Sam moved around the room and pulled up a chair to sit beside Tansy, letting Stephens see them all arrayed against him. The man looked behind him, only to find Graham with a sardonic smile on his face.
No one spoke for a long minute. Tansy kept her face very neutral, until the dog appeared on the deck outside the window, head cocked to the side as if asking what they were all doing.
Nico laughed. “I’ll get him.” When Nico opened the door and whistled, the dog’s ears swivelled and he bounded to the door and then into the living room.
Showing he had good taste, the dog growled low in its throat when he looked at Stephens.
Tansy smiled at the dog and patted her knee. “Come here, gorgeous. Who do you belong to?”
The dog sniffed her hands, then Sam’s. Then he turned to sit between them with his gaze locked on Stephens.
“He’s our dog. His sniffer wasn’t quite good enough for training, so he was up for adoption.”
Tansy stared at him. “Our dog? You got us a dog?”
Her eyes glowed, and he leaned in to kiss her. “I did.”
“He’s perfect. What’s his name?” She patted the dog, but the animal didn’t waver in his attention on Stephens.
“Jetson.”
Her eyes widened. “Jetson?”
Sam laughed. “Yeah. I figured it was a sign. He’s not quite two, and he’s well trained, just failed the sniffer test.”
Tansy rubbed Jetson’s ears. “You hear that, boy? You’re going to live with us.”
Then she lifted her face to kiss Sam.
Joe’s voice brought their attention back to the room. “One more step and I’ll shoot you and add attempting to escape custody to the charges.”
Sam looked up to find Stephens staring around the room. “I don’t believe you’re cops. No one showed me ID.”
In unison, Sam, Nico, and Joe flipped out their badges. Stephens paled and turned his attention back to Tansy.
“You have to help me. I’ve got someone named Howard threatening me. He’s going to kill me unless you give him your data. He’ll even pay us for it.”
“No.” Tansy didn’t bother with more than the one word and she maintained steely eye contact with the dumbass. Sam wanted to cheer.
“But he’ll kill me. You owe me.”
Tansy’s eyebrows shot up. “You are delusional. You used me from the beginning, cheated on me, stole my idea, stole intellectual property that didn’t belong to you, gave my name to an international criminal who then kidnapped me, broke my leg, and had me stabbed over a dozen times. I owe you nothing.”
Stephens paled further. “He’s a violent man. He’ll hurt me, and you have the power to stop it.”
“You’ll be safe enough in jail.”
“Jail? I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Tansy shook her head. “Aside from the things I’ve just listed, you’ve also trespassed on my property, resisted arrest, and then there’s the biggie.”
Stephens was shaking his head in denial.
“You offered to sell government secrets to a terrorist. That’s called treason. You’ll be lucky if you ever see daylight again.”
There was silence while Stephens opened and closed his mouth, unsure of what to say.
Graham moved out of the room and came back with Marcus. In uniform.