Halfway through their lunch, Viktor received a call from his secretary that had him leave right away. He'd assured her that he would call on her again soon, and that their plans were simply postponed rather than cancelled, but Danielle knew better. She'd heard the woman on the other end of the line talking about a security leak at the office, and she wasn't naïve enough to think it was a coincidence. No, somebody was meddling with her plans, and she had a pretty damn good idea who.
She finished her lunch first – it tasted much better than when Viktor had sat opposite her – before she called a cab to take her home. She needed to take care of this, she knew, and perhaps she should have gone by his place first, but she had a sneaking suspicion that he would be waiting by her apartment door, ready to scold her for what she'd planned to do.
Unsurprisingly, she was right. As she stepped out of the elevator, she found him standing just where she'd imagined, looking not even a smidge contrite. "Ethan."
"Danielle," her agent – because he was most certainly not here as her friend just now – returned before he went in on her. "You are, without a doubt, the absolutely dumbest person I've ever met in my entire career – no, my entire life."
She huffed and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Could we go inside for this?"
"Oh, we better. Because you're going to want to sit the fuck down," Ethan said severely, and she got the feeling that perhaps this wasn't just about her plan.
He went in ahead of her once she had the door unlocked and motioned for her to sit on the couch. She didn't put up a fight, throwing herself onto the cushions. "I was handling it, you know," she said, fully aware that she sounded like a kid.
"You were getting yourself into a dangerous situation is what you were doing," Ethan countered and it was obvious it cost him a great deal of effort to speak as calmly as he did. He sat down in the chair across from her. "What were you thinking, Dani?"
She didn't answer his question and she figured he didn't need her to, anyway. He knew damn well what she'd been thinking and why. "How did you know, anyway?"
"You were seen leaving with Viktor. I knew you had to be up to something."
"Who told you that—" She didn't need to finish her question, knowing the answer already, and groaned. "Nora."
She had been right to be wary, then. Just not for the reasons she'd thought.
"I had to have somebody keep tabs on you, didn't I?" Ethan said. "Clearly, I was right."
Danielle huffed again. "It would have been just fine. And it still doesn't explain how you knew to call the leak in."
"We've known each other for a while, Dani, and I'm familiar with the way you operate. I called Dean, and he told me about the cameras." He shrugged. "The rest wasn't all that hard to figure out."
She sighed. "Well, I guess there's nothing I can do to change what you've done. I'll just have to figure out a new to—"
"I doubt you're going to want to do that," Ethan interrupted with a shake of his head. "Not after what I have to show you."
Danielle looked at him questioningly as he opened his messenger bag and took out a dreadfully familiar cardboard box. Her voice trembled when she asked, "Where did you get that?"
She knew, of course, where he'd got it. She knew, deep down, but she couldn't believe it. She didn't want to believe it. But he held the box out to her and that could only mean one thing.
"You're lucky Hunt gave it to one of my contacts rather than anyone else, or this would be down at the police station right about now," Ethan said, and her heart sank further upon hearing it. "He was going to release it all, Danielle. He was going to ruin you."
Thomas was about three sheets to the wind by the time he heard the doorbell ring and he couldn't be entirely certain whether it was real or he'd only imagined it. Either way, he figured, it couldn't hurt to check.
That assumption turned out to be gravely wrong, however, when he opened the door to see none other than Danielle Allen on the other side and felt like someone had reached right into his chest and ripped his heart out. She was quite clearly furious, if her expression was anything to go by, and it took him a few more seconds to notice the box in her hands.
"So that was a trick, too?" he said – or, at least, he hoped that was what he said because his speech wasn't quite so clear as he wished it to be. It didn't matter anyway, he thought, he would just slam the door in her face and go back to pour himself another glass of Scotch. Thinking about just how she'd got her hands on that box again, and why she'd brought it to him, could wait until tomorrow morning. Or perhaps the late afternoon, as he wasn't so sure he'd be good for anything before then.
Just now, all he knew was that, of course, she'd tricked him again. He should have realised that she wouldn't have given him the bloody thing if she hadn't had a way to keep its contents from being released. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But, again, further examination of that train of thought would have to wait. He made to shut the door only to realise that Danielle had already pushed past him and was standing in his entryway expectantly.
"Sure, come in, make yourself at home," he grumbled as he closed the door and led her to the lounge. He hadn't the energy nor the inclination to throw her out, and she wouldn't have let him in any case.
He sat back down on his sofa – though perhaps it was an action far less graceful than sitting down – and motioned for her to sit opposite him. She remained standing and set the box down on his coffee table, right next to where his half-empty bottle of Scotch stood. Hadn't it been nearly full earlier? Surely, he hadn't had that much of it. Perhaps he simply misremembered.
"You're drunk," Danielle stated, as if it wasn't obvious, and Thomas knew very well it wasn't what she'd meant to say to him first thing.
He simply shrugged but didn't answer. She wouldn't have understood what he would have said, anyway, at least not without difficulty.
"I'm not having this discussion with you when you can't even fucking think properly," she told him, and he felt like a little child being scolded. She had no right to make him feel that way, she didn't. "How much have you had to drink?"
"D' know," he said, and this time he knew he wasn't articulating his words properly.
She let out a sigh then turned her attention to the bottle on the coffee table, picking it up, along with what appeared to be a little piece of plastic of some sort next to it. Had the bottle been unopened? Perhaps it had. "Christ, Hunt," she said exasperatedly and it did nothing to make him feel less like a little boy. "You're steaming drunk, aren't you?"
"Maybe," he replied, only half aware of how much he sounded like an indignant child. Perhaps she was right to treat him as such.
She huffed, muttering something to herself that sounded suspiciously like, "Great, just what I wanted to do with my night."
Thomas didn't see where she went, feeling as if he would throw up if he turned his head too sharply, but he supposed that was her intention when she returned without the bottle. As if he couldn't find more alcohol in his own bloody house if he'd had a mind to! Just now, though, he felt rather queasy, and he didn't think he'd have another glass after all.
"Get up," she ordered, standing right in front of him again.
He shook his head. The wave of nausea that followed made him wish he hadn't.
Danielle rolled her eyes before telling him, very slowly, "I'm going to help you up and take you to the bathroom. You're going to thank me tomorrow for saving your stupid fancy furniture."
He highly doubted he would but, then again, he doubted just about everything that came out of her mouth after today. Nonetheless, he let her take his hands and pull him up – slowly, which was one thing he would have thanked her for were he not sure he was angry with her for one reason or another – and he let her lead him to the bathroom.
They got there just in time for him to lurch towards the toilet and empty the contents of his stomach into the bowl. She didn't come with him to hold his hair or rub his back as he'd imagined a friend would have but rather stood in the doorway, arms crossed and watching him as if he would run away first chance he got.
He might've, had he been able, with the way she'd looked at him when he'd opened the door. He wasn't entirely sure she wouldn't murder him in his sleep. Then again, he imagined that couldn't possibly be good for her career, either, so she likely wouldn't chance it.
"Are you done?" she asked eventually, and Thomas made a noise somewhere between an amused snort and a pained laugh. "I'll take that as a yes. Do you need help getting up?"
She sounded so bored with it all, as if she couldn't care less about how he was, and he supposed that was the case.
"I can get up by myself," he muttered, knowing full well it would have been far easier to just let her help. With a bit of effort, he managed, and he went over to the sink to clean himself up as well as he could.
She put her hand on his upper arm again then, non-too-gently leading him to his bedroom. He didn't ask how she knew where it was – a memory of one of his end-of-term dinner parties surfacing in the back of his mind. He wasn't in the least surprised to learn that she'd quite clearly been snooping around when he hadn't looked.
"I'm going to see to it that you're not going to drown yourself in your vomit," she said as she pushed him towards the bed. "You're not getting out of this."
He didn't see the need to answer and simply laid down – he intended to hold onto whatever dignity he had left and would not strip down in front of her – and pulled the blanket over himself.
Danielle knelt down by his bedside, making sure her eyes were level with his when she said sternly, "We are going to have that talk tomorrow, Hunt."
Thomas didn't think there was a point in arguing, and he would have been too tired to do so, anyway. "We'll talk," he mumbled in return. "We will."
He saw her expression soften then, just before he closed his eyes, and he could have sworn he felt her hand brush a strand of hair out of his face as he drifted off to sleep.