“I’ll let you know the next time she’s in town.”And I’ll stay an inch from your side so that I can take you down if you mess with one single neuron in Miranda’s head.
“Ah, the warrior.”
Taz wasn’t used to people seeing that in her. At a single inch over the military minimum of four-ten and often in danger of falling below the ninety-four-pound weight limit if she didn’t train rigorously to maintain muscle mass, no one saw that in her.
No…Jeremy did. In fact, no one on Miranda’s team had questioned her skills. Outside of the team everyone did, until they crossed her.
But not Rose Ramson. Yet another red-flag warning.
“What’s your role here?”
“My role?” But Rose wasn’t playing coy. She looked perplexed by the question. “I’m rather unsure myself.”
“Here to spy for Clarissa?”
Rose actually laughed. “A spy for the master of spies? I’ve rarely felt as useless as I have these past hours. My place was always to make my husband appear in the best light. I have used him as my entry into DC society. Now? I have no idea about what I am supposed to do. If you don’t mind my asking, how much of what you do is keeping Jeremy focused and on task?”
The image of herself in twenty years having no purpose other than keeping Jeremy on track had her shifting in her seat. Was that what Andi would be doing for Miranda, her sole purpose in life limited to keeping Miranda functioning in modern society?
“You see the problem,” Rose nodded. “Yet Clarissa would—”
“Please tell me you don’t trust that bitch.” And Taz the warrior had now screwed up. Of course the woman was allied with Clarissa, it was obvious to anyone who watched them together. And she’d just now put herself square in Rose Ramson’s sights as an enemy. How powerful was the leader of DC society without her husband at her side?Pretty damnwas Taz’s guess.
“Trust? You, me, and even Clarissa trust no one; it is the only way we feel safe. Am I right, Colonel VickiTaserCortez? I did not recognize you until General Nason mentioned your rank and name. I’ve only known you by rumor, which is far larger than life but perhaps deserved. You trusted your General Martinez?”
“Until I didn’t.” She had outlived her commanding general, barely. After trusting him for all those years, she’d broken that trust and lived when she was supposed to die with him.
“Just so.”
“Are you planning toredeemClarissa somehow? I need to warn you, it won’t work.”
“You show little faith, Colonel Cortez.” Then Rose sighed lightly. “Not that your lack of faith is necessarily misplaced. She has plans. I am not yet in a place to judge them.”
“And until you are?” Taz couldn’t tell if they were forming an alliance or if they were simply two women both caught on a knife edge with no safe way off.
“Until then, what is the next step in trying to figure out who killed my husband?”
“That’s going to take some doing, but something Jeremy said has given me an idea about where to begin.”