“You left the pot empty,” Chris said, his tone light. “Rule number, like, fifteen or something, no leaving the coffee pot empty.”
When both the guys had their backs turned to A.J., he took a quick second to step in and sneak a kiss on Ana’s cheek. Yeah, he could be stealthy, too. As long as his mom wasn’t around. Or Beckett, apparently.
“Smart picking up groceries before you got here.” A.J. leaned his back against the counter in the wide-open kitchen and folded his arms, in no rush to go put on clothes.
“Better than MREs,” Finn commented casually, facing him again. Though his words said otherwise, A.J. knew Finn was in recon-mode, gathering as much intel as he could by observing Ana and A.J. while Chris brewed a new pot of coffee, and it was unnerving as hell.
Ana stood beside A.J., her eyes fixated on the view outside the window, seemingly lost in thought.
“Is it twin day?” A.J. joked, eying Chris and Finn’s matching outfits. Jeans and an army green V-neck tee.
Chris looked over his shoulder and winked. “We can be triplets if you go and cover up all that manliness.”
A.J. brought his hands to his six-pack and grinned. “You’re just jealous you have to work out twice as hard to keep up with this bod.”
“You guys really do use humor as a survival tool.” Ana’s focus returned to the guys. “I like it. Makes all of this easier.”
All of this. Yeah, there was a hell of a lot of “this” they still had to unpack over the next few days to wrap up the case and clear Ana’s name.
“No other way to handle it,” Chris said as Roman and Harper joined them in the kitchen.
“You’re finally up.” Harper went straight to the coffee pot, and Chris stepped aside to allow her first dibs.
“Any updates from Jessica?” Ana pinned her shoulders back as though entering “work-mode.”
Harper filled the mug but handed it off to Roman, who thanked her and took a seat in the breakfast nook. “Director Mendez is being tight-lipped about whatever he may know, which means we might have to pull him in.”
“That’d be a big step,” Chris commented. “I don’t like the idea of him knowing about us.”
“And what’s there to know?” Ana challenged, her lips tipping into a cute, knowing smile.
The woman already knew the answer. She got the read on them a long time ago.
“Superhero.” Chris shot her a lazy grin as A.J. repositioned himself to view everyone in the kitchen.
Ana blew a strand of hair from her face. “You really are all the same.”
“You have no idea.” Harper filled another mug, offered it to Chris, then poured her own cup.
“I really don’t want Mendez read in on what we actually do.” Finn sat across from Roman at the table.
That made two of them. Well, probably all of Echo and Bravo would agree. He’d prefer Director Mendez continue to believe they were only private military contractors at Scott & Scott.
“Does this mean you don’t yet have the unredacted report from the night my parents died?” Ana asked, her voice more serious.
“Not yet, and the FBI director fifteen years ago is retired, so he won’t be able to comment on any classified cases he oversaw while at the Bureau.” Harper went to the four-person round table and sat between Roman and Finn. She set her coffee down and tightened the knot of her ponytail. Today she’d gone with a surprisingly plain white tee to pair with her jeans.
And maybe he should get clothes on? The coffee could wait. “Gonna get dressed before we talk about stuff that might make my head spin.” He reached for Ana’s elbow, feeling the urge to kiss her before going off to get dressed, but then he caught himself and pulled away, given they had an audience. “Yeah, um, be back.”
He grabbed his gun and went upstairs to his room. Opting not to be a triplet, he threw on a pair of jeans and a red tee before powering up his phone. More missed calls from his family. More messages.
He didn’t have the heart to listen to any of them. That problem would have to wait until after the Volkov and SVR threats were put to bed. Ana’s safety and national security were his priorities.
After turning off his phone and tucking his guilt away, he hurried back down the stairs to join the team.
“You’re shitting me. Count Dracula isn’t real,” Chris was saying as A.J. returned to the kitchen, and how the hell had they gone from redacted case files to vampires in the time it took him to get dressed? “I know you’re like an encyclopedia of random facts, but no, you’re not gonna—”
“Dracula is based on a real man,” Roman said. “Vlad the Impaler. Look it up.”
Ana was sitting at the table, too, and Finn remained standing, his back to the window off to the side of the table, mug in hand. “You missed a lot, buddy,” he told A.J.
“So it would seem.” A.J. grabbed a coffee and set his palm to the L-shaped counter that served as the divide between the breakfast nook and where he stood. “How did Dracula get brought up?”
“It all started when Roman asked me about the two times I was in Budapest. The first time was three months before the shooting at the movie theater, and the second time was a week before the shooting,” she reminded him. Her matter-of-fact voice was empty of emotion.
A.J. would have been more worried by her tone, but he recognized what she was doing. She’d distanced herself from the tragic event, and it was like she was telling the story of someone else’s life. That it hadn’t been her parents who’d died.
He did his best to keep his feet planted firmly in place even though he wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her. “And how does that involve Dracula?”
“Vlad the Impaler, aka Count Dracula, was allegedly tortured and imprisoned down in the labyrinth where Ana visited both times she was in Hungary. The place was once a prison and torture chamber—”
“Don’t forget a Turkish harem,” Finn interrupted.
“Sex and torture,” Chris said with a laugh. “Sounds about right.”
“Sounds like you’ve been doing it wrong,” Finn teased.
“Define ‘it,’” Chris shot back, and the boys would keep at this forever if Harper didn’t stop them soon.
“Boys,” Ana said at the exact moment Harper clapped twice, grinning that Ana had quickly caught on to their antics and brought them to heel like she was one of them now (and in his mind, she was).
“Anyway,” Roman continued with his lesson, “the network of tunnels, or caves, whatever you want to call it, dates back to prehistoric times. They were used on and off over the centuries. But at some point, they became hidden and were rediscovered during World War One. Some of the tunnel network was unearthed by the government at the time, but there were rumors a lot more existed than just the ones open to the public. The Hungarian government allows a few tours and such down in the labyrinth during certain hours, but they’re even more cautious now given they allegedly foiled a terrorist attack down there in 2011.”
“And this morning, I remembered I entered that labyrinth both times I visited from an entrance not on the official tour,” Ana said, her eyes lighting up this time as if the memory was fresh on her mind. “The Volkovs must have uncovered some of those other tunnels that weren’t open to the public. They were extensive, too.” She squeezed her lids tight for a brief moment. “I remember walking for what felt like fifteen minutes below ground to even get to the public area of the labyrinths.”