Chapter 5
Rav
I scrolled through the contact list for my Naples connections: Luigi at the marina, Sierra, who managed concierge services at a luxury hotel frequented by wealthy tourists, and Christophe, whose firm handled several archaeological sites.
They were all plugged into Naples’ unofficial information channels, but I’d only used them in this capacity a few times before. Not even a year ago, they’d helped us track down a fresco stolen from the Pompeii Archaeological Park—the type of work we usually did.
Fenix was quickly becoming a different kind of threat.
A knock came at my door, and I barked out, “On the phone.”
Ignoring my words, Scarlett slipped inside and closed the door behind her. She cocked her eyebrow, and without waiting for a response, she flicked the lock.
“Is that her?” She rounded my desk and leaned against it. “The woman from Afghanistan?”
Calisse. Scarlett had pulled out fragments of the story over the years, usually after too much to drink. But I’d never shared Brooke’s name or the details of what had happened. Scarlett had no doubt put it all together the moment I laid eyes on Brooke coming into the building.
“I have calls to make.” I flashed my phone at her, with Luigi’s name showing.
“She’s beautiful.”
Beautiful wasn’t a strong enough word for her. More like breathtaking, captivating, or a masterpiece. Her smile was like sunshine, and her touch was—
Stop it, man. She’s your past.
Scarlett took my phone and placed it on my desk, face down. “And I think she still has a thing for you.”
“And you’re basing that on what?” I folded my arms and frowned at her, fully aware the pose wouldn’t intimidate her like it did most others. “The five seconds we were in the same room?”
“The way she intentionally avoided looking at you. Her little flinch when you left.” Scarlett’s smile widened. “Plus, you’re still pretty cute, in a brooding mountain-man kind of way.”
“Cute?” I scoffed, looking away from her so I wouldn’t laugh. “I haven’t been cute since I was twelve.”
“Fine.” She rolled her eyes and nudged my chair with her foot. “Ruggedly handsome with a hint of danger. Better?”
“Much.” I slid my chair closer, unfolding my arms as hers opened up for me.
She wrapped me in a slow, fierce hug that reminded me of all the times we’d held each other through tragedies: whenever her father’s imprisonment made the news, my grandmother’s death, the year we both thought Noah had died.
The moment we watched his car careen off the bridge.
“Did you want to tell me the full story?”
“No.”
She chuckled, loosening her grip on me. “Then get your shit together, Rav. I need you focused for as long as they’re here.”
I pushed back in my chair and shook my head. Some days, it was as if she could read my thoughts before I’d fully formed them.
“I know this look,” she said, twirling her finger toward my face. “Don’t you dare shut down on me. Whatever history you have with Dr. McAllister, you need to compartmentalize it for now.”
“I’m fine.”
“Bullshit. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
But I had.
Her phone buzzed before I could protest any further. When she checked the screen, her expression shifted from friendly concern to sharp focus.
“It’s Noah,” she said, already accepting the call and activating speaker mode.
“Scarlett.” Noah’s voice was hushed, urgent, with the sound of wind and traffic in the background. “I don’t have much time.”
Noah was always smooth, controlled—the consummate manipulator. This anxious tone was so unlike him that my tactical instincts immediately flagged it.
“What’s wrong?” The concern in her voice worried me more than Noah’s words.
Scarlett controlled her emotions better than anyone I’d ever met, but somehow, this man continued to get under her skin.
And instead of controlling herself now, she was serving up her worry on a platter. Something he could twist.
“Your virus—Brie’s, I’m assuming—did a lot of damage.” His words tumbled out rapidly, almost breathless. “You need to back off. Now.”
Noah never showed vulnerability. Even before he vanished on us, he was never soft. If he couldn’t control his reaction to something, he’d lash out before he admitted the hurt. This panicked delivery was obviously calculated, designed to trigger an emotional response rather than critical thinking.
“Since when do you care about our safety?” Unlike them, I didn’t bother to hide the contempt in my voice.
A moment of silence, then: “Rav? Scar, you swore this line was secure. How many people are listening to this?”
“Answer the question,” I said.
“They’re accelerating everything.” A muffled sound came through the phone, as if he was moving positions. “They’re not ready. It’s reckless. People are going to die if they rush this.”
Scarlett’s face pinched. She was buying it. Every fucking second of it. “Where are you? We can help you get out.”
“I can’t leave now. Just stay away.”
“From where, Noah? Naples?”
“Stop fucking around with me, Scar, and call off your attack dogs. The Carabinieri didn’t find anything.”
The Carabinieri? We hadn’t contacted them. That had to be Pendragon’s doing. But we hadn’t told Pendragon about Naples until Brooke and Percival arrived.
Were they hiding information from us?
“What exactly are they accelerating?” I asked, leaning closer to the phone.
“The demonstration wasn’t supposed to happen for two more months. Now they’re talking days.” The sound of a car horn blared through the connection. “Look, you can’t—”
The line went dead.
“Noah never calls.” Scarlett stared at her phone. “He texts, but he doesn’t call.”
“And he’s never panicked.” It was too emotional. “It feels staged.”
“I don’t think so.” Scarlett pocketed her phone. “I don’t think it was fake.”
“He’s fooled you before.”
“True.” She glanced around the room, as though she were running calculations. “But my gut tells me he’s genuinely worried this time.”
I exhaled slowly. Scarlett’s instincts had saved us more times than I could count. As much as I distrusted Noah, I trusted her judgment. But my job was still our team’s security. “So what’s his angle? Why warn us to stay away?”
“He thinks we sent the Carabinieri. Maybe they suspect it was a salvo?”
Did that make sense? We disrupt their communications and file storage with Brie’s virus. We send in the police when Fenix is weak. “Or they think Brie got all of their information when she hacked their server at Mnemis, and they don’t know how much of it was corrupted?”
“I don’t know.” Scarlett pushed off my desk and walked toward the bookcase. “He could be playing both sides. Could have developed a conscience. Could genuinely be warning us to stay away.”
“Or he’s tempting us to head there because he’s already got a plan on how to use us again.”
Noah had conned us into doing his dirty work in England, Rome, Washington, and Monaco. He’d been Scarlett’s number two at Reynolds for years and knew exactly how to play all of us.
“It’s a trap,” I said, in case she wasn’t listening closely enough.
Scarlett adjusted one of the photos on the shelf, of us with Declan, when they’d graduated from college. My leave schedule had worked out perfectly, and I’d surprised them on their big day. “Whatever they mean when they say the phoenix will rise, they’re going to do it soon.”
“He said it would be a demonstration. That means public. And if they’re trying to prove its healing capabilities—”
“They’ll need a subject.”
“Just one?”
She turned to face me. “They’ve been working in the shadows too long. If they’re finally coming out into the open, it’s going to be significant.”
“‘People are going to die,’ he said. How many?”
Scarlett’s face hardened. “I need to go to Naples. Find out what Fenix is planning. If the police can’t—”
“You’re not going anywhere without me.” The words came automatically, the protective instinct that had defined our relationship since we were kids, unaltered by time. “But first we need to talk to the team.”
“And Pendragon. Because we sure as hell didn’t contact the Carabinieri.”
“Exactly what I was thinking.” I stood, moving to the door to open it for her. “If Pendragon knew about Naples before they arrived this morning, they’re holding things back.”
“Let’s find out what.” Scarlett put a hand up to stop me from opening the door. “And Rav? Can you work with Brooke?”
Visions flipped through my brain. Steadying her when an unidentified truck approached our convoy. Her muttering chemical formulas when she was stressed. The chill that wrapped around my heart when I saw her name on my phone for the last time.
I wasn’t that man anymore, and she wasn’t that woman.
It was a lifetime ago.
“I’ll do what needs to be done.” It wasn’t a direct answer, but it was the only one I had.
Scarlett nodded, but didn’t challenge my evasion. “That’s why I need you in Naples. Whatever happens, I know you’ll have my back.”
“Always.” That was the one promise I’d never broken and never would. “But for the record, I still think it’s a trap. You don’t leave my sight.”
She flipped into her operator mode—not the kind of operator mode I used, but the one that used charm and wit to convince people to do whatever she wanted—and smirked at me. “Malcolm might have a problem with that.”