AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Kaylie frowned, completely willing to answer, but trying to think. “Not much happened before I turned on the IRIS.” She recounted the events for them, combing her fingers through Lia’s hair to gently detangle the fine strands. “I yelled from the road until two men came and escorted me to the building. They frisked me and used some sort of metal detector or whatever. Then they brought me to Lowell.” She thought back to their conversation, remembering the panic of trying to convince him to keep them alive.
“I convinced him I was there because you wouldn’t help me.” She ignored Anthony’s rumble of disapproval at the idea.
Ryder scoffed from the backseat. “Only someone as selfish as Lowell would believe that we’d abandon Lia.”
Kaylie smiled at their reassurance. “Well, after I convinced him you didn’t care, I had to convince him that it didn’t mean I was useless. I managed to buy some time by promising to tell him all of Black Tower’s secrets,” she admitted with a wince.
Jackson laughed at her confession, catching her off guard.
Anthony leaned forward and smacked Jackson upside the head. It only made Jackson laugh harder. “Come on, Tank. You have to admit that’s pretty quick thinking from your girl.”
Kaylie ignored the way she perked up at being called his girl and continued her story. “Thankfully, he got a phone call and had to step out.”
Marshall’s voice was calculating when he asked, “Who was on the call?”
Kaylie chewed her lip. “I don’t know. A woman with some sort of Russian name… Serkov or Serdiov or something.”
Ryder inhaled sharply. “Sidarov?”
She whipped around in her seat to look at him. Kaylie nodded. “Maybe? He said something I didn’t understand while he was leaving the room.” She tried to imitate the unfamiliar words. “Dough something. Dough fetcher?”
“Dobry vecher,” Anthony supplied, and Kaylie nodded, impressed at his accent.
“But there was another word,” she said, racking her brain. “Dobry vecher case?”
“Ksenia,” Ryder whispered.
Marshall let out a low whistle and he turned to look at Anthony and Ryder from his place in the passenger seat. “Ksenia Sidarov? You don’t think…?”
Kaylie’s eyes flew to Anthony’s face. His jaw tightened.
“What is it? What’s going on?”
Jackson reached his hand behind the front seat, palm up. “Nailed it!” he said with enthusiasm. “Gimme a high-five, KayKay.”
Her heart caught at the nickname, the same one Drew had called her since she was eight years old. She still didn’t know what happened to her foster brother. If he was gone, she hoped he knew how much she loved him.
Jackson was still waiting, hand extended, so she slapped her palm against his. “Is anyone going to tell me what I did?”
Anthony glanced down at her, a look of admiration on his face “You, fiamella, may have just unlocked the secret to the Syndicate.”
That raised far more questions than it answered. But if it meant Anthony continued looking at her like a treasure instead of an obligation, she’d take it again and again. “Oh, well. All in a day’s work.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
The next several days were a blur. With Lowell in the wind, the team headed back to Virginia. Flint and Ross had managed to stall Senator Collins’s defense spending bill, for the time being, and Joey was holed up in her cave, digging up everything she possibly could on Ksenia Sidarov.
It was the door of that cave Tank knocked on now.
“Unless you have food, go away,” came Joey’s snarky response to the interruption.
Tank entered anyway, grimacing at the sight of takeout containers, crumbled napkins, and way too many empty soda cans. The room was dimly lit by the glow of multiple computer screens, casting a bluish hue on Joey's face as she furiously typed away. Tank cleared a spot on the cluttered table and leaned against it.
“Freaking Ksenia Sidarov,” Joey muttered, not bothering to look up. “Never in a million years would have put it together.”
Tank rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the weight of the recent events settling in. He stole a glance at Joey, who seemed more absorbed in her work than usual. He needed to dig into Sidarov as well, but right now his mind was elsewhere.
