That thought sobered her enough that she sat up, only to have Devon hook an arm around her and pull her back down, this time with her head pillowed on his chest. “I’m not ready to let you go yet.”
“What time is it in London?” she asked.
“Six a.m.,” Devon answered without hesitation.
“Frankfurt?”
“Seven.”
“Then I have time.” Juliette settled in, the floor hard under her, so she draped her legs across Franco to get comfortable.
“Wait.” Devon cupped her cheek, turning her face toward his as he held his head off the floor. “London, Frankfurt…you’re talking about activating the MPF. What’s going on?”
“This floor is hard,” Juliette said.
Franco rose, helping her and Devon up as well.
As they headed upstairs to their bedroom with its Alaskan King bed, Franco and Juliette took turns explaining what Oscar had done, and the aftermath.
Once he had agreed to join, she’d pulled in two of the Warrior Scholars as bodyguards for Selene and Oscar, and they’d also served as a security escort to get everyone safely to the Boston Public Library.
Juliette may not have called on the Warrior Scholars, thanks to the guilt she felt over poor Levi, if Sebastian hadn’t insisted. Levi Hart was one of the Warrior Scholars, an elite group of soldiers-turned-grad-students and Trinity Masters’ members who functioned as her Boston-based on-call security team. Levi had ended up in the hospital after their last run-in with Luca Campisi.
The ceremony to initiate members wasn’t long, and this particular one had been even shorter, thanks to Oscar’s terse replies. Sebastian had handled the post-initiation discussion with Oscar since Franco had screwed up his brother Langston’s onboarding. While that was going on, Juliette had spoken privately with Selene, offering to send her, along with a bodyguard, to a safe house on the West Coast.
Selene had opted to remain with Oscar. The Hayden boys were good-looking, but Oscar must have been really good in bed for Selene to decide staying with him was worth the risk.
Following his initiation, Oscar—who now wore a triquetra pendant on a long gold chain—had seemed surprised Selene was still there. A personal protection detail from Price Bennett’s security company would arrive first thing in the morning to take them to a safe house in rural Pennsylvania, far enough from Boston to provide some geographic security, especially since the safe house was, according to Price, in the middle of the countryside and easy to defend against a lone assailant.
Until the Bennett Security team arrived, Oscar, Selene, and their Warrior Scholar guards were safely stashed in headquarters. It wasn’t the nice accommodations of the Boston Park Plaza, but they’d survive.
Juliette let Franco finish the explanations while she went to select pajamas. She didn’t plan to get on a video chat with Sophia, and given the late hour, putting clothes back on seemed counterintuitive. They’d just had some incredible sex, so a satin teddy was thematically appropriate, but she pulled on sweatpants, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and put her hair up in a bun that made her look like a pineapple.
“And then we came back here and had floor sex,” Franco said as she walked out of their massive dressing room closet.
Devon crossed his arms. “If we want to catch Luca, instead of putting them in the—”
“I’m not going to use them as bait,” Juliette declared.
“We need Luca Campisi. He is a direct threat to national security.”
“He’s a threat to worldwide security, and we will catch him. Oscar’s computer, the hard drive, and the tablet he was using are on their way to San Francisco with a trusted courier. Norah Douglas is going to run an analysis and see if she can trace where the search originated from.”
Norah, a member, was a forensic computer investigator, brilliant hacker, dark web expert, and one of the secret leaders of an anonymous “hacktivist” collective. Silicon Valley companies hired her to attack their systems as a way to test the security. It wasn’t a matter of if she could get in, but how long it took. Both the FBI and CIA used her as an outside consultant for particularly difficult digital investigations. If anyone could back trace Luca based on Oscar’s tablet, it was she.
“We could keep them safe while making it appear that they were vulnerable.” Devon was stern and serious. “The simplest course of action would be—”
“You’re the one who said you thought he’d returned to Europe, so we have time to focus on a digital trace, because travel time alone—”
“His travel time back to the U.S. would mean we have time to construct a secure plan for using—”
Juliette ignored the doubt gnawing at her and held her ground. “I’m not risking the lives of our members in order to—”
Franco slid his arm around her, tugging her to lean back against his chest. “‘Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.’ But that only applies when it’s self-sacrifice. Or if you’re Spock.”
The tension that had been building vanished, as if Franco had taken a pin to a balloon. As always, he managed to keep her and Devon grounded, keep them from their natural inclination for drama and self-flagellation.
Devon hung his head and snorted out a laugh. “I can’t deal with you when you throw geek quotes at me.”
“Geek is the new cool.”
“Sure it is.”
“Before you two have this argument—again—let’s make this phone call.” Juliette slid out of Franco’s arms and then out of the bedroom. She and Franco had a first-floor office for Trinity Masters business, which they hadn’t used until this last week. Tonight, they’d need it since the hardline phone in there, totally separate from their personal phone and internet, was secure and encrypted.
Sophia picked up on the third ring. “Grand Master.”
“Ms. Starabba.”
“To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“The timing of our last meeting, and the plan we developed, was fortuitous.”
There was a brief pause. “The bomber?”
“Yes.”
“He’s in the U.S.?”
“Not as far as we know, but he knows we have a copy of his data and is searching for it. Digitally. We have people working on tracking him, but once they do…”
“We must be ready.” Sophia’s voice was hard and merciless, her accent making it sound elegant. Like a beautifully crafted dagger.
Juliette glanced at each of her husbands, then said, “We need to activate the Masters Protection Force.”
Owen Fraser opened the drawer of his desk. There were four cell phones inside. It was the one way in the back, the newest but least used, that was ringing. Calm settled over him as he picked up the phone and answered it.
“Fraser.”
“Mr. Fraser, I didn’t anticipate needing you so soon.” The woman on the other end of the line spoke with a crisp New England accent. He hadn’t been at the now-infamous all-society meeting where the new Grand Master had been introduced—and where it had been clear from her voice that for the first time in the secret society’s history, they had a female leader—but he now recognized her voice from the series of conversations they’d had over the course of the last few days.