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Vincent nodded. “Her. He’s someone who knows her. I’ll recognize a picture.”
Luca’s voice chimed in, laced with both concentration and impatience. “Once I get these last two wires cut,” he trailed, snipping one wire, “I can find that info for you.”
Luca trailed a finger across another wire, following it back to the main device before taking a deep breath and glancing at Vincent and Marco from the corner of his eye. “Moment of truth,” he mumbled.
He snipped it.
The silence of the night crashed blessed relief through Vincent’s veins.
“Good job, kid,” Marco said as Luca nonchalantly removed the device from the base of his car and tossed it toward Vincent.
“It looked more complex than it was,” he said, giving a cocky smile to Vincent and extending a hand. “It’s nice seeing you again, Vincent.”
Vincent didn’t respond as he grabbed the hand and nodded with a tight expression.
“I see your seriousness hasn’t changed,” Luca commented, eyeing Vincent. When he didn’t respond, Luca continued. “I’ll find some possibilities and send them to your email when I get home. I can’t be seen out here with you both.”
“Be careful,” Marco said as Luca turned to leave without him. They couldn’t risk being seen together longer than essential, given Luca’s status as a secretive member of their cell. It would put too many missions—too many people—in jeopardy.
As soon as Luca was out of earshot, Marco whispered to Vincent, “That kid is a little strange, huh?”
Vincent didn’t comment on Marco’s claim. “When you find the man, have someone dealt with. And after this bomb, we need to be on guard. Send a guard to trail Kiera, but don’t let her see him, and make sure he can be trusted.”
Marco glanced at Vincent as if Vincent had said something peculiar that required careful analysis. But Marco finally nodded. “She’ll be safe,” he promised.
“She better be.”
7
Jacey scanned the wide assortment of rice as Kiera stood behind her, tapping her fingers on the grip of their shopping cart. “I promise that all brown rice will taste the same,” Kiera pushed.
Jacey turned and narrowed her eyes at Kiera as she picked up what seemed to be the thirtieth box and scanned the nutrition label.
“The macros are everything, Kiera. Not all of us can stay slim on ice cream and chicken nuggets,” she chastised, biting at the corner of her bottom lip. “But I think this is the one.”
“Halle-freaking-lujah,” Kiera whispered as Jacey tossed the rice into the cart, and they continued down the aisle. The feeling of eyes on them pieced into Kiera’s subconsciousness, but she ignored it, knowing that Jacey regularly drew the attention of all men in a five-mile radius.
“Now, we need some oat milk,” Jacey mumbled, leading as Kiera pushed the cart, leaning on it in impatience.
When they turned from the aisle, Kiera, to no surprise, noticed the attention of a man who stared at them from the other side of the aisle. She’d barely had enough time to see the man,let alone figure out who he was, so she brushed off the chilling feeling and followed Jacey toward the milk aisle.
With a dramatic gag, Jacey passed by the cow milk and grabbed two cartons of oat milk, breathing a breath of relief. “You realize they’ve been out the last two times I came to buy this?” she said, tossing them in the cart and continuing to lead.
Kiera didn’t reply as she glanced over her shoulder, awaiting the return of the same man, but he didn’t appear as they swerved into another aisle.
And the cart nearly ran into him.
Kiera met his wide, watchful eyes with a spike of fear in her chest, but she forced a small smile to her lips. “Mr. Laker,” she said, feigning excitement to see him. Why had Vincent been looking for him? “I haven’t seen you for a week. Where have you been?” she asked. Jacey continued down the aisle, not bothering to wait for her.
The smile that pulled at his lips was unlike his usual sort—darker, maybe. It didn’t ooze the same flirtation that he typically used.
“I’ve been busy.”
He didn’t say anything more as he stared at her so directly that her skin crawled. Kiera’s skinnevercrawled around him. As she peered into his eyes, she realized that she wouldn’t ever be able to paint the horrific emotions that resided there. She could never mimic something so dark and brutal.
It felt sacrilegious to bring something into existence so dark and horrible. The fact that that evil already existed sent chills down her spine.
“Well, it was nice to see you. My friend’s going to leave me if I stick around,” she teased, though she knew, if only in some instinctual part of her, that she needed to get away.
