Page 3 of Dichotomy

Sebastian grinned at me, and I couldn’t help but grin back, even as my lip twinged. We’d had fun during the B&E the other week, getting stuck in the closet together.

“I looked up the FIA agents based on the facial recognition that came back from the cameras at the convention center,” Liam continued. “Special Agent Mike Holden and Special Agent Dominic Hayes. I’m digging into their backgrounds now, but it’ll take me a second to hack the FIA without leaving a trace.”

Marcus leaned over, his vetiver scent tingling my nostrils. “How good is Liam exactly?” His smoky voice had no business inciting the tingling in my lower half.

“Very,” I said back, choosing the simple answer.

Liam had been a good hacker when he came to the Archers, courtesy of Detective Patel flagging his case. But he had been a cocky shit at nineteen. He was still a cocky shit at twenty-three, but over the last four years, I had encouraged him to learn as much as he wanted, even paying for computer science classes at the local university so he could have a semi-normal education.

“Do we know more about who tipped the feds off?” Alexander asked Liam.

Liam shook his head. “Not that I can find. Keys sent me the memo, and I tried to trace it, but until I crack the FIA’s servers, I have no idea. Just that it originated inside the FIA.”

The FIA had thousands of agents. Finding out who had ordered the investigation into us could take weeks. Weeks we didn’t have with two FIA agents in town now.

“Eve, what happened in the room with Ryan and Julian?” Izzy asked. “If the feds come knocking, we need to have our stories straight.”

I nodded. “There was a third guy in the room. From what I can gather, he’s with an organization called Kingfisher. That’s who Citadel’s mysterious client is. Or was.” I shook my head, cursing silently when the room spun. I ignored the guys’ concerned looks as I continued recounting the events of the night, starting from when Ryan had surprised me in the hallway outside the bathroom and everything the stranger said.

“We need to find out more about this stranger.” I drummed my fingers on the table as I thought. “He said he was employed by the Kingfisher organization. But maybe he runs it? I don’t know. I can’t remember his exact wording.”

“He was booked under the nameLuke Jones,” Liam said, accompanied by the clacking of his fingers on the keyboard.

“What do we want to bet that’s an alias?” Sebastian snorted.

“It’s likely,” Izzy admitted. “But we’ll dig into it. What are we going to do about the feds? They’re clearly in town for the Archers, so we don’t want to give them any ammunition.”

“We’ll just have to appear as uninteresting as possible,” Alexander said. “Act like it’s business like normal. No changes to routines, just normal, boring interactions.”

He was right. The less appealing we seemed to the FIA, the better. But the Archers had operations all around the city. We would have to shut down all of them to avoid the risk of getting caught.

I rubbed my face, careful to avoid my sore cheek and lip. “The Archers will have to go to ground. We’ll have to pull back on active missions where we can and not take on anything new. Let everyone know there’s going to be heat and to be careful.”

Danny groaned but nodded. “I agree. We can’t risk keeping up active operations.” He exchanged a long look with Izzy and Grace, then turned to me. His gaze lingered on my swollen lip and bruised cheek, then shifted to my eyes, like he was weighing the cost of what he was about to say against the fact that I’d do it anyway.

“What?” I asked when he didn’t say anything.

Grace rolled her eyes when Danny still didn’t speak. “He doesn’t want to tell you because you’re not going to like it. The FIA is likely going to be focused on you from what we know of this memo. Which means you should take several steps back while we go to ground. We don’t need to raise the FIA’s suspicions by having you within ten miles of an Archers mission or HQ for the next few weeks at least. Or until they clear out.”

I frowned. They were right, but the Archers were my responsibility. I didn’t want to run and hide while my team took on my responsibilities. “I’ll think about it.”

Grace nodded like she’d expected that answer. Danny opened his mouth, probably to argue with me, but shut it quickly when Grace moved her foot under the table, likely kicking him.

“We’ll initiate Ostrich Protocol.” Izzy said.

“Ostrich Protocol?” Sebastian laughed.

“Last time we let Danny name anything,” I grumbled, but it was good-natured. I hated naming things, while Danny loved it.

“Just how large is the Archers organization?” Adrian asked.

Izzy looked at me, and I shrugged. They kept saying they were all in, and I was trying to believe them. Besides, if they wanted to bury us, they would have done it already.

“We have about fifty active members at any given time,” Izzy said.

“Fifty?” Adrian’s eyes widened.

Izzy nodded. “Fifty. They’re split up into several teams: patrols, extractions, relocations, intel or computers, and messaging.”