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.”
Chapter 6
Brooke
“Iamsorry for how everything went down in Mnemis.” I sat between Brie and Will, showing them more detailed information about the presumptive test kits.
“Why do you have a section for hydrocarbons?” asked Will.
I’d expected hostility from their team after everything that had happened. Three of their team had left—the woman in the sling, Rav, and then Scarlett—but the rest of them continued working with us. Maybe they were still processing the shitshow my team had unwittingly been part of.
We had that in common with them, from the sounds of it.
None of us had seen Lark for the traitor he was.
“It’s for the?—”
The door swung open, and Scarlett strode in, cutting me off. “We have a situation.”
Rav followed her, looking different than he had when he’d left the meeting. More like he had at Mnemis after he’d grabbed a protective vest and M4 to rescue Brie.
Like he had that day on the road, when a truck got too close to our convoy. Focused. Intense. Ready to act.
My heart stuttered.
He’d held my knee, told me everything would be okay.
“Noah called,” Scarlett said, moving to stand behind the chair she’d used earlier.
“Called?” Brie’s voice rose slightly. “Not texted?”
“That”—Scarlett pointed at Brie—“was my first red flag. The second was the level of panic in his voice.”
She placed her phone on the table and tapped the screen a few times, activating a recording. A man’s voice filled the room, tense and hurried. I watched the Reynolds team as they listened—the slight narrowing of Evelyn’s eyes, Malcolm’s hand drifting protectively toward Scarlett, the way Brie and Will exchanged worried glances.
“They’re accelerating everything. They’re not ready. It’s reckless. People are going to die if they rush this.”
When the recording reached the part about the Carabinieri, Percival straightened in his seat. I kept my eyes on the phone, but my mind was racing. Had Pendragon leadership deployed assets without telling us? It wouldn’t be the first time information was compartmentalized, but why send us here if they already knew where to find the Greek Fire?
The recording continued with Rav asking what they were accelerating, Noah’s response about a demonstration being moved up, and finally the abrupt disconnection.
“Noah never calls, and he never panics,” Scarlett said as the recording ended. “And he certainly never warns us about potential danger.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Malcolm said, leaning forward. “He warned Emmett and Jenn before everything went sideways in Monaco. Told them we should have left. If they had, Jenn wouldn’t have been taken.”
I had questions, but this wasn’t the time to ask.
Rav folded his arms and leaned against the door, his dark eyes tracing from Percival to me and back. “The Carabinieri. That was you?”
I checked with Percival, who shook his head. “We didn’t contact anyone about this.”
“But someone from Pendragon did,” Rav countered.
His accusation stung, mostly because I couldn’t deny it. Keeping any of us in the dark was dangerous. Foolish.
“I don’t have that information,” I said. “If someone higher up sent local authorities, they didn’t inform us.”
Percival cleared his throat. “I’ll contact headquarters. Our team’s been solely responsible for the Greek Fire investigation for years, but maybe after the incident in Mnemis, they’re spinning up parallel operations.”
