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I let the chair legs fall back down before I push myself to my full height, and I stroll over to the window. “I could say I’m looking to get back in the game.”
“Getting bored working as a contractor?”
“Let’s just say I thought I’d be seeing some of the action you did,” I admit.
He snorts. “That’s because of what our company did. We were…hold on.” He reaches across the desk and taps a few buttons on an iPad and in seconds, locks on doors engage and the view I’d been admiring disappears as shutters lower.
I spin on my heel to face him. “Impressive.”
“All the executive suites have it.”
“Do I want to know how much it cost to install?”
“Talk to Cal. His wife did the upgrades here and in our office in D.C.” I make a mental note to stop by my other friend’s office before I leave. Sam continues, “What I was saying is before our part of the company was acquired, what we did was dangerous.”
My jaw tightens. “I’m feeling that way right now.”
“No, what you’re out for is vengeance,” he counters.
“Is it that obvious?”
“If what happened to your family happened to mine, I’d be seeking the same, Ethan.” He stands and clasps my shoulder. “You need to be there for your niece. Let us go after who did this to her. Don’t blur the lines.”
“Because you all follow your own advice so well,” I fling back at him. The first time I met the man before me, we helped rescue his cousin from a hostage situation.
“I never claimed to, but at that time, I was the only one with the skills to get the job done.” It isn’t Sam’s arrogance talking—it’s fact.
Spinning away from him, I plant my feet apart and cross my arms before admitting, “I hate that you’re right.”
“But you’ll do it,” he declares confidently.
“How do you know?”
“Because if you were going to interfere, you’d have already done so and I’d have received a call from our former boss, pissed as shit.”
The groan I release may be heard in the Bronx. “You just had to mention him.” A man who played fast and loose with people’s lives so often they should give him a gold-plated wrench as his next anniversary gift at the Agency.
Sam chuckles. “Of course I did.” Then his expression morphs into one of concern. “How’s your niece?”
I think back to the explosion in her father’s penthouse yesterday when I showed up between her lover, her mother and father, and her family from back home, and how all it needed was my favorite witch to descend to turn it into sheer chaos. “She’s desperately trying to heal, to not give the bastard who ran her over any more of herself.” Sighing, I scrub my hand through my hair. “She’s in pain, but her man’s helping.”
“And you? How are you holding up?”
I think back to the text I received from Fallon earlier checking in on our girl.
Fallon:
It’s okay if her tears are falling.
Ethan:
That’s good, right?
Fallon:
That means she’s not hiding them.
Ethan: