CHAPTER EIGHT
When the hour ended, Aleks strolled in at the last second. “Party is here now. We begin?”
“Yes, we’re going to be training,” Payton informed us, “inside the VR rooms.”
The multipurpose floor at Delta was large and cavernous, big enough to learn how to drive a motorcycle. We’d also had team training up here in a sort of extreme paintball game with towering plywood buildings arranged to resemble an abandoned city in a war-torn country. Like its name suggested, the eighth floor at Delta held endless possibilities.
The only permanent structures, apart from the cement pillars to support the roof of the building, were the cubicles for the virtual reality sessions.
The tech in them was a lot more than virtual reality. With total sound, visual, freedom of movement, and feedback from physics broadcast by magnetics communicating with the specially designed bodysuits and the magnets in the floor, walls, and ceiling, these were only one step down from reality.
My mind certainly reacted in an extreme way when they unknowingly loaded a program where Nikolai Ivanov had been involved. The locals, hired to kidnap agents and take us to their employer, had been the scenario chosen to train the Cardinals and me to work cohesively in a difficult situation. I’d ended up giving them more insight into the fates of their missing agents, which provided the video feed for the “training,” than anyone anticipated.
I was still traumatized by it.
The suit had translated the feel of Ivanov’s hand on my shoulder, and though smell wasn’t a sense addressed in the cubicles, my mind had easily supplied the scents of vodka and bleach that always clung to him. Nikolai Ivanov had been the big boss who had hired local help, and they’d brought us right to him.
CJ and Karl couldn’t terminate the software fast enough to quell my panic attack.
“In here?” I questioned, clearing my throat when it trembled.
Payton paused and broke off from the others. “Yes, but the application won’t be running. Pick your own room, and we’ll go from there, luv.”
Squaring my shoulders, I slipped inside. The floor wasn’t turned on yet, so it remained inert beneath my feet instead of acting like a three-sixty treadmill when activated.
I was still warring with myself about slipping on the head gear when CJ opened my door. “Come on, we’re going to squeeze into Emerson’s.”
“Oh,” I replied as I began to understand. “You just needed video of us going into the rooms as if we were training.”
“Yep. I already timed and set up the loop beforehand, and since nobody asked any incriminating questions, we don’t have to make any adjustments to the hard copies either. We’re all set.”
The others were already inside, and that did wonders for helping me relax.
“But how secure is this to hold a conversation?” Duane prodded, obviously having been caught up to speed by Payton while CJ fetched me.
CJ scoffed. “Please. I built these puppies from the ground up. If I say jump, they ask me how high. CJ Tate is their master.”
Oh.
There he went again, strutting about with unwavering confidence over his skills. A shiver traced up my spine.
“Enough.” Payton silenced the chatter. “We’re secured here, but we have finite time. CJ loaded a training exercise that will run approximately thirty minutes, so let’s cut to the chase. Now, Callie?”
“Hmm?”
Jace scoffed. “What do you mean, hmm? You’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do, missy. You’ve been in contact with Vasily Petrov, haven’t you?”
“Oh, right. Sorry, I’m not used to steering the conversation.” I pulled at the edges of my tank top. “Well, after the whole graveyard standoff with the Director of the CIA, I figured it would be better if you guys didn’t hear about it when Petrov emailed me one day out of the blue.”
“Plausible deniability?” Bryce guessed, his eyebrow piercing dancing with his arched brow.
“Exactly.”
Payton sighed. “Callie,” he began but stopped. After ten drawn out seconds of silence, he glanced at Duane, looking more frazzled than I’d ever seen him.
Duane chuckled. “Our unflappable leader at a loss? Callie, I’d buy you lunch if I didn’t know the reason he was in this state.” Duane stepped closer, the smell of his spearmint gum washing over me as he pressed our foreheads together. “Babygirl, you have to stop doing this. Your lone ranger routine is giving Emerson gray hair, not that he could tell.”
“I’d be able to tell,” Payton cut in hotly.
Duane lifted his head up, a crooked smirk on his face. “Oh yeah? Then why haven’t you dealt with the ones on your temples yet? Are you embracing your age, old man?”
Payton’s hand went up to his hairline before he caught the devilish grin dancing on Duane’s lips. “I’m color challenged, not blind. Gray hair would register as a different shade.”
“You assume,” Duane remarked.
Payton scowled at him. Nobody could ruffle Payton’s feathers quite like Dr. Duane Scott.
I snorted, feeling tears filling my eyes for some reason. “I don’t mean to isolate myself so much.”
Duane cursed. “Aw, hell, babygirl, don’t cry.” He tugged me into a tight hug, his thickly muscled body surrounding my petite frame. “We know you don’t. It was part of how you survived your childhood. Believe me, we get that. If you weren’t so independent and quick on your feet, who knows what might have happened to you?”
If my mind’s recreation of Ivanov’s ghost was accurate, I could take several guesses, none of which ended favorably.
Duane brushed his hand over my hair before cupping the back of my neck. “And on top of that, our director asked you to keep secrets from us, so you haven’t been given the best example of how our team units are intended to operate at Delta—at least the functional ones, anyway.”
“Yeah, Callie-Cat.” Corbin nudged my shoulder with his. “We’re supposed to be your ride or die. You shouldn’t worry about protecting us from that mean old CIA Director Madam Rollins. For better or worse, we’re a team. We share the wins and losses.”
I nodded. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
Duane chuffed me under the chin. “Don’t apologize, babygirl. Just promise you’ll try to remember that next time. We’re here for you, no matter what.”
“Thank you, Dr. Scott,” Payton added primly, straightening his heather gray waistcoat. “Callie, do you understand that you should always come to us—any of us—with matters in the future?” I nodded. “Excellent. Would you care to share what Mr. Petrov said when he reached out?”
“Not much. Initially, I think he just wanted to check in with me because he asked how I was doing, but then he kept sending emails about benign stuff happening in the world—never anything about Russia.”
“You’ve received several?”
I nodded. “It’s sort of become a monthly thing.”
“And when did he first contact you?”
“Right after—” The proposal. I’d just been hit with one shock, only to be whacked with another that evening while checking my inbox. “Ah, sometime past my twenty-first birthday,” I finished vaguely instead.
“About five months after he gave three US agencies the slip?” Bryce drawled, a slight hint of amusement in his expression. He relished sticking it to the man as much as he enjoyed rebelling against the tight socialite leash his parents used to raise him.
Payton scratched his chin, and I felt the urge to kiss the dimple there. “Perhaps I was mistaken. Maybe Mr. Petrov doesn’t hold you responsible for his daughter’s death. It’s almost as if he sees you as a last link to her, a surrogate daughter, if you will.”
“More so if he sends you monthly check-ins,” Duane added. “Natasia disowned her father, even took her mother’s maiden name.”
“And Mr. Petrov doesn’t blame you for her death at all?” Payton verified.
“No,” I answered.
“Don’t do that,” Brock growled. “Du?o, you know it was Ivanov who killed her, not you. Stop blaming yourself.”
“Sure, it’s easy to understand that here.” I rapped my knuckles against my head. “But neither of them would have even been in that building if it weren’t for me,” I reminded him, trying not to replay the last seconds before the explosion—one second having them in sight, and the next, their lives were snuffed out by a fiery blaze.
Payton seemed stuck a step behind our conversation when he spoke, looking completely baffled. “Mr. Petrov holds Ivanov entirely responsible for his only daughter’s death.”
A small, roguish smile started on Duane’s features. He was laughing at Payton. “So it seems.”
“Huh,” Payton murmured.
It was as if he didn’t know how to react with the realization that we weren’t dealing with a deranged movie villain bearing a misplaced grudge. “That’s… healthy of Mr. Petrov.”
“Wait,” CJ interrupted. “Forget the why and what. How did Natasia’s father contact you? Rollins all but told you she’d be watching his every move after the free pass he earned to visit his daughter’s grave. A dozen different alarms should have pinged the second you received any form of communication from him.”
I paused, meeting the intensity of CJ’s question. “You sound like you already know the answer.”
“You still access the dark web.”
I nodded.
“Callie, there are bad people on there.”
“It keeps me useful,” I argued. “If I don’t keep a toe in it, then I lose all my skills and knowledge. You’ve seen how fast the landscape changes on the web. The CIA and Delta obviously agreed because they hired me on without even batting an eye at my checkered past.”
“Callie—”
Jace interrupted his twin. “Listen, I get that the rest of us aren’t as tech savvy as you two, but Callie’s survived surfing around on there for years. Are you saying she’s now less smart than she was at eleven?”
CJ’s face pinched. “No—”
“Then let’s not make this a hill, okay? We’re still trying to navigate through the mountains.”
“Okay. Sorry, Callie,” CJ apologized, looking sheepish. “I got a little overprotective. Maybe I can understand Aleks and Brock better when they turn into boorish brutes.”
“Clock it, tech boy,” Aleks growled.
CJ blinked. “C-Clock what?”
Aleks tilted his head, his long, wavy locks falling over his shoulder. “Nothing. It is warning, da?” He pointed to his wrist. “Like watch, but clock is big for big threat.”
“Oh! Watch it.”
“Guys,” Jace cut in. “Am I always going to interpret for you two?”
The question was directed at Aleks and CJ, and I was reminded that the three of them had made up the entirety of the Tate Team before merging into one big group. They integrated so well with others that I tried recalling what their dynamics had been before. It felt like decades had passed when it’d only been two years since I first met them, floating abandoned in that death tank in Russia.
They answered simultaneously.
“Da.”
“Most likely.”
“Callie,” Duane began, “why involve Petrov in this? Rollins warned you that if they found him, they’d lock him away for good. Be honest. Would you be able to live with the guilt knowing you were partially responsible?”
“I hadn’t considered that,” I replied slowly, “but I would still like to. Sure, knowing I got his daughter killed and, subsequently, him locked up would haunt me, but Tarasovich running loose with free rein is worse. Petrov has the means and the influence to help us track him down faster.”
Corbin shuddered. “Can’t blame your call on T-boy, Callie-Cat. Not after that Marquis de Sade presentation from Hello Kitty you outlined in our debriefing.”
“But what about the CIA?” Bryce countered. “If they see we’ve been communicating with a criminal on their most dangerous list, then they could lock us up for collusion.”
Corbin shoved him. “Hey, we can’t tell Callie we’re her ride or die and then turn around and cry take backsies.”
“I’m not,” Bryce protested. “I’m posing the difficult questions everyone’s thinking but no one wants to voice.”
“Let’s not jump straight to the assumption Petrov is willing to help,” CJ suggested. “If they’ve been communicating for months beneath the CIA’s nose, then Callie can reach out and ask him without causing any harm. If Petrov thinks it’s too risky, then he’ll say no, and there’s no skin off our nose, right?”
Payton gave a small, enigmatic smile. “That sounds brilliant. All agreed?”
We did.