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“That also means our mystery ally, this hacker, has to be undercover with the Sorens themselves.” Mya had to be right about that, too. “And for some reason, the hacker doesn’t want us to know that.”
31
OLIVER
“Hey, Tessa,” Mya said softly as Gray’s wife came on-screen right in the thick of our holy-shit revelation. She had their daughter in her arms and their dog, Lucky, was glued to her side. Carter’s dog wasn’t on screen, so I had to assume Dallas was with Carter’s wife in Dubai.
“Not to eavesdrop,” Tessa began, “but it sounds like you all have just moved a few mountains in that conversation.”
“I think so.” Mya nodded, her attention shooting to Tessa’s baby. Pink cheeks. Green eyes. Already a thick head of dirty-blonde hair. “How’s Penelope?”
“She keeps me up all night.” Tessa handed her daughter over to Gray while yawning. “Can you tell?”
As if on cue, and forgetting all thoughts about the evil group trying to ruin our lives, Jack set a hand on his wife’s belly and rubbed it like a genie lamp. “Penny’s best friend will be here soon, and we’ll have those late nights, too.”
“There better be no friends-falling-in-love thing happening between our kids one day,” Gray said while rocking his daughter in his arms. It was an odd juxtaposition. I was used to seeing him hold an M4, not a baby.
“Would it be that horrible if your daughter falls in love with your best friend’s son?” Charlotte teased, and based on Gray’s hard nod, that was a yes.
“Anyway,” Gray commented, shutting down the tea party and letting everyone know to switch gears back to the mission.
“Fuck,” I said under my breath, then apologized for cursing, even though a baby wouldn’t understand me. “I never said congratulations. But yeah, congrats. She’s beautiful.”
Tessa smiled. “Thank you, Oliver. We appreciate that. I can’t wait for you to meet her in person.”
“Just got a text from Easton,” Carter said the moment she was done talking. “The guy doesn’t know who hired his team, but they were ordered to kill Oliver and to take Mya alive. They’d be given a location to drop her off only when they had proof she was with them and that Oliver was dead. That’s all he could get from him.”
“So, I was right, but that’s also confusing. Why keep me alive? We established that whether my parents are tied to this or not, The Collective would’ve executed orders to have me killed.”
Now Mya was being hunted all over again, and I had to do everything in my power to never let these fuckers take her captive.
Gray handed Penelope back to Tessa. “Well, now that we have our assumptions about the Sorens’ role in all of this, where or how would your parents fit in?”
“Maybe they’re not part of The Collective,” Mya said softly. “Well, not part of that round table. Or wheel. Whichever analogy we want to go with. But maybe they’re part of the hub like the Sorens.”
She tossed out a few more ideas, continuing to sound detached from the fact she was suggesting her parents were criminals connected to what happened to us in Thailand.
“My parents have connections to a lot of people. And Dad’s a judge for the Court of Appeals in New York. A position like that might be valuable to the Sorens.”
“You’d think we would’ve found a connection between them when digging into the Sorens’ background before your undercover assignment, and we never did,” Gwen pointed out.
“Because the Sorens are careful not to let any connections be found.” Just like the rest of The Collective. “But I still don’t understand why the Sorens would want Mya kept alive today, but they didn’t have a problem killing her on that plane in Singapore.”
“Your parents didn’t have a heads-up in Thailand about what was going on,” Sydney added on, “because they didn’t know you were undercover for FYVM and hunting The Collective. But they know the truth now, and that changes things.”
“We keep beating around the bush with these people. What if we just face them head-on?” Mya proposed, talking with her hands. “Hell, why not confront the Sorens in Zurich and tell them we know who they are?”
The blood rushed from my face at her use of “we” in the last part of her statement. “You’re not proposing you go to The Sapphire, are you?” I faced her instead of the screens.
Arms folded, I knew what was coming. Bold, but stubborn determination.
“We can’t hide out here forever. Also, I think it’s time we change strategies and do something we haven’t tried before. No more going undercover. No more long game.”
Forget Hugo taking me out for good, Mya was going to kill me from a heart attack.
“Now that we have more of the puzzle solved, we should make our next move before the Sorens can.”
“So, not only do we buy the hotel, we tell the Sorens we know who they really are,” Sydney said, not clarifying, but from the sounds of it, agreeing.
