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“You are the sparkly fairy godmother who everyone worships at your colorfully adorned feet,” Alexie says as he makes a kissing motion to BJ across the table. She looks like she could melt at his words.
With that, Alexie sits next to me and grabs my hand in his. Bringing it to his lips, he says, “You’re not a princess,Malyshka.You are a queen.” His lips leave my hand as he looks into my eyes. “You need to remember that today. This Ingram man is cocky and arrogant, but those are dangerous when mixed together as they equal stupid words and thoughtless actions.” He is right. When someone is lacking humility, they will act out when they get caught or backed into a corner. “You are the queen of this chess game today,” he continues, “which means…you have all the power. You must use it wisely.”
The rest of breakfast is quiet after Alexie’s littlemaster-of-chessspeech. The gravity of what is happening today weighs on everyone at the table, creating a thick tension. Stryker goes back over the plan, which basically boils down to me getting Ingram to admit his involvement.
Everyone is gearing up to leave, and the team looks like they’re packing enough for a small army. Of course, I don’t have anything because the odds of him having me patted down are pretty high. Ingram is sure to be on high alert.
As everyone is finishing up, Conrad walks over to me and holds out a beautiful necklace. It has a small bird charm on it with a gemstone in the middle that looks like it might be an emerald. My birthstone. “This is actually a microphone and recording device.” He turns it over and points to the clasp holding the charm onto the delicate looking chain. “Keep this on, and we’ll be able to hear everything that’s said within a twenty foot radius.”
I look at Conrad, disgusted because that means I’ll have to stay close to Ingram. “How did you get it so small?” Even if it only picks up a shorter distance, the sheer size of this thing is impressive.
“It’s something I’ve been working on to make sure it can’t be picked up by any tracker or scanner,” he beams with pride as he talks about it. “I spent last night putting it on this necklace that I bought for you before everything went downhill.”
“Conrad…it’s beautiful.” This moment would be way more romantic if there wasn’t a group of people strapped with numerous weapons watching the entire interaction.
He opens the clasp and tells me to turn around. I turn my back to Conrad and sweep my hair out of the way. He pulls the chain around my neck and clasps it in the back. I drop my hair and turn back towards him. Without saying anything, I wrap my arms around his neck and press my lips to his. I pull my lips just slightly away from him and tell him, “Thank you. I love it.”
King clears his throat loudly and obviously to get Conrad and me to break up our little moment. “So are we fucking doing this, or just standing around twiddling our thumbs?” he asks.
“You were the kid who didn’t share toys in the sandbox, weren’t you?” Marcela taunts King,
“What toys?” King retorts.
“Well, that explains so much,” she teases. “This outta be a fun adventure for you then.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” King asks her, flabbergasted. “Enough. Let’s do this,” Stryker commands, putting an end to their back and forth banter.
And with that, we walk out the door.
Nat
Ipulluptothe Glory Hole by myself. Sitting in the car for a few moments, I think about the gravity of the situation. I’m about to walk in there unarmed and alone. Normally, I’d be all for this adrenaline pumping moment, but it feels like there is so much more to lose now. The team is divided between the buildings surrounding me. There’s a laundromat next door, where Stryker, Alexie, and Conrad are watching from the owner’s office on the second floor. Apparently, Lane and the owner grew up together, and Lane was able to convince him to let us borrow his office. King and Marcela are in an abandoned apartment that faces the donut shop in the complex across the street.
I look at the donut shop and see Ingram already sitting inside. He’s sitting by himself in a booth by the window.Only a smug asshole would take the chance to sit directly in front of a window.It’s now or never, so I step out of the car and head towards the shop.
The bell hanging above the door jingles as I walk in. Turning to my right, Ingram sticks his head out into the aisle, smiling as he watches me walk towards him.Fuck, even that smile is smug as hell. I also forgot how handsome he is. Too bad the silver fox turned out to be a slimy douchebag.When I’m just a few steps away from him, two men from the front convene behind me.
“Just a quick check, Agent Kash,” Ingram says as he sips from his coffee mug.
The guy behind me pulls out a metal detector wand and scans it up and down my body a few times. It only goes off at my pant buttons, earrings, and my new necklace.Fuck. What if he makes me take it off?The man reaches into my back pocket and pulls out the burner phone that Stryker gave me. He sets the phone on the table, closer to Ingram’s side. It has only one number on there, so I’m not too worried about it.
Then the man standing in front of me with a scraggly-ass beard pulls out some other handheld scanner. Ingram must see the confused look on my face as I try to discern what this device is. “He’s only scanning you with the latest wire detector,” Ingram informs. “No offense, of course, but you can’t be too sure who to trust these days.”
“Makes sense,” I reply, "especially in our line of work.” The smile on his face drops, and I realize I need to be more careful with my sass.Be the queen on the chessboard, Nat.
When the men are done scanning and checking me over, the one in front nods at Ingram to let him know all is clear. Ingram holds out his hand, gesturing for me to sit.
I slide into the booth across from Ingram, and the time ticks by as we sit in silence. Ingram slowly sips his coffee as I glance across the table at him. “Would you care for some coffee? Tea, perhaps?” he asks.
“No, thank you,” I reply.
“Are you sure? They have the best coffee in the city,” he says as he brings his mug back to his lips. A soft moan comes from him as he pulls the mug away.Gross.
“I wanted to meet with you to disc–”
Ingram interrupts me, saying, “Let’s cut straight to the chase, shall we, Natalia Kalashnik?”FUCK!Looks like we aren’t dancing around any niceties.Stay calm. Head in the game.Ingram leans back in his booth and stretches his arms across the back of it.
“Thank God!” I exclaim, and Ingram drops his arms. Folding them across his chest, he looks at me like he’s trying to figure out what has me so excited. “Do you have any idea how annoying it is to pretend to be the annoying Agent Natalie Kash?” Ingram shifts in his seat, and I know I’ve thrown him off, even if it’s just a little.
