Vivi simply shrugged. “Yeah, weird.”
Oh. She’d been given a mission. So she was more comfortable here than she let on. Vivi always said she did nothing but answer the phones.
“Tomorrow morning. There’s a gym on the fourth floor. Meet me there before breakfast. And Sosa, was there really a doll?”
Sosa stopped, her hand on the door. She didn’t look back. “Maybe there was. Maybe there wasn’t. In the end, none of it matters.”
She walked out and the door closed quietly behind her.
Kala nodded, her lips curling up in a smile. “I like her.”
Kenzie rolled her eyes and turned to Vivi. “All right, what’s up with you? That should have turned into a session.”
Sophy joined her roomie, standing side by side with her. “She doesn’t know us. She thinks we’re nothing more than a receptionist and a rich girl working with her even wealthier uncle, and I’m not going to disabuse her of the notion. You know I love to use the airhead, rich-girl thing.”
“So Ariel wants the two of you to watch them?” Kenzie asked.
“I was going to if Ariel didn’t,” Kala admitted. “They’ll be on their guard around us.”
“They’ll be on their guard around everyone.” Vivi’s pretty face had lost its careless expression, and she was the hawk Kenzie knew. “But they might slip up, and they don’t know how much Russian we understand.”
“I’ve already caught them talking about whether they can trust your parents.” Sophy’s Russian was every bit as solid as Kenzie’s or Kala’s. They’d all grown up speaking it as often as they did English.
Kala frowned. “I thought Gabby’s Russian was terrible. Didn’t Sosa say that?”
Kenzie nodded. “She did.”
Sophy shrugged. “It’s not great but they do go into Russian when they obviously don’t want us to understand. Sometimes French, but Sosa constantly points out how much she hates it.”
“What’s your take on them?” She trusted Vivi’s instincts.
“One of them is lying. They don’t fit right. I know that sounds weird and everyone reacts differently to trauma, but something is off between them. I’ll figure it out,” Vivi said with confidence. “We’re taking them to buy some clothes tomorrow, and we’re going to make it a whole girls day and see if we can learn anything else.”
“They have zero net profile I can find, but I’m not done yet.” Sophy might be working as some kind of assistant to her uncle, but she had absolutely followed in her momma’s footsteps. She was a phenomenal hacker. “And it was Damon and Penny who asked us to figure out the newbies. He’s worried your mom and dad are soft when it comes to this. Ariel is planning on having sessions with them, and she’s excellent at what she does so Damon and Penny feel comfortable with her profile, but they wanted some more insider info. I’m going to pull out the black card tomorrow. That makes me lots of friends.”
It made a lot of people try to take advantage of her.
“I know you’re working for the Brits, but I would love a report on anything you find,” Kala said before sitting back down at her station and picking up her brush. “Now can we get to the questions I’ve been waiting to ask for hours and hours.”
Oh, there was no question what was about to come out of her sister’s mouth. “You can’t kill Ben.”
“Why would we kill Ben?” Sophy asked.
Vivi sighed like she was disappointed, like she’d hoped she hadn’t been right. “He was kind of cold when he first came in. He’s probably struggling with the whole you’re twins thing. Have you always worked together well?”
“No, and we finally talked. Well, he had me talk.” She stared at herself in the mirror. She was on some sort of precipice. Whatever happened next would change her life for the good or the worse, and she wasn’t sure how she would bet this would go. “It was good. He’s just unsure about how to handle his role as my Dom.”
“Is he?” Kala asked. “Because I did not see a Dom this afternoon. I saw a sulky boy.”
She wanted to argue, but she’d kind of thought the same. “He made up for it.”
“I don’t see how. Oh, I’m sure he blew your mind in bed, but you know that’s for him, too,” Kala began. “He’s the kind of guy who definitely thinks he can control you through sex.”
And Kenzie shut down entirely. Kala was talking about how Cooper would never do that to her and how TJ worships the ground Lou walks on and Kenzie should demand better.
A weird numbness settled over her as she brushed her hair and finished her makeup. Kala always did this with her boyfriends. They weren’t good enough. Not smart enough or strong enough. They were all assholes who didn’t fit because they hadn’t grown up together. Kala wouldn’t admit that. She would say things like Matt was a dick face because he watched a lot of sports. Leo was wrong for her because he didn’t understand foreign policy.
TJ didn’t understand foreign policy either, but he was perfect for Lou.
