“I requested a power failure in a certain wide area. Someone with the right connections organized it.” His breathing was a touch better now. “I handled Silver’s building myself.”
“How did you find a traitor in the security team?”
A sudden smile with a touch of arrogance. “Not security. Maintenance. Lower pay, but had the right access and skills after I got him a coach. Psy junkie who’s good at pretending to be normal. People never do penetrating security checks on maintenance staff.”
Ena telepathed the information to Ivan. “You’re a clever man, Mr. Patel.” She meant that sincerely. “Tell me about HAPMA.”
“They asked for money, I gave them some.” He flexed his hands as control returned to that part of his body. “I thought they might be useful, but they’ve exceeded my expectations.”
“You expect me to believe you’re not the founder?”
Fear turned his face bloodless. “Please. They’re only children.” He stopped trying to regain control of his body. “HAPMA’s grassroots. Only contact I had was with a man named David Fournier. Survival trained.” He swallowed. “I was open in being anti-Trinity, caught his attention like I caught the Consortium’s. Only difference is that the Consortium bitch is stone-cold sane while I’m not so sure about David.”
“Yet you gave him money.”
“Fanatics aren’t always the sanest people in the room.”
“Unfortunately, that’s all too true.” She picked up the stunner and shot him again.
Chapter 48
I had a five-year plan once. It was a good one, too. Then life happened.
SILVER.
Silver sat up straight at her grandmother’s telepathic voice. Grandmother.
Across from her, Valentin tapped the side of his head. He’d asked her if she had time for a date that afternoon and, since EmNet was currently in standby mode while Ena was dealing with Akshay Patel, she’d said yes. He’d told her to change into StoneWater clothes—she’d chosen jeans and a fine vee-necked sweater in palest green with narrow horizontal stripes of silver that Nova had given her and told her to keep.
When Valentin arrived, it had been with a truckful of cubs excited to go to an amusement center where they got to play in a pit of foam balls.
Now she nodded to confirm she was having a telepathic conversation. He grabbed hold of the two cubs who’d been seated beside him and said, “Who wants to be thrown into the pit?”
“Me! Me!” The cubs next to Silver scrambled out, too, running after Valentin as he carried his gleeful cargo toward the large pool made up of colorful balls that were soft enough to do no damage to children, but deep enough that the kids could get “lost” in them if they ducked down. Which was why Valentin had booked this pool privately—so he knew exactly how many kids were in there at any one time.
Anyone caught ducking down to hide would be summarily banished to the benches to watch mournfully while everyone else played. Valentin’s threatened punishment was apparently an effective one. As she watched, the kids thrown in popped immediately back up, laughing and asking to be thrown in again.
Grandmother? she said again when Ena stayed silent after that initial contact.
My apologies, Silver. I’m having to deal with a secondary telepathic matter. I’ll get back in touch once that’s completed.
The contact cut off.
Not surprised by the interruption—Ena was the matriarch of their family and, as such, was the first port of call for all of them—Silver was nonetheless . . . impatient. It had been hours since Kaleb confirmed he’d delivered Akshay Patel to Ena. Since rushing her grandmother was an impossibility, Silver slid out of the bench seat and headed toward the pool.
Watching Valentin’s arms move in his old white tee, his biceps bulging and his face full of laughter as he picked up the cub who’d just scrambled out of the foam pit, she felt a strangeness in her stomach she remembered from when she hadn’t been Silent.
Silver stopped, listened.
Nothing beyond the children’s voices and the sound of their play.
“Throw me, Mishka! Throw me!” The words were delighted, the childhood nickname used in innocence.
Many a man would’ve chastised the cub that he was speaking to an adult—that he was speaking to his alpha, and should be more respectful—but Valentin pretended to growlingly bite Arkasha before doing as demanded. He had no need to worry about respect. She’d seen how he was treated by the teenagers and older children. They loved him as deeply as these cubs, but they never called him Mishka. It was understood that was a privilege reserved for the very young, the very old, and his sisters.
“Siva!” The smallest cub, Dima, saw her on his way out of the pit, ran toward her after he exited. “Will you throw me?”
Reaching down, Silver gathered his warm, solid body into her arms. “I don’t want to do harm,” she said to Valentin.
“He’ll be fine.” He grabbed Fitz, who was jumping up and down next to him. “Throw just hard enough to get him into the balls—and watch for the other five in there. They know not to move when someone’s about to be thrown in.”
Having already noted the positions of those five, Silver watched Valentin throw his cub, noted Fitz’s landing position, then looked down at the little boy she held in her arms. “Ready?”
A quick nod, eyes bright.
She threw.
Screaming in joy, Dima sank into the foam, bounced up an instant later, chortling so hard he fell back down and his friend—a cub who’d returned with the dissenters—had to pull him up. “Is there a trampoline below?” Silver asked, realizing the children were bouncing around like rabbits rather than heavy-boned bears.
“Not quite, but close enough.” Valentin came to stand beside her as the children began to throw the foam balls at one another. “Part of the safety system—not a single accident here in the twenty-five years it’s been running.”
The furnace of his large body tempted her to edge nearer, sink into his warmth. “You did your research.”
“I’m alpha,” was the simple answer.
And these cubs were his responsibility.
She went to answer when a ball hit her on the nose. Startled, she looked toward the pool, saw several innocent faces. Arkasha began to giggle a second later, the sound quickly spreading to all seven cubs. “Come play!” sensitive little Sveta said. “Siva, Mishka, come play!”
Silver never saw it coming. One minute, she was standing on her own two feet disturbed by her compulsion toward the large bear alpha with whom she’d once shared skin privileges; the next minute, she’d been scooped up in his arms and was being launched into the air. He’d thrown her so gently that she barely felt the impact before she was bounced up. Much taller than the children, she ended up with her head above the balls even sitting down. Her hair tumbled out of its twist.
Around her, the children began to swim over. Valentin, meanwhile, was standing outside the pool laughing. She blew the hair out of her eyes, closed her hand around a ball. When the children reached her, she whispered, “Let’s get Mishka.” That was all the encouragement they needed.
They pelted Valentin with the foam balls.
Throwing out his arms and making the face of an enraged bear, he jumped into the pool and began to chase the cubs. They screamed and ran from him. Silver, meanwhile, continued to pelt him with balls. Valentin suddenly changed direction and dived toward her. She twisted out of the way, but he was too fast and she found herself pinned under him, his body keeping the foam off her face and his arms caging her on either side.