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“Anderson, you’re up!” Jason shouts from the tent as he walks out, hooking a thumb behind him.

Putting the safety on, I stand up and sling the rifle over my shoulder, keeping it clean of the mud that I’m covered in.

When I get into the tent, I lean it against the table the computer is on and pull my top off, throwing a clean vest on and putting my password in the computer. It takes its time to get a secure connection and while I wait, I run my hands through my hair trying to tame it; the length getting on my nerves.

I need a goddamn haircut, it’s the first thing I’ll be doing when I’m back stateside.

The flashing screen tells me that it’s connecting and then Kay’s face comes onto the screen.

“Corey?” She leans forward, her eyes squinting at the screen.

“Hey, lil’ sis.” I smirk.

“Thank God!” she gasps and leans back in her chair being overly dramatic. “We haven’t heard from you in so long!”

I roll my eyes at her dramatics. She’s changed a lot over the last couple of years, telling her to go and see Ty was the best thing that I ever did.

I’ve always kept my friends and family separate which is hard to do when you do a job like mine but I knew that when I needed them to protect her, they would. I never expected my best friend and little sister to fall in love, at first I hated it but over time I’ve got used to it.

“Yeah, alright, calm down.” I chuckle. “How’s my nephew?”

“He’s good. He has a girlfriend now,” she says with a giant smile. Yep. That little dude is gonna be just like his uncle.

“He does?” I laugh and lean back in the chair. “That’s my boy.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She rolls her eyes and starts to tell me how everyone on the compound is doing and what they’re all up to.

Ty owns the firm MAC Security and has several people who both work and live on a compound. They’re their own kind of family and I’ve always thought I’d end up on that compound with them but things change and I can’t see that happening any time soon, if at all.

“And, Ava met Jackson-”

“Wait,” I say, holding my hand up to stop her. “What do you mean she met him? Shouldn’t she have met him ages ago?”

“Well...” Kay looks behind her and leans forward. “Elena didn’t introduce them on account of him getting into trouble all the time so she didn’t tell them how close their colleges are to each other.”

“How close are they?” I ask, confused.

“Like, twenty miles apart,” she says, shrugging her shoulders and pulling that face she does when she knows something.

I stay silent for a minute just thinking about Ava. I haven’t seen her since the day I left and although I told her that I’d keep in touch, I haven’t. I’m not sure if I did it consciously or not.

She’s so sweet and, well... when I left she was broken. I wanted to stay, not just for her but for Kay as well, but I had no choice.

“So they met?”

Kay laughs then looks up at someone above the screen. “Corey’s just telling me something important, can you give me a few?” she says to whoever walks in and then I hear some mumbling in the background before Kay looks back at me. “Anyway, so according to Charlie, she went out to a bar for the first time since moving there and as fate would have it, Jackson works at the bar she went to.”

“Why would she go to a bar so far away?” I frown not understanding it. I’m not sure how I feel about her being at a bar without me there to protect her. I have this insane need to guard her, I have ever since I first saw her broken blue eyes.

I really don’t have the right to feel this way, especially when I haven’t spoken to her for eighteen months but it doesn’t stop my body’s reaction.

“No.” Kay shakes her head. “Jackson works at a bar close to Ava’s college.”

“Well that makes zero sense,” I say rolling my eyes.

I’m about to ask what college she goes to when Kay says, “Something about not being able to work around his college, I don’t know why.” She shrugs with indifference.

I close my eyes as she starts to talk about Monty her dog and rest my head in my hands.