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“What are you saying?” Alina asked, her voice even and calm.
Angela sipped her wine.
“I know you all think I'm a flake,” she said, shifting in her chair to face Alina more fully. “I'm different from you and Stephanie, and always have been. I know you sometimes think I'm stupid. I do things differently from you guys, and I have different priorities from you two. You both work in a field that protects people. I work in a field that makes them money. But I'm not stupid. I have a brain, and I do use it.”
“I'm well aware of that.”
“When you came back last year, I knew you’d changed,” Angela continued as if she hadn't spoken. “You said you work in security, and I accepted that. Then Michael came onto the scene, and he's Secret Service. Weird, but he was also Dave's best friend in the Marines, so I accepted his new role in everything as well. Then came Blake, who's FBI, and ok, it makes sense that he would help out Stephanie and John on some things. They're on the same team, so I accepted that without any questions.”
“All valid points,” Alina pointed out, sipping her wine.
“Yes, except then John died in a horrific accident that no one seems to be able to explain. When you came back a year ago, as I said, you’d changed. But when I came back from Florida two weeks ago, you were a completely different person, even from the one who showed up last year. It doesn't take a psychologist to realize why. John was dead, and you knew something about his death that no one else did. You were furious.”
Alina looked at her, her mask firmly in place.
“Anger is one of the stages of grief,” she said calmly. “I wouldn't read too much into that.”
“And that's exactly what I told myself! Until last night, when I realized that the only person in that church for John's funeral that wasn't thrown into a tailspin by a shooter opening fire was you.”
Angela punctuated the last word by pointing at Alina.
“It was almost as if you were expecting it. You told me yourself that you went after the shooter. I mean, who does that? Instead of getting away from a threat, you went after it! Even Michael and Blake didn't do that, and they're Federal agents!”
“They didn't see him. If they had, I can assure you, they would have gone after him as well.”
“Will you please stop trying to deflect the conversation?!” Angela asked impatiently, finishing her wine. “I know you're more than a security consultant. It's obvious, and everyone seems to be in the loop except me. Why?”
Alina was silent for a long time, staring out at the deepening shadows on the back lawn. Angela had almost figured out the truth, without any information other than what she had observed on her own. Trying to keep it from her hadn't worked, but telling her the full truth was out of the question as well. Even now, Viper had no idea who was a threat and who could be trusted. Her lips tightened. Stephanie had turned out to be in the former category, something she would never have thought possible. Giving Angela any more information than she already had was dangerous, not only for her, but also for Angela. The more she knew, the more she was at risk.
“I didn't want you to get pulled into any of this.” Alina finally said, glancing at her. “When I came back here, it was never my intention to become part of yours or Stephanie's life again. That wasn't the plan. But it happened, and I've been trying to keep you safe ever since.”
“Safe from what?” Angela stared at her, her brows furrowed in confusion.
“The consequences of my actions.” Alina stood up and looked down at her old friend. “My work brings me into contact with people most would rather not know. Sometimes those connections cause...complications.”
“Complications like a shooter in a church?” Angela demanded incredulously. “Good Lord, Lina, what the hell do you do?”
Before she could answer, the sound of tires on gravel in the front of the house reached them and Alina turned her head toward the drive. Raven straightened up on top of the garage, looking toward the front of the driveway.
“Who's that?” Angela asked, following her gaze. “Damon?”
“Yes.”
Alina finished her wine as headlights lit up the back of Angela's BMW and the Audi pulled past the house. Saved by pizza, she thought dryly.
They watched as he pulled up beside Angela's car, and Angela glanced at her.
“Where are your cars?” she asked suddenly. “I just realized I haven't seen them the past two times I was here.”
“In the garage.”
Angela turned her attention back to the driveway. “Oh. What did you get for dinner?”
“Pizza. You're welcome to eat with us, if you like,” Alina said, moving toward the sliding door as Damon got out of the car.
“I never turn down pizza,” Angie said, getting up and following her. “He won't mind?”
Alina glanced over her shoulder, amused. “No.”
Angela grinned.
“Hey, I don't want to be the awkward third wheel if you had a romantic dinner planned!”
“Pizza hardly constitutes a romantic dinner.”
Alina stood aside and waited for Angela to precede her into the house, then turned her head to watch as Damon strode across the lawn with the pizza in his hands. Her lips curved faintly. He was a deadly assassin who had just returned from Georgia, where he had dispatched his target with lethal precision, and yet there he was, carrying a pizza. Somehow, the sight was at odds with what she knew he - they - did on a daily basis. They were more accustomed to hunting and killing than they were to picking up dinner.
Raven launched off the roof of the garage and glided silently toward the deck, passing within inches of Damon's shoulder and coming to rest on the railing. He settled himself and watched as Damon came up the steps to the deck. Once he had passed, Raven turned his attention out over the lawn and the trees.
“I think he's getting used to me,” Damon said, crossing the deck to the door where she stood waiting.
Alina smiled in the shadows.
“That makes two of us.”
Stephanie heard the shower start as she passed the bathroom door on her way to the living room. Blake had gone for a run earlier, returning a few minutes ago and disappearing into the bathroom. She smiled now at the sight of Buddy stretched out in front of the bathroom door.
“Good boy,” she murmured as she passed, causing the dog to lift his head and thump his tail a few times on the carpet.
Stephanie went into the kitchen and opened the fridge, pulling out a can of soda. As much as she hated to admit it, she was very glad for the comforting presence of both Blake and his pit bull. Her head still hurt after last night and, between the discomfort, occasional dizziness, and the knowledge that someone had invaded her home and copied her hard-drive, she was grateful not to be alone. Opening the soda, she took a long drink and went back into the dining room. Really, a trip to the hospital should be made. She was still recovering from a concussion sustained in the church when her leg was shot. Now, she'd suffered another knock to her head. Not good.
She went over to the couch and sank onto it, propping her feet on the coffee table and reaching for the TV remote. While she recognized the need to be checked out medically, Stephanie had had enough of hospitals for a while. She wasn’t about to voluntarily submit to one again. She had just turned on Netflix when her phone rang, the sound coming from the bowels of her purse on the dining room table. Stifling a groan, she put the soda on the coffee table and got back up.
Buddy lifted his head from his paws in the hallway, watching as she crossed to the table again. She dug her phone out of her purse.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Ms. Walker,” a deep, vaguely familiar voice greeted her. “This is Harry. I'm not disturbing you, am I?”
Stephanie raised her eyebrows in surprise and turned to walk back to the couch. She hadn't heard from Harry since he’d come to introduce himself while she was in the hospital. Their communication had been strictly through a messaging system accessed through a secure app.
“Not at all,” she replied. “I'm just watching some TV. How are you?”
“Very busy, Agent Walker, very busy. I tend to forget that not everyone keeps the same long hours I do. How's the leg?”
“Healing slowly.” Stephanie elevated the leg in question again and reached for her soda. “How's the hunt going?”
“Also slowly,” he admitted. “I had a good lead, but they managed to drive themselves off the side of a mountain.”
Stephanie choked on her soda.
“What?” she spluttered. “Is that a metaphor?”
“I wish it were. What do you have on your end?”
Stephanie frowned. When Harry came to see her in the hospital, he convinced her to monitor Alina's movements and send the information to him. The idea was that he would send a team to protect Alina while, hopefully, getting ahead of the people trying to kill her. To that end, she had placed trackers on both Alina's Jeep and her Shelby.
“Only what I've sent you,” she said.
There was a brief silence.
“I haven't received anything from you, Ms. Walker.”
An icy chill streaked down her spine and Stephanie felt the blood drain out of her face.
“What?”
“No messages have come through from you. How many have you sent?”
“Oh my God.” Stephanie ran a shaking hand through her hair. “Two...no, three! I sent them to the address you set up.”
There was a longer silence this time, and when he finally spoke, Harry's voice was hard and grim.
“Those messages never reached me. Someone must have intercepted them. Damn!”
“How is that possible?” Stephanie demanded. “You told me it was an encrypted, secure server!”
“It is, but someone must have been able to hack it. Security only extends to a point. When did you send them?” Harry was all business now. “And what was in them? Perhaps I can minimize the threat.”
“One was sent over the weekend. She went to New York.” Stephanie got up and went back into the dining room to pull the tablet Alina had loaned her with the trackers out of her purse. “Hold on. I'm pulling up the tracking software now.”
“New York?” Harry repeated. “What day?”
“Friday into Saturday.” Stephanie swiped the screen and accessed the tracking app connected to the trackers. “On Monday, she went to Pittsburgh. Then, last night she was in Atlantic City. That was the last message I sent.”
“When did you send it?”
“At six-thirty pm. If these didn't go to you, where the hell did they go?”
“That's what I'm going to find out,” he said grimly. “When we hang up, text the timestamps of all three messages to this number. I'll see what I can find out. Have you heard from our girl since last night?”
Stephanie blinked. “No. Oh my God, you don't think...”
“I'd check in with her to be safe. Has anything out of the ordinary happened up there? Anything at all?”
Stephanie hesitated. She didn't want to admit that someone broke in and got the better of her, especially to a man of Harry's standing and influence. He was a legend.
“Actually, yes,” she said reluctantly. “I had a break-in last night.”
“Did they take anything?” Harry asked after a second of silence.
“No, but I believe they copied the hard-drive on my laptop.”
“So they have the tracking software?” His voice was sharp.
“No. That isn't on my laptop. It's on a tablet, and that was with me.” Stephanie went back to the couch tiredly. “There's nothing on my laptop that will lead anyone to Lina.”
“Well, that's a relief, at any rate.” Harry was silent for a long moment. “Where did you send the messages from?”
“My phone or the tablet, both of which are always with me.”
“Good. Any idea what someone would want with your laptop?”
“No. I've reported it to my boss and they're resetting security as a precaution, but I have no idea what they were looking for.” Stephanie rubbed her eyes, the dull ache in her head throbbing relentlessly. “All my case files are on the FBI server. I don't store anything locally. My only guess is that someone thought they could access case files.”
“Perhaps. You've been working with Agent Hanover on the Casa Reinos Cartel, haven't you?”
“How do you know that?” she asked, startled.
Harry chuckled.
“It's my job to know, Agent Walker,” he replied. “If the Cartel got wind of your involvement, they may be trying to see where you're at in the investigation. Please be careful. Those aren't people you want to mess around with, as I'm sure you know.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I'm going to try to figure out who the hell hacked my secure server and intercepted those messages. In the meantime, send anything you have directly to this number. I'll let you know when I have something else set up.”
Stephanie nodded.
“Ok.”
“Take care of yourself, Ms. Walker.”
Stephanie disconnected and leaned her head back, closing her eyes. What the hell was she doing? Here she'd been trying to protect Alina and had ended up sending her location to the very people who wanted her dead! Viper would have her head on a platter if she knew, and Stephanie wouldn't blame her one bit! Really, she should call her right now and tell her everything, but Stephanie couldn't bring herself to do it. The thought of admitting that she put tracking devices on her vehicles and then sent her location to someone else, former mentor or not, made Stephanie cringe. Viper would be furious.
An image of the assassin snapping Regina Cunningham's neck popped into her head and Stephanie groaned. That was a stranger she never wanted to see again, and if she told her about any of this, Stephanie would come face to face with that cold, methodical killer.
No. It was best Alina never know about any of this. Not until it was over, and she was safe.
Alina stood next to Damon on the deck, watching as Angela backed the BMW up and turned it around in the driveway. The sun had disappeared and night cloaked the trees with darkness, casting long shadows beyond the flood-lights that lit up the backyard.
“What did she want?” Damon asked as Angela straightened out and beeped the horn before disappearing around the side of the house on her way down the driveway.
Alina glanced at him. “How do you know she wasn't just here to say hi?”
He returned her gaze, amused.
“She was livid last night. Unless she's bipolar, she had a reason for coming out here and being friendly again.”
Alina chuckled and turned to go back into the house.
“True enough.”
She slid open the door and stepped into the living room. Damon followed, closing it behind them and following her to the dining room table. He helped her gather the empty the pizza boxes and plates from their dinner.
“So?” he prompted when she showed no indication of continuing.
Alina turned to carry a stack of plates into the kitchen.
“Angela is a lot sharper than a lot of people give her credit for,” she said, setting the plates on the counter and opening the dishwasher. “Myself included. She's connected all the dots and knows I'm not what I say I am. She came tonight to ask me exactly what I do, and why she's the only one who's still kept in the dark.”
Damon set the boxes on the island and moved to put the empty glasses on the counter next to the plates.
“You knew it was coming. She's been getting closer to the truth all along. What did you tell her?”
“Nothing. You drove up just in time.” Alina loaded the plates into the dishwasher. “She’s figured out that the only logical target at John's funeral was me. At this point, she knows the truth, just not what agency I work for.”
Damon crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the counter on the other side of the open dishwasher.
“What are you going to do? She doesn't seem like the type to just let it go.”
“Oh, she won't. She'll be back. When Angie wants to know something, she finds out one way or another.” Alina straightened up and looked at him. “I'm more concerned with what will happen to her when she knows the truth.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Meaning?”
“She's already been targeted once. If someone thinks she knows anything more than she should, she'll be targeted again.”
Damon shook his head.
“You need to stop worrying about everyone else, and start worrying about yourself. I agree that Angela shouldn't know the truth. You know I've been against any of them knowing anything from the beginning. I told you last year that you can't trust them, not only for your sake but for theirs. People like us can't afford to have relationships, especially ones like what you have with Stephanie and Angela. But here we are. Angela's obviously figured out more than she ever should have, and Stephanie's tracking your every movement and sending it to God-knows where. This is not the time to be worrying about their safety; it's the time to be worrying about your own.”
“My safety is not my concern. It hasn't been since the training facility where Viper was born,” Alina retorted. She finished loading the glasses into the dishwasher and closed it. “We don't have the luxury of worrying about ourselves. You know that.”
“That's just it,” he said, turning to face her. His blue eyes captured hers and held them with their intensity. “It's time we started. Someone is systematically and methodically hunting us down. The stakes have changed, Viper. We're no longer invisible. You're no longer invisible. I was on the dark web before you came home, and you're blown. The bastard released your identity and latest targets out to the world. Hell, he even released a photo. There's not a terrorist, mercenary or fanatic that's not hunting you now.”
Viper nodded. “I know.”
He blinked, staring at her.
“You know?” he repeated. “How? I just saw it right before you got home.”
“I got an alert while I was driving.” Her lips twisted humorously. “I have security measures in place. I set them up after Regina put the hit out on you. The algorithm picks up multiple uses of keywords and alerts me to certain combinations.”
Hawk exhaled and a reluctant smile pulled at his lips.
“That's my girl,” he murmured appreciatively. “Remind me to get that from you and apply it myself. Have you seen it?”
“The open letter?” Viper turned to go to the fridge and pull out a bottle of water. She held it up questioningly, tossing it to him when he nodded. “Yes. I read it in the car before I came into the house. It's kind of messed up, really. Moon and Jenaro were your hits, but I'm getting the blame for them.” She pulled out a second bottle of water and opened it. “I'm guilty as charged on the others, though. Interesting that those are the only names that were released,” she added thoughtfully.
“Then you know how bad it is, and yet you're still worrying about Angela's safety?”
She shrugged.
“I can take care of myself,” she began, holding up a hand when Hawk opened his mouth to argue. “And if I can't, then this is the life I agreed to. This is the death I agreed to. Angela didn't make that choice. Angela would never have made that choice.”
Hawk stared across the kitchen at her, his expression grim.
“You can't protect her and hunt this bastard at the same time,” he pointed out bluntly. “And I won't let you choose her over you. So what's your plan?”
Viper sipped her water, then a slow smile crossed her face.
“I'll call the babysitter.”