Page 76 of Tattletale

“Who is coming?”

“An extensive VIP list. A few senators, ambassadors, his parents, and sister—whose invitation I purposely didn’t send, but lo and behold, she still RSVP’d.”

“You’re not a fan of the in-laws?”

“His sister still calls me a gold digger to this day.” Vienne laughs. “My family has quadruple the money of Sal’s, so it never made sense. I think she just loves to hate me.”

“Huh,” I mutter distractedly. I’m still trying to push the image of Cricket grinding on another man’s cock from the forefront of my brain.

“What’s wrong?” Vienne asks. “I’m sorry I made you get dressed up, but the food will be fantastic. And you can drink as much as you want.”

“You want me to drink on the job? Not very professional, Mrs. Baker.”

The partition rolls down and a driver with a black cap and dark-as-midnight sunglasses turns his head. “POTUS is five minutes out, Vienne. Are we arriving before or after?”

“After,” she says. “Lance and I need fifteen more minutes. Circle the block, then pull around the front. Tell my husband’s team to wait for me at the entrance.”

“Ma’am,” he says simply as acknowledgment, then rolls the partition back up.

Vienne reaches into her clutch and pulls out a small, silver flask. She takes a swig, then blows out a sharp breath. She holds the flask out to me. “I don’t need you to take a bullet for me tonight, Lance. I have Secret Service for that. I needed to get you alone, away from Vesper, because I need your help.”

She dangles the flask in front of my face. Taking it, I throw back a large gulp, not caring what’s in it. Anything to drown out the image of Cricket with Gabriel.

“Help with what?”

“I’m sensing Vesper’s hesitance.”

“I’ll admit, she has a healthy level of skepticism,” I reply.

Vienne shakes her head. “If Cricket can’t get me what we need, can I count on you?”

I take another large swig of the liquor, letting it burn my throat. It tastes like cheap bourbon. A hint of sweetness, with a bitter afterburn. “How can Cricket find what you’re looking for if she doesn’t even know what that is? We don’t know what Gabriel’s hiding. It could be anything from a blueprint of the White House to a secret bunker of man-killing robots. We literally have no context.”

“You’re looking for a bomb,” Vienne says. “A thermonuclear bomb, probably the size of a baseball.”

“What?”

“I need you to keep a secret, Lance.”

“From who?” I ask hesitantly.

“Everyone.”

“I don’t keep secrets from my family,” I reply.

“Even if the world depended on it?”

I eye her, my stare sharp. I’ve had enough of the riddles. “What’s going on, Vienne?”

She takes the flask back from my hand and takes a hearty swig. “The reason Vesper doesn’t trust me is because I didn’t tell the whole truth. The truth is a little more incriminating.For Sal.”

She looks so defeated, the way her eyes are turned down at the corners. “I needed Vesper to think the world was in danger so she’d intervene. But in reality…”

“Gabriel isn’t dangerous?” I ask.

“Oh, no. He’s extremely dangerous. But Sal created the monster. About five years ago, during Sal’s first term, Gabriel came to us with the idea of an extinction switch. An ultimate weapon that could subdue the world. But he wanted to keep the design small—the size of a baseball, easily hidden, and very complicated to deploy—so no accidents.”

“Why the redundancy? Doesn’t your husband already carry around launch codes for nukes that could take out the world?”

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