"No. I've never heard of anyone called 'A', except for one, but don't tell me it's some dumb copycat inspired by Pretty Little Liars," I drawled when Caleb grinned and begun tapping away at his laptop. "I've had enough of fakes these days."
"It's not," He replied, "And this is actually good; The less you know about him, the better."
"Who is he?" Vince wanted to know.
"He," Caleb smirked as he kept typing away, "is a guy who I've worked with before, and he is... how do I put it? Loaded with green."
"So is my great uncle Gerard, what does this 'A' guy have to do with anything?" I wanted to know.
"Let's call him an anonymous benefactor," Caleb said, still stupidly grinning. "An interested party in the demolition of the governmental program."
"He wants to help us?" Vince asked, grabbing my omelet plate and digging into it with a fork. I watched with an open mouth as he ate my breakfast.
"He most certainly does," Caleb continued. "I admit I haven't spoken with him in a few weeks, but this dude always just knows shit. I'm serious, he's well above my level of resources. He's Mr Miyagi and I'm just waxing on and off – metaphorically speaking."
I rolled my eyes. Were all men's brains just wired directly to sex? "Can he be trusted? If you say he has so much power, how do we know—"
"We just know, okay?" Caleb stated, cutting me off. "I don't ask questions with this guy. When he helps, things just comes through. Like a shooting star on steroids. He grants wishes, but only to people like us."
"People who need help?"
"Hell no, genius people," Caleb scoffed, almost offended. "He has a specific clientele. The people he helps are people with a bright mind that's somehow landed in a pickle. My bet is that he probably went through something like that himself, only there were no one to help him then."
"Wait, wait. You don't even know this guy personally?" I snapped, my voice raising a pitch. "Caleb, he could be secretly working for them! He could be gaining your trust by—"
"By offering to lend us his private jet to fly us to pizz—I mean, Italy?" Caleb interrupted. "Rya, I trust this guy as much as I trust my girl to put my dick in her mouth, even with those snake bites—"
"Have any of you two ever heard of TMI?!" I shouted, throwing my hands up. I glared first at Caleb, then at Vince, and then cupped my face tiredly when I found them both smirking at my flip-out. "This is just great, you two make a perfect couple. Do you even need me?"
"Everyone needs a woman," Vince answered, chuckling when I glared up at him with unamused eyes. "Plus... you're officially believed to be a traitor of your country now."
I should have been surprised. I should have dropped my jaw, but I didn't. I knew it by now, of course. I had fled and then Vince had fled. And then the fact that I had fled before Vince did, it meant I could no longer blame him for being my captivator. Not that I wanted to. Not anymore.
"What do they know?" I sighed, turning to look at Caleb who was still tapping away. He looking so out of the ordinary sitting there, hacking into God knew what. It was like seeing Channing Tatum taking on a role where he was super smart. It just looked... strange.
"They think you're officially in tow with Vince now, and I think it's best that they continue to believe that. The CIA will most likely terminate your employment and put out a burn notice, so you'll have to go underground for a while, after we've demolished the program. Then you'll have to assume a new identity." He told. When I just stared mutely, Caleb looked up and gave me an apologetic look. "I'm sorry. I warned you; Once you learned about this shit, it would become your worst nightmare."
"Not quite so literally," I whispered, taking a seat in one of the bar stools. I felt Vince come up to me, rubbing me on my back. "I can't believe this. It's insane just how deep this shit runs. There's no other way?"
Caleb lifted his shoulders in a little shrug. "I won't be able to tell before we've sorted it all out. It all depends on what we figure out once we get to Italy."
"The Russians," Vince now spoke up, chewing down the last bite of my omelet. "What do they know so far?"
"That's what I'm working on," Caleb muttered, sounding distracted from concentrating on his screen. "As far as I can tell, your escape hasn't gone public anywhere yet. I think the CIA is trying to hide the embarrassment of losing two prisoners in one week."
"So no word on the street that I'm free?"
"No. None yet."
"I'm assuming Vince's face is the official mascot for the taken USB," I now voiced, having had a moment to absorb everything. "It's him they're looking for, right? Not me?"
"Not yet. That's why we need you," Caleb said. "As far as I can tell, the Russians don't know you're involved, nor that you're currently on the run. Like I said, the CIA is trying to cover their mistakes by casting a smokescreen over it. They are raising the search on finding me, thinking I'm still kidnapped by Vince," He said, a little grin lifting to his lips at the thought of that. "I love this. It's so fun screwing with the government. Especially after how much they've screwed with us. Karma, bitches. She's on my speed-dial."
I just shook my head and gave it all some thought. How the hell was this going to go down? "So what exactly is the plan?"
"I've chatted with A," Caleb continued, keeping that satisfied, smug grin on his face as he talked. "He's lending us his jet and getting us out of the country without any questioning. He's got a lot of pull in a lot of places."
"And then what?"
"Once we arrive in Italy, we'll head straight to the AISE headquarters—or well, me and Vince will. I trust AISE, but there's no point in having you show up there, just in case the CIA planted a mole there to spy on what's happening," Caleb explained. "You'll wait in a secure location while me and Vince go through what needs to be gone through, then we'll return to you and give you an update. That's as far as I've gotten with the planning. Depending on what AISE can do to help, we'll just have to plan as we go along."
I blew out a long breath. We had a lot of work to do, but I was up for it. This was the reason I got into law enforcement; sometimes you had to break the law to fix it. Plus the thrill, of course. "Alright. So when do we leave?"
"Tomorrow," Caleb told, now pressing a key and closing his laptop. He pushed it back into his shoulder bag before pulling out two burner phones. "Keep these on you, I'll text you the details of how it's going to happen. In the mean time, you should get some sleep. Oh my God, I feel like Charlie!"
"Who?"
"Charlie from 'Charlie's Angels'!" Caleb grinned broadly. "Sleep well, my little angels! Get rested! Damn, I should do this more often. See ya tomorrow!"
I rolled my eyes when he then walked out, looking cocky as hell as he did. I never thought I'd meet someone more full of himself than Vince. "If you think I'm going to be your bit—"
Vince placed a hand on my shoulder as Caleb left, shutting the door. "Let the kid have his fun. I have a feeling this is the most fun he's had in years. Imagine having a brain like his."
Out of all the people I could've ended up working with, I had to end up working with two cocky, arrogant guys with egos that exceeded earthly boundaries. "I swear when this is over, I'm moving to a place where there's a sandy white beach, a tropical ocean, an open bar and no guys."
"That would be a waste of a fine woman," Vince responded and stepped in between my legs, spreading them until he stood in front of me. I met his brown eyes with a hard look, refusing to crack under this time. I wasn't in the mood after this, really.
"Not now, Vince."
He gave me thorough look, judging my face and the tone of my voice. After a moment he then nodded and gently stroked my thighs with his thumbs. "How are you feeling about all this? I imagine this can't be easy for you."
"Yeah, no shit!" I snapped, all my pent-up anger suddenly directing itself towards him. "Thanks to you, I've lost my job and my goddamn home! My country thinks I'm a traitor, and so does my bosses! After this I'll have to relocate, uproot my life and change who I am, all because you had to drag me into this because you couldn't fucking stop yourself from touching me." Fury flashed through me and I pushed his hands off me, his touch sickening me. I jumped off the stool and walked around him, or at least I tried to.
Vince grabbed my arm and spun me back around. I met his eyes and they were anything but friendly. "I did nothing you didn't want me to, so don't put this on me. Your government is corrupt, blame them. I was hired to do a job, as were you."
"Yeah? Did that job include fucking me?" I asked, ripping my arm from his grip. Thankfully he had grabbed my good arm, only now that was hurting, too. "Did it involve pushing me down on my bed and fucking me even when I resisted?"
Vince's eyes flashed. "We both know you wanted me to."
"You don't know shit about me," I snarled, spinning on my foot, walking to the bedroom. I heard Vince's footsteps storm after me.
"Cut the crap, Rya, you're acting ridiculous," He snapped after me. He sounded as mad as I did. I had only made it over the threshold of the bedroom before he grabbed my arm again. This time I swung around myself and faced him.
"What are you going to do now?" I said, looking down at how he was gripping me again, then back up at him. "Fuck me while I try and run again?"
"You fucking wanted—"
I slapped him. Hard and good right across his bruised face so that his head whipped to the side. As he slowly turned it back and glared at me, I saw not even a glimmer of emotion in his eyes. I copied that very look. "Don't pretend you know me, Vince. You fucked this up for me and then you just fucked me. You got no right to tell me that I wanted any of this."
His jaw clenched, and I saw something dark fill his dark eyes. Something cold. "I. Did not. Fucking. Rape you."
"No, you didn't," I calmly said. That he did not. "I let you do that to me. Trust me when I say, it will never happen again, and if you ever try to make it happen again, I will consider it as rape. We do this job together, and then we're done for good. Got it?"
He let go of my arm as if merely touching me disgusted him. "You fucking got it."
"You're sleeping on the couch tonight." And with that, I closed the door in his face.
Only afterwards did I sit down and consider what the fuck I just did; I just bitched out.
And goddamn it, I knew what that meant.
• • •
It's not easy being Spaghetti.