Kat and I had sifted through data for two hours straight. Jessica and Brock had left to grab lunch. Zane and Antonio were going over the guest list for the charity event. No matter how hard I tried to stay focused, my eyes kept wandering to the monitor they were on.

“Sophie! I found something!”

I glanced over at Kat’s monitor.

“The Prime Minister of Russia is blackmailing Sanchez.”

Blackmailing wasn’t the reason he brought me in. There had to be more.

“Okay, explain how that affects me?”

“You’re not looking.” Kat pointed to the bottom of a page.

Holy shit! The Prime Minister of Russia and Sanchez used to work together. Yermushin was the Prime Minister’s younger brother.

“Yermushin and the Prime Minister are brothers. Wow.”

Kat let out an aggravated huff. “The Prime Minister has all the information about our parents’ deaths, and it looks like our grandparents’ deaths too.”

Based on a transaction sheet Kat had found, Sanchez was paying the Prime Minister money each month. She was right. Two weeks prior, an email had come from Russia, demanding more money. Sanchez couldn’t pay, so he was helping Yermushin sell the nuke codes to North Korea. If he produced the codes, and the sale went through, his debt would be cleared.

“Sanchez must’ve thought I’d read the email between him and the Prime Minister.”

When I stopped returning his calls, he must’ve thought I was working on collecting data. Then, when I didn’t turn over the communication I had, Sanchez must have been worried I would bring him down.

He was smart to have kept my sister and me apart. In one day, we had stopped his money train and figured out why he was after me. What we needed to do was get information from the servers that confirmed he killed our family. That, along with the recording Kat had about the nuke codes, would put the director away for a long time.

“Do the boys have a trace on Sanchez?” Kat was peering over to Brock’s station.

We were told to stay out of the current mission, not the mission of destroying Sanchez. Swiveling in the chair to Brock’s station, I pulled up the closed browsers. Brock was tracing Sanchez’s movement. He was near the meatpacking district. Since losing Kat, maybe Sanchez planned on taking Yermushin out himself.

“You keep digging on the server. I’ll look around on the dark web. Sanchez is in New York.”

The dark web was a place where you needed to know what you were looking for. Google didn’t exist on the dark web. The government had put up false pages, hoping to catch people doing the wrong thing. I was looking for archived data of when a hit might’ve been placed on my parents. I pulled up a page I was familiar with AlphaBay. AlphaBay was one of the top sites used for hits.

I accessed a well-known hit list page. What I saw made my heart drop. Antonio and Zane were both on the list.

I clicked the link to see who took out the hit, but I didn’t have time to look further. I heard footsteps coming down the hall. I exited out of the page ten seconds before Brock walked through the door.

“Jessica and Bridget are upstairs with the food. I figured you guys needed a break,” he said.

No, he wanted us out of the room so he could talk with the guys with us not around. I wanted to get Kat’s opinion on the information I’d found, so when I saw Kat start to protest, I shook my head at her.

* * *

I couldn’t help but smile at the women around the table. Jessica and Bridget each had a container of Chinese food. Two more containers waited for Kat and me to dig in. No matter how much I wanted to have a fun lunch with my friends and sister, Kat and I needed to discuss the information I found online and whether we would let Brock know or be stupid and try to save them ourselves.

“Hey, I need to talk to Kat about something. We’ll grab our food and go.”

When Bridget’s family went on the run for her father’s mistakes, they had moved into the same neighborhood CJ and I lived in. Our love for computers made the friendship effortless. The three of us had spent hours together, coding and fine-tuning our craft. When Bridget’s previous life came out last year, it hurt that she hadn’t told me. I contemplated coming clean about my past, but she had just gotten pregnant. I knew she would want to help, and I couldn’t put her in danger.

Bridget smiled and pointed to the chair. “Come on. Don’t cut us out. I want to help. Jessica counts numbers all day. We know she needs something fun in her life.”

Jessica swatted at Bridget. “My man keeps me entertained.” A slow blush crept over her face.

Bridget reached over and grasped my hand. “Tell me what the plan is. How much money do you need, and where are we going?”

“We figured out why Sanchez is after me.” I shook my head when Bridget went to jump in. “Kat and I wanted to dig deeper. I was checking out the dark web and pulled up AlphaBay. I wanted to look at the archives. I never made it past the new posting page. Someone hired a hit on Antonio and Zane.”

Kat gasped. She leaped from her chair and was heading for the door, but we needed to talk for a second and work this out our way. “Kat, sit back down.”

“I’m going after my husband.”

“Already planning on it, but we can’t walk out of here without someone knowing. Let's formulate a plan, steal a jet, and save these men.”

The owner of AlphaBay was an acquaintance. The first step was to get the hit taken down for a few hours. The next was getting back to New York.

“Fine.”

“Bridget, can you watch Antonio Jr. while we go to New York? We need guns and plans for protecting them. I also need to borrow Alex’s jet somehow.

Jessica nodded immediately. “Alex might ask questions. Royal Airlines has spare planes for us at the hanger. I can call my pilot. Royal Airlines won’t say anything to Brock, either.”

Words couldn't express my gratitude. It meant so much to have friends that could help at a moment’s notice. “Okay, guns. Anyone know how to find them?”

“Sophie, we’ll stop by my storage unit in New York. There is only one gun I will use to take this man out,” Kat said, propping her chin on her hand on the table.

“Who are you planning on shooting?” I asked. “We’ll make sure our men make it back alive. Guns are only needed if someone is in trouble.”

Bridget and Jessica both agreed. This was a backup mission, not a search and destroy.

“I’ve been in the spy game for years. Sanchez took out the hit. I will bet my rifle that he also told Yermushin they were coming for him. Our men will be walking into an ambush.”

I reached for the laptop to pull up the schematics of the building. Kat reached over and closed the lid on my fingers.

“What are you doing? We need to figure out everything about the event.”

An evil smile spread across Kat’s lips. “Nope. Antonio and Zane are planning on taking Yermushin down before the charity event at his warehouse in the meatpacking district. If we leave soon, we can set up in the rafters and wait for the meeting to go down.”

Zane would be angry with me for putting myself in danger. He gave me the one thing I wanted in the world. Kat and I would have their backs during the meeting. I was still worried about Kat going on a kill mission, but I knew she wanted to protect her husband.

Kat had broken down and cried this morning after breakfast when we talked about Yermushin. She felt stupid for working with the man that killed our parents. Her need for vengeance was clouding her judgment. The right thing would be to let Brock know what we found.

“Are you sure about this? We couldn’t hear anything they were saying.” Brock had put the feed into his ear when talking with the guys. He was definitely keeping us out.

Kat shrugged her shoulders. “Yes. When they talked to Brock, I read their lips.”

How do you respond to that? From a young age, Sanchez had shaped her into a super spy. Zane and Antonio should have used her on this mission. Kat talked about how Sanchez started taking her to Camp Peary at the age of ten. Camp Peary is the CIA training facility for covert spies. What other super skills would she pull out?

Bridget gasped. “Holy shit. You read lips? When are you going to give a training lesson? These prissy moms at the jungle gym are always catty. I want to know what they say when they are on the other side of the playground. Alex confiscated all of my listening devices.”

There were so many things wrong with Bridget’s statement. Surprisingly, none of them shocked me. I didn’t care about learning to read lips. I was hoping she would teach me to shoot so that the next time I had to kill someone for real and not electronically, I could do it without unloading the full clip.

“Our biggest challenge will be getting out of this building without being caught,” Kat said. “This place is covered with cameras.”

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my phone. It rang twice.

“Hey, Sophie.”

“Hi, Daisy. Can you help me? You will get in trouble from Neal.”

Daisy was Neal’s submissive. She had been kidnapped and tortured for years. She was still recovering and lived with Neal. Neal was Patty and Jessica’s best friend, and he ran Patty’s security company. There had been talk about merging Patty’s and Bridget’s companies.

“Oh, yes. Neal has been lax on Daisy. Daisy needs a good punishment.” Daisy was a borderline masochist.

It was hard not to laugh when Daisy spoke in the third person. “I need a ride. We will meet you at Chubby’s Diner in thirty minutes?”

They wouldn’t think to track Daisy’s car until it was the last one. Now, we needed to get to the cameras. The only person watching the cameras was Brock. Jessica could help us with our next op.

“Jessica…” It was hard to ask her to get in a fight with Brock. When he found out, he would be angry with her.

“No problem. I will seduce Brock. Let’s get you ladies in the air. I called my pilot. He is at the airstrip, ready for you.”

When I stood up, Bridget engulfed me in a hug. “Be safe.”

Before Kat knew what was happening, Bridget had her arms wrapped around my sister. “Take care of her. I’m trusting you with my best friend.”

Ten minutes later, we were slipping out the back door. I couldn’t help but hold my breath for a few seconds, waiting for someone to run after us. No one came. We made it out. Now, to save the men we love. I wasn’t sure where that thought had come from. We were saving my brother-in-law and someone who helped get my sister back.