Page 67 of Direct Action

“Yeah. Crazy,” Tomas put in, settling his forearms on the bar, leaning in. “World’s a fucked-up place.”

He got that right.

“Sorry. Did you know her well?”

Gah.

Lame.

Totally sucked at this spy stuff, not to mention, who asks that kind of thing?

“Yeah, we go way back. Years. Before we worked here, we worked at Rave together.”

Rave was a nightclub that was indeed what the name suggested it was. The place didn’t open until eleven and closed at five in the morning. I’d never been there, but word was the MDMA and other hallucinogens flowed just as freely as the alcohol.

“Chloe, you got drinks up,” Lori called.

Shit.

Drinks.

Totally sucked at this spy stuff, and I was going to get fired. At this point, that would probably be for the best, but that would leave Poppy unprotected.

And now with Tomas close, I couldn’t warn her Beckett had entered the building. Earlier at Pete’s house he’d looked like he’d been roughing it in the mountains of West Virginia for eleven years and hadn’t had a proper haircut or beard trim in all that time. But, still, he managed to pull it off in a lumbersexual kind of way (which was totally Poppy’s thing). Now, his hair was still in need of a cut, but he’d tidied his beard. Not trimmed into groomed millennial style, but it was tamed and he no longer looked like he traded beaver pelts in exchange for a can of beans.

Rough-and-ready Beckett of West Virginia had Poppy giving him sidelong glances.

Rough-and-ready Beckett of SoCal would make Poppy trip over her feet.

“Thanks, Lori,” I called back.

With no reason to stand there and no way to warn Poppy, I moved down the bar to load up my tray with three flutes of champagne.

After those were delivered, I had no choice but to approach the six top I wished wasn’t in my section.

“Mr. Blackwell,” I greeted. “What can I get you this evening?” My eyes slide to Beckett, and with a warm smile I asked, “And you, sir?”

“Sterling, Chloe,” he gently chastised.

Keeping my smile firmly in place and in the sweetest voice I could pull off with bile clogging my throat, I conceded, “Sterling.”

“Much better,” he drawled.

Gag.

“Hirsch, please.” Sterling gave his order. “Three fingers tonight.”

I didn’t miss the deep insinuation in his tone.

Okay, now I was really going to gag.

I glanced back at Beckett, waiting for his order.

“Coke,” he grunted.

Okeydoke. Someone was not happy.

And I knew someone else who was going to be less happy when Beckett reported in.