Page 3 of Every Which Way

“You don’t have to be.” And so he didn’t think she was singling him out, Kenna looked around the room. “Any situation you’re in, no matter what it is, you can make that choice. You can say, ‘I’m not going to be the victim.’”

She glanced over in time to see him push the woman’s arms away and step out of her hold. The woman frowned, but Kenna didn’t give her the chance to start a conversation.

She clapped. “Okay, time to switch places!”

Now that he’d chosen to not be the victim, it was time for the power balance to shift in his favor. “Again, we’re not trying to hurt the other person. We’re working on tools you can use to get yourself out of situations you don’t want to be in.”

Stairns took over, walking them through when a person has grabbed them by the wrists and immobilized them. A few quick ways to break a hold and get free.

Kenna walked back over to the table and said quietly. “Update.”

Ramon, whose only function in the van was to protect Maizie, said, “She’s pulling information in pieces. We might not know if we have everything, but we’ll have…a lot?” He paused. “Enough, at least.”

Maizie had to be furiously typing away to communicate through Ramon without speaking up herself. But then, she said, “If you can get to the server room and plug in, that’ll get us the best result. It’s the only way to know if we have everything.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Stairns had everyone in their pairs, jerking their wrists out of the other person’s hold. The young man looked a lot more determined. The woman with him didn’t look so happy. She had to be at least forty, so if they were in a relationship, there was already a power imbalance with her being older than him. A lot of people made that work, but sometimes, one party subjugated the other. To what extent, Kenna couldn’t know from only an hour or so of observation.

“Let’s everyone take a break. We’ve made some great progress.” She walked into the center of the room. “I’ve had too much coffee, so I’ll be looking for the bathroom. We’ll meet back in ten.”

Hopefully, by then, the seminar would be over.

Instead of coming back and continuing this farce, they would leave with the information Maizie had gained from their system.

She retrieved her phone and took it with her, wandering through the halls. “I need some help.”

“I’ll pull up schematics,” Ramon said in her earpiece.

She smiled at a couple of people and found a hall with less traffic.

“You’re close,” he said. “Second door on the left, toward the end. That’s their server room.”

Kenna checked that no one was watching her and ducked into the room, lined with floor-to-ceiling racks, all humming. Lights blinking.

“Now we’re talking,” Maizie said. “The signal is way stronger.”

“How long do you need? I could leave my phone and come back for it.”

“Only a few minutes,” Maizie said.

Ramon added, “Hang tight and then you guys can leave that place.”

“It’s just an office.”

“Don’t remind me,” he said. “Corporate offices give me the hives.”

Kenna smiled. “Makes me wanna tell you that you have to wear a tie to my wedding.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

She glanced down at the ring on her left hand. Jax had proposed in Greece months ago, under the warm Crete sun. The trip where everything had changed for her. Kenna had learned so much about where she came from and who her parents really were.

She’d even met her grandfather, though due to his illness, he’d passed away a couple of months ago. The old man’s guardian had given Kenna a book of her father’s that was never published.The Constantine Initiative.Constantine was the family name the old man had passed down to Kenna’s mother and the two women who were her aunts—one of whom was actually technically her mother.

She’d been trying to wrap her head around it ever since.

Amara was her aunt, but she’d married Malcom Banbury, and they’d been determined to raise Kenna together as her parents. She’d considered Amara her mother. The woman had been shot when Kenna was a toddler.

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