Chapter 28-

Tony POV-

"That went well, I think," I told Pepper as I walked out of the office after Vlad had left.

"What happened in there anyway?" she asked, following behind me as we both headed out of the building. Considering Vlad had been my only appointment for today, that gave me plenty of time to go home and conspire with Danny and his friends. Is it sad that my free time is spent with teenagers?

"Nothing much, he had the same plan as last time, just changed a little, so I declined it…oh…and we're going to dinner with him tonight," I replied, nonchalantly.

Pepper was a little taken aback by this, "Are you sure that's a good idea, Tony?" she asked, obviously hoping that I would reconsider.

"Yep. You, me, and Dani at Chart House at 6:30," I told her. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Pepper purse her lips, probably in concern for Danielle, but after a few seconds, she sighed deeply.

"Okay, I'll set it up," she reluctantly agreed.

Normally, I would have driven myself to work and Pepper would have driven separately after dropping Danielle off at school, but today, as a way of adding to the façade, we all rode in the limo. We arrived home and walked through the front door, only to be immediately bombarded by three anxious teenagers.

"How'd it go?"

"That was fast."

"Did it go well?"

They said at the same time. I held up my hands to stop the questions.

"It went fine, you were right, we're having dinner at 6:30," I told them.

"Wait a minute…you all knew that Vlad would invite Tony to dinner?" Pepper asked narrowing her eyes.

Danny and Sam quickly shouted "No!" at the same time Tucker said "Yes," earning him a glare from the two love birds. Pepper's eyebrows lowered suspiciously at them, and then she turned the full focus of her glare on me before sighing and, I guess, figuring that this was one more thing that she was being left out of, and going to the home office to get us a reservation at Chart House.

"Tucker—!" Danny and Sam shouted, but I cut them off.

"Listen, it's okay, we'll probably tell Pepper everything after the Vlad thing blows over anyway. More importantly, those vultures were here earlier," I added.

"I know," Danny groaned.

"We were in our rooms and Tucker and I had to force him not to go suck them into a thermos," Sam told me.

"Well, at least we proved that they can't get in, and I got to zap them, in fact I got to show Vlad that they were zapped," I told them.

"YOU WHAT?" they yelled in unison.

"Trust me, I had my reasons," I told them, and they calmed down a little, "One, Vlad would have been suspicious if there was suddenly a ghost shield around my house, so I made up a story about how the security installer thought my problems were paranormal. Which, I might add, will force him to reconsider his plans a little, and, it will make him think that Danielle hasn't told me her secret yet," I informed them. Danny nodded slowly, then he grinned.

"Yeah, now he will be really taken by surprise when we take him down," he beamed.

"Yeah, but before we knew he would come here to take Danielle, now we don't know his next move," Sam pointed out, dampening both of our moods.

"But we know ours," Tucker said.

"And that is?" I asked, sitting on the couch.

"Well, obviously, you go to dinner—" Sam started.

"You show up late to dinner," Danny finished and received weird looks from Tucker and Sam, "What? It will piss him off."

"Fine. You show up late to dinner," Sam repeated, rolling her eyes, "And you keep up the façade that you know nothing about Danielle or her relationship with him," Sam said.

"In other words, you will pretend to be oblivious as Danny," Tucker said.

"Hey!" Danny exclaimed in protest causing Sam to crack a small smile.

"Ignore how uncomfortable Danielle looks, order three of the most expensive things on the menu, accidentally spill a drink on Vlad, that kind of stuff," Tucker added, "After dinner, we're just going to have to wing it."

I nodded, understanding the plan. The three teens sat on the other couch.

"You should know that I also zapped him a little. I think I said something like, static electricity is a bitch isn't it," I smirked and the three teens laughed.

Dani POV-

I had finished my work early, as usual, so I was bored, listening to my iPod, when my ghost sense went off. I groaned internally, but, obviously, ignored it.

Out of the corner of my eye, through one of the large windows of my classroom, I saw a neon green form. Unfortunately, I could not ignore the urge to see who it was peering into the classroom. It was one of Vlad's vulture minions. I half expected him to swoop in and abduct me right now, but he didn't. Instead, he just floated there, watching me, which, was almost worse.

I switched to Back in Black by AC/DC and cranked it to a high level (well, a high level for me, which is still inaudible to everyone else) and started tapping my foot on the linoleum floor, and drumming my fingers on the table. My anxiety did not go unnoticed by Issa who sat directly next to me. She followed my gaze to the window, and I saw her surprise when she saw the green vulture. When the vulture noticed that he had been spotted by someone else, he vanished.

I shot a brief look of gratitude at Issa who smiled back. He might have been away from the window for now, but I could still feel his ghostly presence around the school, making it impossible for me to relax.

'I sure hope all of this is over tomorrow,' I thought desperately.