Louder than Bombs | KNJ

At the Table

Lara stood back up after informing Timur of the poisoning attempt and he patted her hand where it lay on his shoulder again.

Even with the news that Lara had just relayed to him, Timur was committed to staying until he figured out why Lisa had been so insistent on coming. Though Lara could sympathize with what was happening, every additional minute they stayed here, she could nearly feel the threat level building.

The fact that someone had asked Bangtan to join them, and Namjoon thought it was a big enough concern that he'd brought all six of the guys out was something that didn't do much to alleviate Lara's concern about the situation. Obviously, they'd known it wasn't great going in, but Sentinel obviously had some work to do on their own threat level assessment.

Like how to do one without sourcing all of their information from Brian Powell. Lara sighed internally, and added that to the pile of things she and her friends would talk about after this job was over.

She and Blair hadn't liked Brock Collins since he'd joined Brian Powell's office. Lara assumed that was because he was a little too try-hard, a little too American with his east coast accent and stories about his time in his Ivy League university. Lara knew he'd tried to hit on Blair and failed miserably, then just as quickly had switched to Paige.

Paige at least had tried to be polite to the man, but even she had given up on him when he had refused to take no for an answer. Lara wondered idly if Brock Collins had been introduced to Hoseok yet and had to smother the smile that wanted to make an appearance at the thought.

Things were changing on the floor now as the games were picking up and people pressed forward to see the tables. Lara straightened up from where she leaned over in to speak in Timur's ear and adjusted her position so that she was able to see Timur, Lisa and a bit of Namjoon as well.

She thought she could hear Namjoon mumbling behind her and turned a bit more. His lips weren't moving, but she could see his adam's apple working and realized he must have some kind of communications with the rest of the guys.

He saw her watching him and after a moment he leaned towards her again.

"We might have another problem," he said, and she couldn't help the smile that ran across her face.

"Only one," she teased and made Namjoon chuckle as well.

"Well ok. Actually, we have two problems. One is less a problem, and more a weird piece of information," he said, and Lara arched an eyebrow. "Your Timur Balagula used to run by another name. Perhaps you are more familiar with Mikhail Petrov," he asked, and Lara nearly rocked back on her heels.

Finally, she nodded slowly and looked to Namjoon again.

"You're right. That's the name I remember from our tea parties. How did we not uncover that when we were doing our searches?"

Namjoon sighed a little and shared what he and Seokjin had come up with.

"We don't know, but we do wonder if perhaps Mr. Collins has come to tour Sentinel in the last six months or so," he asked.

This time Lara did rock back a little bit.

"Oh my god. Namjoon, you don't think..." Lara trailed off as horror ran through her mind. "No," she said slowly and shook her head. He couldn't be saying what she thought she was hearing.

"Ginny would have found it by now if he'd left us a gift," she said firmly, and Namjoon nodded.

"That's what she told Jinhyung just now too, but we can't rule it out Lara," Namjoon explained, and Lara paused to take that in.