“Tomorrow then,” she said and made a note on her tablet. “Dresden is dead. Gabrielle Moeller is in a safe house outside DC, and now we’ve got Nina on deck.”
“Has there been any significant troop movement along the Russian-Crimean border?” Ella asked.
Vivi gave a negative shake of her head. “Not yet, but there are murmurs.”
“But you can bet your sweet ass Russia will begin making military moves to protect that oil. Dresden never got his money, but someone wants it. Which brings me to some information I need to share,” Ella stated.
She took a deep breath. Jude rubbed her leg under the table. Any comfort he could give her, he would. “I was with Dresden for a year, trying to gather information on the group he worked for or with. I still don’t know the specifics. I did things I can’t take back. Saw things that will haunt me for eternity. But it wasn’t until right before he shot me that I got a name I’d been seeking for a year.”
“You don’t want to do that,” Anna Beth Caine interrupted Ella, fear a tattoo on her face. “Not yet. That name is too dangerous.”
Ella looked at Anna Beth, clearly not surprised the other woman knew the name she was about impart. “It’s okay, AB. We’re team. We’ll protect you.”
Silence reigned as everyone waited.
“William Ricker,” Ella said in the quiet.
Anna Beth shook her head. King hung his. The other men and women around the table frowned.
“Okay, this seems a little melodramatic, but who’s William Ricker?” Black asked.
“I don’t know,” Ella said.
“I don’t either,” Vivi stated. “But I will soon.” She gave Anna Beth a pointed look.
“How do you know Dresden wasn’t lying?” Knight asked.
“Because he gloated. He knew he was going to shoot me. The dead don’t tell tales,” Ella reminded him.
“Unless they’re not dead,” Chase said. When everyone looked at him, he threw up his hands. “Look, I’m just saying.” He pointed at Knight, Ella, Madoc, and the board that held Nina’s picture. “Dead, then not dead. Seems to me Dresden made a horrible miscalculation.”
“True that,” Jude bit out. “And I’ll thank God every day for it.”
Ella grabbed his hand, interlocking their fingers and holding on.
“The Alliance,” Anna Beth whispered. “William Ricker has ties to the Alliance. Ricker owns a global conglomerate that contains everything from the largest pharmaceutical company in the world to an automaker. And I can’t tell you more, because I don’t have it. I can help you crack the fail-safe, but I don’t have any more than that. Please don’t ask.”
“Vivi, get on it,” King ordered.
“That’s the group,” Ella said aloud, reaching for Jude’s leg and squeezing, her worry and fear communicated clearly in the gesture. “The Alliance. That’s the group the Piper is hunting. It feels right.”
“Or he’s running from it,” Black threw in. “I’ve heard of them before, a splinter group, real Illuminati-type stuff, that’s been talked about for years now. Just hints and rumors, nothing concrete. Let me tap some of my resources in London. I’ll get back to Vivi with what I find.”
King nodded. “Okay, so everybody knows the balls we’re juggling—Nina Lassiter, the Piper’s location and story, and now William Ricker and his Alliance. We all need to be ready to move. Black, I need you on Dr. Moeller. Can you bring her to base so we can pick her brain as well? I think Anna Beth would like to see her friend too.”
Black nodded but not before glancing at Chase, a question in his gaze, almost as if he was asking permission. Chase just shook his head; his face hard, his eyes even harder. Anna Beth didn’t say anything, and Jude thought that unusual. Jesus, there were too many secrets. They’d spend eternity digging out from under them.
“I say a couple of us head to Alaska, see if we can’t find Nina Lassiter. Who’s in?” King asked.
“Me,” Jude offered immediately.
“I’m in,” Black said right after Jude. “I’ll grab Dr. Moeller and be back tomorrow.”
“Get on it. Brody, you and Rook are here. Chase, I need you and Knight back on Nadege. Take him out. It’s what you do; handle it. No capture. Straight kill order.”
Chase and Knight nodded. Brody looked pissed. Rook looked bored.
“We good?” King asked.
Everyone affirmed.
“Don’t be brave,” King said into the sudden silence.
“Be accurate,” the team responded automatically.
Jude helped Ella up the stairs and to their room. He helped her shower, making sure her wound was covered so she could get in the water. He stood behind her, washing her body slowly and thoroughly. He was as clinical as he could be, considering she was his woman and he loved her body.
She quirked a lip at his hard cock, and he shrugged, completely unrepentant. Ella laughed, and Jude smiled at the sound. He dried them off, dried her hair, and got them both dressed.
He settled her in their bed and climbed in behind her, her body curving into his as effortlessly as always. Her cat, Chica, jumped lightly on the bed, walking in a circle before she curled into a ball at Ella’s feet. Jude shook his head. Only Ella could find a goddamn cat in the middle of a snowstorm.
“Will we rebuild in New Mexico?” she asked softly, twining her fingers with his.
“Maybe,” he murmured at her neck.
“Have you talked to Tia Rosa?”
“She’s fine. She knows the house is gone, and she knows you’re alive. Says she can’t wait to see you again,” Jude told his lady.
“She wasn’t shocked?” Ella asked, worry in her tone.
“Nah. She’s the one who taught me that not everything is as it seems,” Jude said into her hair.
“Hmmm,” Ella mumbled as she turned over in his arms and rested her head on his chest.
Long moments of silence passed, while Jude soaked up the fact that she was with him, alive. He listened to her
