Edward’s mind whirled with useless thoughts. Natasha was no longer an ally of her husband’s, so he would never trust her again. Since Edward had been reluctant to use her anyway, it was fine. Derrick hadn’t admitted to anything terribly useful, but they had kind of assumed he wouldn’t anyway. Especially since he enjoyed keeping his wife in the dark. Just because their only chance had gone nowhere didn’t mean they were out of options.
And Edward knew that was a fat load of bullshit.
Natasha had needed calming after the ordeal, which Edward left to Bella. She had a way with words, which he lacked, and she was able to assure Natasha that no one on their team was after her or her family. Her husband, on the other hand, needed to be leashed.
“He admitted to killing the mercs on tape,” Ben said once they’d returned to the house.
Seamus snorted. “But we’re all alive, so I doubt there’s any real crime to charge him with.”
“Not one he can’t weasel his way out of,” Edward murmured. “He’d say we were on a watch list or something and he had no choice but to sanction our deaths.”
“After all,” Bella said, dropping down on the couch, “we’re horrible criminals who need putting down.”
“How quickly the American citizens forget what you did for them.” Drumming her fingers on the table, Dylan said, “I could remind the world about your hero status. It wouldn’t take much more than a heartfelt article.”
“I take offense to being included in this lump of criminals,” Quinn said wryly. “I was one of his.”
“You were never one of his,” Holden snapped.
He’d been mostly quiet lately, but Edward knew he was still working through the betrayal of one of his closest mentors. “You were always ours, a mhic, and that’s the biggest rub of all.”
“Okay, well, now what?” Jake demanded.
Seamus paced the living room. “He knows we’re not dead. He knows we’re targeting him. What if we just drop everything we have on the doorstep of the CIA’s big boss and demand some form of accountability?”
“Or what?” Holden rolled his eyes, watching Seamus pass back and forth. “There won’t be any consequences if they sweep it all under the proverbial rug.”
“Hey, guys,” Dara interrupted. “I’ve got a bulletin coming in on my news app.”
Dylan sighed. “This is the sort of thing I would be privy to in advance if I still had my phone.”
Bella walked over to Dara’s chair to watch it over her shoulder. “Yeah, and then you’d be trackable and we’d all be dead for real.”
“Anyway,” Dara said. “It looks like Director Blithers was nabbed.”
“What?” Quickly, Jasper snatched up the TV remote and turned on the set. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
On screen, the emergency broadcast showed Blithers shortly after his helicopter landed. A group of men in riot gear grabbed him and shoved him into a completely blacked-out van. His security detail fought back, but they were put down swiftly and with prejudice. The ticker scrolling along the bottom of the screen stated that until further information came in or someone claimed responsibility, authorities were going on the assumption it was a terrorist group.
“Great, one more thing we’ll be blamed for,” Jasper grumbled.
“Better not.” Seamus had stopped pacing and stood off to the side of the TV. “Honestly, if they take him out for us, that solves our problem.”
Groaning, Edward dropped his head back on the sofa cushion. “This is not what I wanted.”
Nigel said, “You should be happy, mate. Now you don’t have to focus so hard on ruining him.”
“What about the VP?” Edward asked, picking up his head. “We know for a fact he was working with Blithers. What about those above him? Were others in the agency aware of his schemes against the president?”
“You wanted to ruin Blithers, and we did. Now for the love of God, let’s call it and go home.”
Edward glared at Jake. “Again, if you want to be a sitting duck, go ahead. I won’t stop you.”
“It would be suicide,” Leah said, frowning at her husband.
“This is getting out of hand,” Jake began.
“Yes, it is!” Standing, Edward crossed the room to where Jake stood with his arms folded over his chest. “It’s ridiculous, I know. And now that they know we’re alive, it’ll only get worse. They'll be determined to eliminate the threat we represent.”
“So, what then? We hide out for the rest of our lives? Because I’m not down for that, even for Bella’s sake.”
“None of us thought it would play out like this, Jacob.” Bella sounded weary, and Edward knew they must all feel that way. He was as tired of the game as they were, but he knew in his gut it wasn’t over yet.
“Personally, I would consider Blithers taken care of,” Emmett spoke up for the first time. “If the Taliban took him, it’s because they didn't want their dirty laundry aired on national television, at least not on someone else’s terms. I don’t see him living through that.”
Holden said, “That leaves VP Barrett. If we can target him in any specific manner, then we can call this mission a success.”
“We have endless recordings from the op five years ago.” Bella turned toward Holden. “The goal was to put you down, thinking you were the mole.”
“Yeah, thanks for that.”
“We held off when you took Quinn under your wing.”
“But now,” Edward said, “we need to review the footage and all the audio to see if there’s any hint of Barrett’s involvement.”
“How about the fact that he let the baddies walk right into the secure bunker?” Nigel reminded them. “You made it sound like he held the door open for them.”
“The agency had the intelligence about them targeting the PEOC and the president,” Holden said. “It was, in fact, Blithers who told me about their plan.”
Bella rubbed at her temple. “Plan B, which turned out to be Renee killing the president in exchange for money.”
The memory of that vicious betrayal was enough to make Edward’s chest hurt. After all the lying and the secrecy, after the false deaths and ghosts coming back to life, it should have been the end of it. Instead, they were back in a similar situation. “That’s why we have to stop them right now. We can’t just keep repeating this scenario every few years.”
“The president isn’t viable for reelection,” Holden said. “Barrett is running; he’s already talked about it extensively. His plan to be the most powerful man in the country might have failed before, but now he can do it the normal way.”
Emmett said, “We simply can’t allow him to be the nominee. Not a man who works with terrorists with the goal to take over the world.”
“Unfortunately,” Holden drawled, “there’s nothing legal we can do to stop him. Except, of course, if we can expose his relationship with Zion.”
“So, Blithers worked with the Taliban, and Barrett worked with Zion?” Nigel shook his head. “Some men can’t be arsed to get out of mum’s basement and go to work, and here these two cunts have enough ambition for the entire world.”
“So our new objective is Vice President Andrew Barrett?” Jasper clarified.
“Who’s his running mate? Has he announced that?” Bella asked the room.
“How much do you want to bet it was going to be Blithers,” Seamus stated. “Any takers?”
“No one wants to take on a losing bet,” Dylan said.
“Here.” Dara held up her finger. “‘Vice President of nearly eight years, Andrew Barrett has served his country faithfully. With one of the nation’s top advisors within the intelligence community by his side, Barrett and Blithers is the ticket to beat.’”
“Bingo,” Seamus sang softly.
“That’s great and all, but what do we do about it?” Jake grumbled.
“Barrett will be scrambling now that Blithers has been taken.” Edward stood, facing those in the living room. “Find me the smoking gun.”
Stalking into the kitchen, he tried to think of what they were missing. The one vital piece that would send the man to his knees. Though he didn’t have a personal vendetta against Barrett, he would take what he could get.
“And if the men who took Blithers were just putting him in hiding until this shit blows over?” Bella asked as she followed him in.
Edward held his arms out, and she automatically leaned against him. He wrapped her up in his embrace, and she rested her head on his chest. “Then we kill two birds with one stone.”
“I’ve been over the recordings, Edward. There’s nothing there.”
His brows went up automatically and he asked, “You have?”
“I wanted to find the one thing I could use against Holden to put him down for good.”
“My, my.”
She raised her face to his. “What?”
“You’re a little hellcat.” Tilting his head down, he kissed her nose. “And I thought I was ruthless.”
“You are.”
“Oh, good. I was worried I was getting rusty.”
She laughed, and his spirits raised considerably. Too bad they were still mired in deep shit.
“We’re even further behind on this than I’d hoped, then.”
“We simply have to start digging deeper,” she said. “Start by looking at the financials between Barrett and Blithers and use that to find out why one was paying the other off. And then we could always corner Amanda Barrett for answers.”
“With everything that just went down, her security detail will be on high alert.”
Humming, Bella grinned up at him. “Even for an attractive man who might run into her accidentally and flirt a bit?”
Edward’s eyes widened. “You want me to hit on the VP’s daughter?”
Her laugh was too loud and a little insulting. “Not you. Quinn.”
“Hey, now.” Gripping her upper arms, he moved her away from him and went to the fridge for a drink. “I think I could be successful, especially since she apparently likes older men.”
That just made her laugh harder.
“What?” he snarled, abandoning the bottle of water he’d gotten and snagging her up into his arms again. “Am I not old enough, or am I too old?”
“I just think it’s funny you’d compare yourself to Blithers when he has a good ten years on you.”
“I’ve got gray hairs and everything, Bella.”
She scoffed. “Barely any.” Running her fingers through the hair at his temples, she continued. “And besides, it looks distinguished on you. Me, I have to either accept I’m more gray than brown or dye it.”
“You’ll always be gorgeous to me, aingeal, regardless of what you choose.”
Planting her palms on his chest, she pushed up on her toes to kiss him. “You’re just saying that.”
“I am not,” he protested. “You know I mean it.”
“Either way, we need to figure out how to get to Amanda. She’s the key to finding out about the payoffs.”
“Barrett needed Blithers to stay quiet about something. It was big enough to hand over lots of cash, his daughter, and the spot as his running mate.”
“Exactly.” Bella ran her hands through his hair again, pulling his face down for another kiss. “I’m just thankful you made it out alive back there.”
“Staying alive is always my goal.”
“It’s rarely up to you if you meet that particular goal.”
“I hate to interrupt,” Quinn said from the doorway.
Holding out her hand, Bella turned from Edward. “What is it, sweetie?”
“When that agent took me to Renee instead of the secure site, I overheard something.”
“You never mentioned this before,” Edward said.
“I think I tried to block out everything that happened. For one, I had to come to terms with the farce we’d created around Mom’s death. Second, after killing Renee, I definitely tried to forget about that night.”
“All understandable.” Bella bit her lip. “So?”
“I heard them saying that the way they’d gathered the president, the vice president, and the speaker of the house together was against protocol.”
“Right,” Edward said, hoping he had more than that.
“But the agent—I forget his name—said it was intentional.”
“Right. Originally, they wanted to kill the president so Barrett would immediately take over.”
“But,” Quinn said to his father, “The speaker shouldn’t have had anything to do with that. If the president dies, the VP is next in line, no questions asked. The only reason to need the speaker is if both the president and the vice president die simultaneously.”
“You think the speaker had their hand in it?” Bella asked.
“It’s worth looking into,” Edward replied, trying to remember the name of the person since they were no longer in that position.
“Maybe Barrett promised the speaker they could be the VP for the remainder of the term if they assisted in letting Zion into the PEOC.”
“We always knew you had a knack for this,” Bella said, pulling Quinn in for a hug.
“Finding the proof might not be so easy,” he said, looking over at Edward.
“Finding them is priority number one. Do you remember who it was?”
Bella answered, “Deborah McAvoy.”
Striding from the kitchen to the dining room, Edward said, “Dara, Ben, find me information on Deborah McAvoy, former speaker of the house.”
“Ooh, goodie, a new target,” Dara replied, immediately typing on her laptop.
“Why her?” Ben asked.
“For now, it’s just a hunch. We think she and Barrett stepped aside when Zion came knocking with the plan of becoming the president and vice president.”
“I wonder if Blithers held it against Barrett for not picking him in the first place,” Bella said.
“Suddenly, this feels like we’re finally on the right path.” Edward clapped Quinn on the shoulder. “Good job, a mhic.”
Ben looked up from typing to say, “If we can find McAvoy, maybe we can pressure her to confess. She’s got to be shitting bricks right now with everyone around her disappearing or ending up on the six o’clock news.”
“We can only hope. Alright, everybody,” Edward said with a raised voice. “Time to get to work.”
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| Seamus |
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| Holden |
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| Quinn |
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