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“Considering Alyona hasn’t reached out to you with an update since she cut and run,” Jack said while peering at me, “my guess is they were only using her, and they never actually thought she’d double-cross you.”
“There are only a handful of people who had access to Carter’s private footage from Amsterdam who also knew he reached out to Alyona for help. It’s not us. Not the President’s SEALs.” Gray rehashed what we already knew, keeping his eyes locked on me. “It’s not Diana’s parents, my dad, or the President himself. And I can personally vouch for the CIA director.”
“So, that leaves us with the Secretary of Energy and Craig Paulsen as the only possible traitors in the group. They know we’re working this case, and that we were planning to turn Diana over to Bravo at zero three hundred.” Jack had said what we already knew, but would it be enough evidence to convince the President to bring both men in for questioning regardless of who was pulling their strings?
“Jared and Craig didn’t know you were taking me to Poland, right?” Diana asked. “So if it’s one of them who’s helping the enemy, that’s why they had to rely on the tracker.”
I nodded, unable to join the conversation yet, still trying to work through the best course of action. I wasn’t used to my focus being so thrown.
“Now that we know there’s probably two groups, what does that mean? If Jared or Craig is the insider in the second group, then how’d the first group know about the lab?” Diana asked as she stood to get a better view of the screen.
I was at her side in an instant. Pure instinct, and maybe something else taking over. What if turbulence hit? I’d rather her fall against me than land in Oliver’s arms. He was entirely too close and convenient.
“And for that matter,” Diana continued, pushing at the skin on her forehead as if doing advanced calculus in her head, “how’d the second group know there’d be a hit by the first?”
“Those are very good questions,” Gwen spoke up. “We’ll figure it out. In the meantime, where are you all headed? Scotland?”
Gray and I exchanged a passing glance before I tipped my head in request to take point. He’d needed me to run the show when it came to the woman he cared about being in danger during a mission, and now I understood why. Same boat. Well, in my case, a plane.
“We can’t stay up here forever,” Gray said, turning back toward the others. “Let’s head to Scotland. If Pierce Quaid is also an insider, for whichever group, he may be walking around as a free man. It may be faster to get intel on the ground. We’ll hack all the local CCTV footage there and try and get a match for him or one of the other hostages.”
Diana stepped closer to me, and without thinking it through, I reached for her hand and locked our fingers together, not caring who saw.
I barely heard Griffin’s casual comment as he said, “Did I ever tell y’all about the time we had to wear kilts, and how that op was weirdly connected to your sister, Jesse?”
Diana and I stayed locked in that moment, hand in hand, as Jesse commented back to Griffin, “Don’t tell me.”
“Who do we know who can help in Scotland? You still have your contacts there?”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the brilliant blue ones before me to register who the voice belonged to. Didn’t matter, the conversation continued around us, our little bubble safe for the moment.
“Don’t those billionaires, the McGregors, have cousins in Scotland?” another someone asked, hell if I knew who.
“They’re Irish, not Scots.” Mya that time maybe?
“What are you thinking?” Diana mouthed, and I drew her closer, allowing the background noise of my teammates to fade away.
“Energy doesn’t lie,” I whispered back. “Matter can neither be created nor destroyed.”
She blinked, replaying my words as if surprised I’d thrown science at her. I was a little surprised, too. “Oh.” Her little wide-eyed look and nod had me believing she’d landed in the same physics textbook as I’d just stumbled into somehow. On the same page, she murmured, “What if one group wanted us to help create an EMP weapon?” I squeezed her hand, encouraging her to keep going with that thought. Her eyes fell shut as she acknowledged the truth I felt in my damn bones. “And the other one already has a weapon . . . and they’re worried I can stop them from using it.”
46
CARTER
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND
“I’m just not sure how we’re going to pull this off.” Oliver’s less than optimistic tone as we rolled up to the gates of our new place had me squeezing Diana tighter to my side in the back of the stretch limo.
The last time I’d been in a limo was in . . . Shit, I didn’t want to dredge up memories of fancy parties from the past—parties Rebecca had dragged me to—any more than I wanted to relive the details Diana had shared about Craig cornering her in his limo in New York.
She rested her hand on my leg, giving me a squeeze, somehow knowing I needed her to ground my thoughts before I lost myself to anger.
Dallas was on the other side of her, and he lifted his head and licked her cheek.
Jealous, boy? That her hand is on me, not you? I get it.
Not missing a beat, Diana scratched behind his ears, giving us both the attention we needed.
