Willa looked around her kitchen. Cinnamon. She knew there was cinnamon in there somewhere. She had been through the entire pantry and she’d found about three containers of whole cinnamon sticks, but not one thing of ground cinnamon. What the hell did she need that many containers of whole cinnamon sticks for?

She tugged the barstool to the other cabinet and climbed up as she dug deeper into the pantry, looking for any sign of the little metal container.

“Anything I can help with?”

She jumped at the sudden question from James. She narrowly avoided hitting her head on the top of the pantry and looked down at where he stood beneath her. His hair was still damp from his shower and there were a few little droplets of water on his shoulders. She had to bite back the urge to lick them off. “I’m good,” she said with false enthusiasm.

James looked decidedly unconvinced. “Want to tell me what you’re doing up there?”

“Trying to find the cinnamon.”

“Cinnamon? Why?”

She let out a sigh as she went back to digging in the cabinet. “I’m making my super-secret French toast recipe.”

“Super-secret?”

“Orange zest and orange-flavored liqueur. Your tongue will never know what hit it.”

“So it’s not so secret.”

“I just assumed I could trust you.” She poked her head out of the cabinet. “I can trust you with my super-secret French toast recipe, can’t I?”

He held up his hands. “Hey. Your secret is safe with me. Is this a family recipe?”

“No. Martha Stewart. I might be exaggerating when I call it a secret recipe.” She was just going back into the cabinet when she saw the bright red cap. Boom! Success! She pulled out the cinnamon victoriously before she hopped off the stool and went back to where she was prepping everything. The eggs, bread, and other various ingredients were all set out.

“You don’t have to do anything fancy. I’m good with just eggs.” James leaned on the island.

“It’s only polite that after a night of good sex, the hostess provides an amazing breakfast. That’s common knowledge.”

“You do this for all the guys who stay over?”

She looked at him from narrowed eyes. “Is that your way of asking if I sleep around a lot?”

A muscle in the back of his jaw ticked. “Not exactly. But since you brought it up....”

She raised a brow. James, asking personal information about her? Things really had changed in such a short period of time. “Well, the number is small enough that I haven’t lost track and big enough that I’m not telling you after our first date.” She frowned. “After no dates? Does having sex one time count as a date?”

“Multiple times,” pointed out James.

“Multiple times then. Either way, there are some things about me that will just have to remain mysterious, Mr. Badass Mercenary.”

He didn’t seem amused, but she swore the corner of his mouth almost tugged into a smile.

Before she could give him any more crap, the elevator doors opened and Willa stiffened. She knew that Toni had access to her apartment, but she was so used to living alone that people coming and going was unsettling.

She went to go see who it was, but James held up a hand to signal her to stay where she was as he moved silently toward the entryway. A few seconds later, she heard his annoyed voice saying, “A phone call wouldn’t hurt.”

“Did I interrupt you two, Casanova?” Willa recognized Toni’s voice. Willa wore some loose blue-striped pajama pants and a tight tank top. She would prefer to have a sweater on if she was having company, but considering Toni didn’t announce herself, she’d just have to deal with Willa’s braless self. She left the kitchen to say hello and froze when she realized Toni wasn’t alone. She was with an uptight-looking man—Scott Hart, she assumed—and two new people.

Willa froze and wrapped her arms over her chest. She could go out in the skimpiest of skimpy dresses and feel utterly confident, but somehow the fact that she’d had a night full of sex made even this simple outfit seem dirty.

It didn’t help that the way Toni was looking between her and James, the woman knew exactly what had happened.

The two new people were both tall, dark, and beautiful. The woman had long, black hair that was neatly trimmed and hit her back in a ponytail. The man had a lean strength that wasn’t hidden by his clothes. He was just about as tall as James, with silky black hair. Although the girl probably dyed hers, his jet black was probably due to some Italian heritage. From the way they stood next to each other and the man hovered over her ever so subtly, Willa was guessing they were a couple. It was a noticeable difference from the way Scott and Toni seemed to keep as much distance between them as possible.

Willa couldn’t help but look out of the corner of her eye to see where James stood a few feet away from her. Somewhere in the middle between the two other couples in the room, she supposed.

“Is everything okay?” Willa glanced at the newcomers and waited for an introduction.

“That’s a complex question,” said Toni. “But for now everything’s fine. Willa, I want you to meet my sister, Jennifer, and her boyfriend, Austin Miles, er, Austin Benedict now?”

He nodded. “Austin Benedict now.”

“I should know that,” said Toni. “I’m the one who made the docs for you.”

Willa frowned. “Why the name change?”

“Austin Miles is dead,” said apparently not Austin Miles. “It was a tragedy. Lots of tears.”

“Lots of celebrations,” said Jennifer with a sideways grin.

“It’s relative,” he said.

Jennifer giggled and Willa felt suddenly uncomfortable. She usually didn’t mind being around couples, but it felt distinctly more strange to be around two people who seemed so happy while standing just a few feet away from her... what? Fuck buddy? That seemed too graphic. Booty call? Too casual. Leave it to James Weston to defy labels. No job title. No relationship title. She sighed and tried to chase those thoughts out of her head. “Come on in. I was just about to make breakfast.”

“You don’t have to cook for us.” Scott led the way to the living room. “Since Jennifer and Austin are here, we thought it would be good to regroup and figure out our game plan.”

Willa followed him into the living room. She moved the barstool from where she’d been standing on it to dig through the cabinets so she could sit in front of the island while she let Jennifer, Austin, and Toni have the couch. Scott remained standing and James was.... Where was James? As soon as she realized he was gone, he came back. He’d put a shirt on and he handed her a zip-up gray sweatshirt with coral flowers. He’d noticed that she was uncomfortable?

He leaned on the island next to her and she forced herself not to stare at him and instead put her attention to Toni. “What have you found? Did the hack thing I did on Jadon’s phone work? What about the laptop? You’ve had that for a week now, right? Can we just take that to the cops and be done with it? Do we still have to look into this at all or can we just push this off to the authorities? And....” She noticed that Jennifer and Austin were giving her a questioning look.

She was blabbering on again. She shut up and waited for Toni to start in.

Toni didn’t look annoyed, though. She simply smiled and leaned forward. “All good questions,” she assured her. “Cloning his phone worked out great. From the hidden files that app put onto his phone, we are getting copies of every text he sends and receives and we can listen to all of his calls. Even cooler, I can turn on his mic at any given time and listen in on him. So we effectively have a bug on Jadon Belli now.”

Jennifer’s gaze hit Willa once more and Willa averted her gaze. She couldn’t tell what this new woman thought of her. Willa had connected the dots, though. Toni’s mother had been murdered by someone who worked with Jadon, and Jennifer and Toni were sisters. So they were both trying to get revenge for their mother’s murder. She didn’t seem to be vibrating anger or anything, but Willa knew she was just a way to get that revenge faster.

“What about the laptop?” asked Jennifer. “When I talked to Melody, she said she really thought that would be the key to finding Sterling.”

“Where is Melody?” Willa’d feel a tad more comfortable if there were more people here who she knew.

“Melody is being punished for having her face plastered over every TV in the country by being sent to exile in Hawaii with her new boyfriend,” said Toni. “Remind me to do something to get in trouble. I need a Hawaiian exile with a hottie too.”

Willa noticed that Toni’s eyes cut to Scott as she said it, but she’d looked away before Scott noticed.

“Tell them what you found on the laptop,” said Scott, obviously less interested in the gossip of the family.

Willa could understand why Toni would be so interested in Scott Hart. The former cop was sexy in the exceptionally broody, angry sort of way. She wouldn’t have thought he was the quirky and stubborn Toni’s type, but what did she know? Either way, he didn’t seem all that interested in Toni.

Toni ran a hand through her dyed blonde hair. “I found a lot. And Willa, I totally understand why you didn’t go to the cops after the murder. It looks like he’s got people on his payroll from all corners of government. Pentagon guys, White House staff, FBI, street cops. I think your dad is singlehandedly funding the black market economy right now.”

Willa opened her mouth and closed it. That wasn’t surprising to her. Even when she thought her father was mostly legit, she assumed that he had people on the payroll. But what she wanted to know was so basic, she felt foolish for not knowing already. “Can you, um.... Can you tell me what he does? How he makes money?”

There was a hush over the room. Apparently no one wanted to answer the question. “Just tell us, Toni.” James’s voice was low, but the tone was just menacing enough that Scott and Austin both narrowed their eyes.

Scott spoke first. “Jadon Belli positions himself as an investor. Publicly, and according to the IRS, he made his money through stocks, real estate, and pretty much anything else you can park money in and wait for it to grow. Privately, he’s been doing the same thing. He is the broker between rich people and people who want to hide their money. We dealt with a guy a few months back, Greg Stranger, who would hide the money. Jadon makes it. He had his fingers in weapon sales, human trafficking, drug running, everything. Toni found documents on his laptop that details it in some way or another.”

Willa could tell from his dejected tone that there was a “but” coming.

“But,” he continued, “because of his connections, there’s not a lot we can do about it. If we bring the laptop to a police department or the FBI, it’s going to accidentally get lost or wiped before charges can ever be brought against Jadon.”

Willa felt her heart sink. “So what does this mean? We just have to let him get away with it?”

“He doesn’t get away with anything,” growled James. “Just give me thirty seconds alone with him.”

Austin laughed. “I knew I liked you, Weston.”

“No, it doesn’t mean we let him get away with anything,” said Scott, obviously not as amused by James’s willingness to take things into his own hands. “Toni found something else.”

Toni smiled as all attention turned back to her. “Well, the laptop might not be good as solid evidence right now, but it pointed us in the perfect direction. Remember when I said Jadon has connections at the Pentagon? Well, those connections have been feeding him classified information. Very classified information. If we can get our hands on the original file and deliver it right to the top people at the Pentagon, they’ll take care of Jadon themselves.”

“How do we deliver something to the head of the Pentagon?”

“That is a me thing,” said Toni. “Right now we’re going to work on a Jennifer thing.”

“A what?” asked Willa.

“A thief thing. I steal things for a living. What do I have to steal?”

“We,” said Austin. “You’re not doing anything alone. What are we stealing?”

Couples who steal together stay together, she supposed.

“You don’t have to steal anything. What is stored on the laptop is a photocopy scan of documents. But based off the residual information I could pick up off of the images, the scanner that was used is located inside the Cordon Enterprises building. So he has the original documents somewhere inside the building. We need to prove that they’re there.” Toni reached into her bag and pulled out two disposable cameras, the older film ones that used to be at every table at weddings.

“I didn’t realize they still made those,” said Willa.

“Well, they do. And they’re a bitch to find, so you two need to be careful. We only have these two for now. You need to get into the building, find the original documents, snap photos with enough background info so the Department of Defense will know where they were taken and then get out before anyone knows what you’re doing.”

Jennifer took one of the cameras and turned it in her hands. “So we’re not even taking anything? That should be easy.”

“Should be,” said Toni, even though she didn’t seem as though she believed it. “Thanks to Willa’s cloning Jadon’s phone, we have access to his schedule, so we can get you up to the offices when we know he’ll be gone for a few hours.”

“Except the papers could be anywhere,” pointed out Scott. “We’re assuming that he’s keeping the shady documents close to all of his normal documents, but there’s just as good of a chance that they’re at his apartment.”

“We can split up,” said Jennifer. “I’ll do the office building and Austin can do the apartment.”

“We’ll do one at a time,” said Austin. “We already lost one team member. We don’t need to lose anyone else.”

Everyone fell quiet and Willa knew they were talking about Toni and Jennifer’s mother. Willa looked over to James and saw him looking at her. He was his normal stoic self. He had said so little. Did he think this was a good idea? Was he optimistic about getting to Jadon via these classified documents?

Willa took in a deep breath. It didn’t matter what James thought. This was good. They were so close to getting Jules the justice she deserved. Now they just needed to pull this off. “What do you need me to do? Vouch for Jennifer to get her in the building? Distract someone?” Toni pressed her lips together and Willa suddenly knew what they wanted from her. “You want me to stay out of the way.”

“You’ve already done a lot,” assured Scott. “More than we could expect anyone else to do under the same circumstances.”

Willa wanted to protest. To insist that she could still be useful. But she forced herself to remain quiet. She was by no means qualified to do anything, especially compared to everyone else in the room with her. “Well, it sounds like a plan then. When are you going to try to get the photos?”

Jennifer and Toni exchanged a look. “Well, we haven’t really taken a look at his calendar yet,” said Toni carefully.

They didn’t want to tell her. Fine. They didn’t have to.

“Weston, I think you should be around when we make our move. You’re known there so you can get in—be nearby if we need you.”

Willa forced herself not to look at his direction. Just because everyone in the room probably already knew they were screwing didn’t mean she needed to stare at him like a clingy high schooler.

“I’ll be there,” said James.

“Sounds good. We’ll try to get this done ASAP and then we can all move on. I suggest everyone have a way out of the city if necessary. If things go down, we’re going to need to run fast. I have my car.”

“Austin and I both have clean IDs we can use if necessary.”

Willa wasn’t really sure what a clean ID was, but she didn’t want to ask.

“I’m basically a ghost. I go poof at a moment’s notice,” said Toni.

Willa had no idea how to disappear. She could try to figure it out, but she had a feeling that if things went bad, she wouldn’t stand a chance of getting out of Dodge in time.

Which meant that if this went south and one of the people in the room gave her up, she wouldn’t stand a chance. Which was worrisome, because as she looked around her, there was only one person who she thought liked her, and in all honesty, she wasn’t completely sure about that.