Is this destiny?

Next morning, Mishi arrived with his girlfriend Eliza in time to join Sarah, Aiden, Lucija and Petar for breakfast.

Marija, Emir and Tereza reached the Chateau few hours later. Emir was happy that they didn't miss the lunch.

Lunch was lively with nine friends who were catching up on last few months.

"That is?", Marija raised her eyebrows and pointed at Sarah's left hand. She didn't miss the engagement ring.

Sarah leaned into Aiden's embrace and stated with a big smile. "We are engaged."

After a round of congratulations, Emir said: "I hope we are invited to the wedding."

Sarah glanced at Aiden who responded without removing his gaze from her. "Absolutely."

Emir was happy and so was everyone else. Their excitement dampened a bit when they found out that Sarah and Aiden didn't pick the wedding date.

Sarah felt sorry seeing that the mood dropped, and she chimed in: "We didn't pick a wedding date, but I imagine that it will happen in late spring, or summer. In a meadow full of wildflowers and surrounded with a forest."

Aiden looked at her cryptically and Sarah was sure that his mental notepad was writing that down. If he knew that she only described her dream, he would probably not be so attentive about it. She will need to explain him later.

"We are planning to go horse riding in the afternoon." Sarah announced. "Let us know if you want to join. This stable has few horses, but if we need more, we can get from the neighboring property. They are renting horses."

"Wah! Even horses!" Tereza exclaimed. "Boss, you really did a great job in getting this place for our meeting. After our falling out with Nick, I was afraid that we will not have a second location. This is amazing! I wish we can meet here every time."

"We can.", Sarah smiled and added: "We own the place."

Six people stared at Sarah without moving. Eliza requested a translation from Mishi, but he was also non-responsive.

After few seconds, they burst into 'Ohs' and 'Ahs' and wanted to know the details.

"Boss, this place is just too awesome!", Emir exclaimed.

When they calmed down, Sarah wanted to come up with a tentative schedule for next few days.

"Today we rest and hang out. And horse riding. Since everyone is here, after we are done with lunch, we will give you a tour of our humble Chateau. Tomorrow, let's spend time in the tech room and we can do a round of coding battles. Besides what we usually do, I want us to attack each other; one will have some time to set up defenses before the attacker starts, and defender can continue working during the attack. We can even do this in teams." Sarah's suggestion earned her a lot of nods. She continued: "Day after tomorrow we can discuss battle analysis and do more if anyone is interested. That day Aiden and me will be away for few hours in the afternoon… and day after that we can allocate for a day trip to Paris…"

The rest of the day went by fast.

Sarah enjoyed view of Aiden on a horse. He looks very regal while his magnificent completely black Friesian horse trotted proudly like he knew that he is carrying a Greek God on his back.

The experience was a bit spoiled with Marija who was ogling at Aiden. Sarah told herself that she needs to install some filter so that she does not see Marija's despicable behavior. Why can't she control herself? Is she doing this on purpose, or she thinks that no one is noticing?

Aiden noticed Sarah's displeasure. He looked at her and tilted his head, signaling her to move forward. He flashed a smile before urging his horse into a gallop.

Sarah was surprised at a speed Aiden was moving forward and a second later her chestnut colored Thoroughbred was galloping like a wind. She was ecstatic to find out that her horse is faster than Aiden's, but as soon as she confirmed that, she made her horse match speeds with Aiden's. After all, she would rather enjoy the view of her Greek God than leave him in the dust.

After dinner, they all sat in the living room and chatted while snacking on desserts and sipping beverages. They were all eager to try French popular beverages such as Perry and Gini. Well, all except for Mishi who was perfectly content with a bottle of Louis XIII Cognac, and he kept refilling his glass until his eyes sparkled and Eliza started showing her displeasure.

"Did you hear about Nu?", Petar asked.

Sarah frowned. "Nick?"

Petar nodded and continued: "I'm not wrong about this. Even though he evolved and improved, under all that flashy coding, he is using the same methods we taught him. He is rising in popularity, attending events and collecting rewards. Soon he will be in a position to accept jobs, if he is not there already."

"Is that a problem?", Aiden asked while pressing his index finger between Sarah's eyebrows to smoothen out her frown.

Everyone looked at Sarah, expecting her answer. She was silent for some time before responding.

"No. As long as he knows what he is doing and does not try attacking us."

"Why do you think he will attack us?", Emir asked, nervousness apparent in his voice.

Sarah was not sure how to explain. "Before we got this place, I offered him to buy the piece of land where our old hideout is. He was… different. Angry. He is not responding to any of our summons, but if he is sincere in severing his ties with us, why is he using his old moniker? No one other than us knows him as Nu and so far he didn't make any public appearances. He could have picked any other alias and we would not know that it's him."

"You think that he is using Nu because he wants to send us a message?", Lucija asked.

Sarah nodded.

Aiden rubbed Sarah's back gently to ease her tension. "Don't worry. We can keep tabs on him. If he tries anything suspicious, we will know about it."

Sarah exhaled. "The biggest irreversible damage he can do is to expose us. Everything else we can prevent or fix." Sarah looked at people in the room whose gazes were fixed on her. Even Mishi was paying attention. "Everyone, be ready in worst case... to drop your Sigma army identities at short notice."

Marija frowned. She does not like this idea. "If we do that, we will lose our contacts, existing customers, and reputation that we built so far."

"True.", Tereza confirmed. "But it's better than ending up in jail… or worse. We all did more than one thing under those aliases which got some powerful people upset. If they get a whiff of who we are, do you think they will let it pass?"

The whole room fell into silence.

Sarah clapped loudly, making everyone jerk out of their stupor. "Let's use these next few days to come up with ideas how to handle emergencies. If we don't find anything solid, we can drop our aliases right here, and erase all traces. There is nothing more important than staying safe. Everything else we can rebuild. Understood?"

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