killion began but suddenly caught himself when the blank stares told him to cut to the chase. “Right, get to the point. Spare the details.”

“My team does the same thing to me.” Relay told Killion. “It’s like nobody wants to learn anymore. This stuff is fascinating.”

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