Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 685

I checked my watch, wrapped up the last of the assignments, and was opening my mouth to dismiss them when a man broke from the western row and crossed the concrete at a run.

"Sparrow, we've got a serious problem!"

The hall heard him. More than ninety spines went straighter. My expression hardened.

"What's going on?"

"One of my sources just informed me that Big Bryan is in this city."

I shook my head slowly, tasting the absurdity of it. "That's impossible. It can't be true. If Big Bryan had entered this city, Alex and Blake would have informed me. That's their job! I specifically instructed them to find him. How does Big Bryan show up in my city without one of them opening their mouth?"

Because that was the thing. The man had vanished off the face of the earth, and the earth reported to me.

"No, no, no. That doesn't make sense."

The bodyguard stood his ground, his chest still rising. "Sparrow, the information is legitimate."

I immediately tried to call Alex and Blake but neither of them answered their phones."

I went very still. "Wait. What's going on here?"

The man hesitated, which was itself unusual, then said the thing everyone in the hall was suddenly thinking.

"What if Alex and Blake have been compromised? What if they've switched loyalties? Big Bryan is supposedly here, and they haven't informed you, and neither of them is picking up."

"No, no. Not today." I dragged a hand over my face, feeling the day rearrange itself beneath me. "Today is my brother's wedding. I cannot afford mistakes."

I was already dialling. One number, another, another, moving in a slow arc across the concrete while the hall watched me build a case. Somewhere behind the ninth call, a name surfaced. Behind the twelfth, corroboration. By the fifteenth, I had the whole ugly fact confirmed, and it ran cold through me where heat should have been.

Someone matching Big Bryan had indeed entered the city nearly three weeks ago.

Three weeks. Under my towers, through my gates, breathing my exhaust, for three weeks.

I ground my teeth together until the muscle ached and turned toward the west wall of bodies.

"You twelve. Listen carefully. Find out where Big Bryan is, immediately. I want his location as soon as possible."

One of the twelve risked it. "But what about the wedding?"

"After the wedding, we hunt Big Bryan down tonight. I'll make sure he doesn't live to see tomorrow." I let my gaze travel over each of the twelve in turn, patient as a tide, landing on them one by one until none of them remembered having questions. "No matter what happens, find out where he's hiding. I want answers."

Then I turned to the rest.

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