I rallied a sense of what once allowed me to dominate the family—rule the roost, as Amy sometimes quipped—and said, amazingly firmly: “Ride the bus or have Max drive. I do not care. But I will not waste my time dragging your ass back and forth to school.”
Pietr’s eyes flared and Max’s hand settled on his shoulder, acknowledging the challenge to the family’s alpha.
I raised my mug in a salute and looked flat at Amy.
Pietr read my warning clearly.
Amy knew we were odd. She realized there were things vastly different about us. Most she probably equated to our Russian heritage and travels in Europe. But she didn’t want to know how different we were. And if Pietr changed just to show me who was boss in the Rusakova household, it’d ruin every tenuous thing holding Max and Amy together.
As much as Pietr and Max argued, Pietr would never ruin Max’s chance at a real relationship. He understood just how precious they were now.
We all did—especially in the absence of one in particular.
There was a noise outside.
“Crap. That’s the bus. Come on.” Amy grabbed Max by the hand and pushed past Cat and Pietr, swinging the door open.
The chill of autumn woke me further and damped down the heat burning in Pietr’s eyes. With a frown, he turned and followed the others from the house.
Alexi
I was headed to the kitchen with my empty plate and coffee mug when someone knocked on the door. “It’s open.” I no longer bothered to lock the door since the CIA and Russian Mafia knew where we lived. If they wanted us badly enough a single deadbolt surely would not keep them out.
Luckily the one thing all sides seemed to want even more than our capture was the illusion of normalcy. Breaking down our door and dragging out a bunch of good-looking teens (and myself) would certainly draw attention to what was going on in and around Junction and Farthington.
So we had an uneasy peace.
Or a stalemate.
Either was more nerve-wracking than a full-out onslaught. It was like having a quiet neighbor digging up his backyard. You wanted to believe it was in the name of gardening, but you never understood the depth of your unease until people started going missing.
Wanda found me in the kitchen. “Morning, sunshine.”
I grunted, looking her up and down. Even Wanda, with her brutally pulled back blond ponytail and all-business-like attitude, was beginning to appear almost feminine.
I needed to get out more.
“Is it wise for you to be seen here?”
“I took some precautions.”
“Hmm.” Refilling my coffee mug, I asked, “So how goes it for a guard of the order?” The steaming black stuff couldn’t be made strong enough to help me tolerate a morning visit from her.
“Ever get the feeling you’re being lied to?”
My sipping grew cautious. “I dealt with lies frequently when I was alpha.”
“But were you ever lied to?”
“Must I explain the nature of teenage siblings—or, better yet, the black market, to a member of the CIA?” I sat.
She moved to the counter and helped herself to a mug and coffee, emptying the pot.
Cruel woman.
“I get the feeling things aren’t what they seem at my job.”
“Do you refer to the cover job you hold as a research librarian or your actual job?”
“Actual.”
“And you thought the CIA would be honest with its employees—an organization that deals regularly with liars of all nationalities?”
“You wonder why your phone is tapped.”
“Nyet. I do not.”
“What if the CIA branch I work for…” She paused, staring into her coffee cup. “What if…”
“The very best fiction starts with a simple ‘what if.’”
“What if it’s not the CIA at all, but something else entirely?”
I set down my mug. “That would be a fascinating bit of—”
“Don’t say fiction,” she warned, her tone dangerously flat. “I’m starting to think it’s fact.”
“Why?” I slugged back a swallow of coffee, needing the acrid heat to sharpen my senses. “And why tell me this?”
“I don’t know who else to tell. I need to work it all out. Puzzle the pieces together. Hearing it out loud might help.”
“Is there not a mirror in your flat? Say it there.” I licked my lips. Mentally I measured the angle of her eyebrows, the dimension of her eyes, the set of her mouth, the width of her nostrils, trying to find the truth in the mathematics of expression. Either she believed what she was saying or she was an actor of the finest caliber. “So tell me. How is the CIA not like the CIA?”
“When I was transferred out here, it wasn’t a promotion.”
“But Junction’s such a thriving metropolis,” I scoffed.
She ignored me and plowed forward. “There had been problems with my boss.… We had been…”
“… in a situation that made you appear to be a woman of loose morals? Of easy virtue?” I interjected. I was beginning to enjoy my morning after all.
“His wife objected to the intimacy of our relationship.”
I blinked. Wanda seemed the stoic type. The never-break-a-law-or-moral-code type.
“So I can make you shut up.” She was not proud of the realization. “He transferred me out here. I figured I’d be digging through bogus Cold War paperwork at the warehouse forever.”
I raised my hand. “Why do we have a warehouse of important government-type files in this region?”
“Cheaper real estate. Our government makes cuts in strange areas. So I was excited to get out of there—even on a wild-goose chase—well, a wild-werewolf chase. Even if I—who never understood the Dewey decimal system—was sentenced to spend time as a research librarian. I took a pay cut, another transfer, but other agents were losing their jobs back at headquarters. I couldn’t imagine that.”
“You didn’t ask questions.”
“No. I even felt lucky.” She looked up from the cup. “But with all this—me having to tell my superiors so often we couldn’t bust down your door and drag your asses out—”
“Thank you for that. What may at first appear a ballsy, self-confident move often equates with shortsightedness and stupidity. And Cat seems to like the door attached and the upholstery not so bloodstained.”