Her finger lost its point as she flattened her hand on her husband’s chest and stepped closer. “That’s not what that meant, Granger.”
Jude had had enough. Seeing them together—loving, being with each other when he couldn’t be with Ella—hurt. He cleared his throat. “Can you hash this out later?”
They both straightened and glared at him. Vivi huffed. “You’re causing me issues, Dagan. I have nothing more to give you, and I’m buried in deciphering this code from the file Jonah and Rook retrieved yesterday.”
“I need to find her, Vivi. She’s in danger,” Jude bit out. He’d run over every single second he’d been with Ella and the Piper, and nothing added up the way it should.
He could say with spectacular clarity that Ella had been playing a dangerous game while working for Endgame. Double agent indeed. She’d manipulated them all, signed on for the cause, and done the dirty work for the Piper.
The hell of it was, the Piper was Endgame Ops’ creator. Why would he instigate an op within an op? What was he hiding? The latter question bothered Jude the most. If they couldn’t trust the man who’d created them, who the hell could they trust?
Jude had yet to speak to King about his theories. King had ripped him a new asshole earlier, telling him to leave the issue of Ella Banning where it was…in King’s hands. Jude hadn’t even tried to lie to his team leader. He’d shrugged and ignored the edict. It had frustrated King, but Jude wouldn’t say one thing and do another. It wasn’t in his makeup.
“She is in danger. But she knew what she was getting into when she signed on. I guess we could all talk to the Piper about the danger she’s in, yeah?” Vivi asked around the pencil she now held between her lips.
Rook went on alert, hands on his wife’s shoulders, squeezing. “What the hell does that mean, woman?”
“He’s been pulling all of our strings for years, Rook. He started with you and Jonah four years ago, then he brought in King to lead you all. He allowed the CIA to put not one, but two analysts on the team, knowing you already had me. He’s had that damn file you took from that safety deposit box in Oklahoma City, and he hasn’t let me see it again. He’s got answers…”
Rook spun her chair around and leaned over her. “You told me you wouldn’t dive into that disk, Vivi.”
Vivi’s hand shook as she brushed a strand of hair away from her face. Jude noticed it all, but even in the midst of that, the woman carried a secret smile on her lips. She loved playing Rook.
Jude rubbed his chest. He missed her. “Come on, people. Focus.” He really needed them to stop their shit.
Rook glared at him. Vivi continued to look up at her man. “I only peeked, and he took it before I could copy it—”
Her words cut off because her husband’s hand covered her mouth. “Stop.” Rook glanced at Jude and said, “Not a word to anybody.”
Jude raised his right hand. “Swear it. But only if she gives me Ella’s location.”
“I’m good, Dagan, but she’s gone ghost, and not even I can track a ghost,” Vivi told him, a mournful quality to her voice that stung him.
Jude cursed and ran a hand over his hair.
“But I do know that Svetlana Markov is headed for Moscow. In fact, she landed earlier today and registered a room at the Four Seasons…ummm, a penthouse suite,” Vivi dropped into his silence.
Rook straightened and sighed. “Stop doing this to him, baby. You’re tearing him apart.”
Vivi grabbed Rook’s hand, entwining their fingers, locking them together. “He looked at her the way you look at me, Rook. The way I’m sure I look at you. What they have doesn’t die. Besides, I owe him one…or twelve.”
“For what?” Rook asked in outrage.
“Ukraine,” Jude answered. He’d buried himself in intelligence gathering when he’d first heard rumors of a woman with a gaze of frost and a bullet scar at her temple making waves for Horace Dresden. During a two-day stint in Ukraine tracking a former Russian FSB agent, Jude had hit a gold mine. He’d managed to get a shit-ton of information from the former agent. Of course, he’d had the man strung up and hooked to battery cables at the time, but the FSB agent had sung a nice tune. Jude had netted information about Dresden hunting Rook’s wife.
Dresden had it bad for the former CIA analyst. Whether it was to kill her or have her skill set for himself was anyone’s guess. Had Jude not given Rook the intel, Vivi might well be in Dresden’s clutches today.
Rook let a really foul word slip out before he looked at Jude. “She’s right.”
Jude nodded in agreement.
“But this is it. She gives you this, and you don’t ask her anymore, Keeper. King would have my ass, and man, this shit just isn’t good for you. If she wanted to be here, she would be. She’s obviously a lost cause.”
Jude was in the other man’s face just that quick. He pushed Rook against the opposite wall and got real close. He didn’t spare a second to acknowledge that Rook was allowing this to happen. Rook and Jude were evenly matched, but Jude had rage bleeding through him. Rook only had pity.
“Don’t say that,” Jude pushed out between clenched teeth.
“Somebody needs to,” Rook responded.
Vivi reached for Jude, placing a hand on his back. Rook growled, but Vivi just shushed him. “There’s more at play here. King’s right. We don’t know everything. You find her and keep her safe, because I have a bad feeling the Piper is using her for something bigger than any of us realize.”
Jude snapped his gaze to her. He hadn’t breathed a word of what had happened in Sarajevo to anyone. That meant Vivi had her own suspicions. He wanted to talk theories with
