Page 152 of Viper

I adjust my baseball cap and scan the long metal diner counter lined with stools and patrons, looking for his familiar face. We’ve only met up a few times over the years, always on the outskirts of town, and today is no exception. It doesn’t mean I like it, but I needed to talk to him.

Clyde has answers, and I need answers.

“Sit anywhere,” a southern female voice calls out from behind the counter. “Be with you in a second.”

Clyde chose this place because of how popular it is. Seems to go against us trying to be discrete, but now I see why. No one is paying attention. No one would recognize him, much less note two men having lunch in a busy diner twenty miles away from where we live. Everyone has their face in a plate or in their phones, barely paying attention to anything around them as I slip into a booth toward the back of the diner and wait.

The bell rings just as I pick up the menu and Clyde walks in. He’s changed out of his suit, and wears a baseball hat and a tropical print shirt so vibrant against his dark skin it’s practically glowing. As he approaches, I can’t help but smile.

“You look like a fucking tourist,” I tell him as he slides into the booth across from me. “Where are your sunhat and aviators?”

His dry expression makes my grin widen. In the two years we’ve been here, I’ve grown used to him. It doesn’t help the memories of that day in those dark woods. The anger. The absolute rage that I feel toward him that he still works for theman who killed my brother, but it’s eased some knowing he’s at least trying to stop Rune.

Some. Not enough most days.

“Why do you want me here, V?” he asks, picking up the menu and tapping it on the edge of the tabletop.

“V?” I ask, shifting as the waitress approaches.

“What will you two be having?” she asks, one hand on her hip, the other flattened to her cleavage. It’s a nice cleavage. Almost as nice as the pretty Vixen I’ve been watching for two years.

Watching. More like obsessing.

“Strawberry milkshake, the cheeseburger, and fries,” Clyde says. He points to me. “And he’s paying.”

She quirks a brow and then looks at me. “Same,” I tell her and wait until she leaves before saying, “Tell me about my mother.”

Clyde’s usual stoic demeanor slips. He settles back in his seat, eyes locked on mine. “Interesting that you think I know who your mother is.”

I lean sideways and pull the printed page from the back pocket of my jeans. When I unfold it, and spread it out, Clyde’s gaze drops to it and his jaw grinds.

“It’s amazing what a reverse image search can find on the internet.” I tap the page I printed this morning. “You’re much younger here.”

He nods but remains silent.

“What does Rune’s right-hand man have to do with a ballet school in the middle of Russia?” I ask.

Clyde slides the page toward him and stares down at the image of my mother that was printed in a Moscow newspaper several years before I was born. It’s taken me years of digging, but I finally found evidence that my mother wasn’t just a ballerina. She had trained and worked at the other school. Theone we whispered about as boys. The same school rumored to train soldiers just like us. All women. All just as deadly.

“Do you remember her name?” I ask, shifting to lean forward in my seat. “I can remember her face. The way she smelled like summer. But I can’t for the life of me remember her name.”

Clyde keeps his eyes on the paper, staring at the image of the two of them center stage, my mother in a silk leotard and slippers, a younger Clyde at her side.

“Catriona,” he says. “She was one of the best.”

I glance around, then lower my voice. “Like us? But daughters?”

His subtle nod confirms it. “Contracted out in pairs or solo. Very skilled. Very fatal.”

“Who ran it?” I ask. “Father?”

Another subtle nod, then, “It shut down when Fallon and Rune cut ties. After Maxim…” he doesn’t finish.

“What does Maxy have to do with the ballerinas?” I ask. I lean back as the waitress approaches and sets down our plates. She tosses straws in front of us, tells us to enjoy, then moves on. Clyde pops a fry into his mouth.

“Maxy dropped us off that day,” I say, looking around. “He sent the three of us out into the wilderness.”

Clyde eyes me, eating another fry.