22
A s he made his way into HQ, he decided that being booted out of his own house was worth it when he heard Rose’s voice in the midst of the chattering women as he’d listened outside the door. It had reassured him that she’d be okay without him. Plus, with Lina and Lily there, not to mention Snow, Rose had some of the deadliest operators on the property at her side. He knew almost nothing about comforting upset women. Especially not when that woman was his…
Mine.
He stepped out of the elevator into the bowels of Nemesis headquarters and allowed the rage he’d banked while comforting Rose to rise from deep within him. He strode forward at a swift pace. He could even hear his footsteps sound furious as he made a beeline for the interrogation room.
“In here, Caleb,” Dalton called to him from a different room as he approached the door. “Logan and Jeep are in there. You and me are watching.” He gestured to the observation room.
Tempted to ignore his boss and go into the other room, Caleb bit back a growl of annoyance. He wanted to be part of the interrogation, not to watch it from the sidelines. That asshole deserved to have his teeth sent straight down his throat, and he’d give almost anything to be the one to do it.
“Door’s locked.” As if Dalton could read his thoughts, he pointed into the observation room. “Get your ass in here with me.”
Caleb admitted to himself that he understood his boss’s rage back when he’d found Lina and figured out what had been going on to keep her from him more now than he ever had before. Dalton deserved a damn medal for being able to keep his head mostly on straight while they’d figured that crap out. But now Dalton had two people to fight for and not one. It irked him that Dalton was keeping him from losing his shit on the person who deserved it.
In an effort to get himself under control, he scrubbed his hand down over his face and took a breath. He resolved to at least try to follow orders for now. That way, when he took matters into his own hands later, Dalton couldn’t bitch at him. He followed him into the observation room. He glanced through the glass to where the dumbass sat on one side of the table. “Why Jeep and Logan?”
“Because one will use finesse and the other brute force.” Dalton stood with one arm across his chest while the other stroked the scruff on his chin. “I have clearance to class this as a hostile invasion. And we are treating it as such, but we have to follow protocol so our hands come out clean.”
Orders from the top, then. He could deal with that. He should have known Dalton would go straight up the chain of command and get clearance to investigate the issue thoroughly. Dalton always preferred when I’s were dotted and T’s crossed. He dipped his chin toward his boss. His agreement to do things his way for now didn’t mean he didn’t want to punch the asshole in the nose a time or two, just that he could wait until Dalton was satisfied they’d found out everything they could before he showed the asshole what coming for someone he cared about resulted in.
“They’re starting.” Dalton cut into his musing. “Pay attention if you don’t want to miss anything.”
That was something he didn’t want to happen. Caleb gave himself a mental shake and forced his fingers to unclench. Dalton probably knew how close he was to snapping, but there was no reason for him to confirm it for him with his body language.
Jeep walked back and forth in front of the table the asshole was sitting at, then he paused directly in front of him and pinned him with a glare. “Why didn’t you declare all your weapons as you came through security?”
“I was in a hurry,” the fucking new guy replied. “I didn’t think. It was stupid.”
“Yeah, it was stupid,” Jeep agreed. “You read the contract, signed it, and agreed to our rules and regs,” he informed him. “Then you broke them in the first week.”
The dude winced but only nodded in response, waiting for Jeep to continue, just as training would have taught him to do.
“Why did you bring extra weapons to HQ?”
“I’d just come from the range,” he said. “You can check the cameras and my login times. I should have dropped them at the cage, but I was in a rush, and I forgot.”
“‘I forgot’ gets people killed,” Logan added. “Nemesis doesn’t hire people who get people killed. Tell me why the fuck we shouldn’t fire your ass right now?”
“I made a fuck up.” The guy’s face said he was finally realizing the error of his ways. He straightened in the chair. “It won’t happen again.”
“Who do you work for?” Jeep asked.
The FNG looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “I work for Nemesis the same way you do. You know that.”
Jeep just quirked up one eyebrow and asked, “Does the name June Pezzullo mean anything to you?”
Caleb stiffened and exchanged a glance with Dalton when FNG’s shoulders tensed. Clearly, he did know that name. Caleb leaned a little toward the glass, eager to know how he knew it.
“How did you hear that name?” Jeep pressed.
For a second, Caleb thought the operator wasn’t going to answer, but his cheeks inflated as he blew out a breath. “Her family wants her back?—"
Jeep cut him off with a slash of his hand and growled, “Don’t bullshit me. She doesn’t have any family.”
He looks confused. Interesting.
“Her husband wants her back.”
Husband? My ass.
Both Tex and Trev had done a deep dive into Rose’s background. She’d never married the jerk. Was he lying in an attempt at sympathy?
Jeep changed the track of his questioning. “So, how did you know she was here?”
Again, it looked as if FNG was reluctant to answer; this time, it was Logan who pushed the issue. “Answer the question.”
“There’s a job on the dark web,” FNG said slowly. “You know my persona. We discussed it during the interview process.” He waited for Jeep to give him a short nod. “It got tagged for it. I was about to turn it down and stepped away to think about it.” His hands moved as he talked. “Then I saw her walk into the mess last night. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought I was in for some easy bucks.”
Both Logan and Jeep snorted, and Caleb understood why. In their world, easy usually came with a side of ‘fuck me,’ and ‘why the hell didn’t I see that one coming?’
“Did you happen to notice who she walked into the mess with?”
Caleb smirked at Logan’s question, because if the asshole hadn’t known before, he was about to find out exactly who he’d pissed off by even contemplating going after a job that involved Rose.
“The guy who went into HQ before me this morning. I just wanted to ask him where to find her.”
“That is her man,” Jeep said mildly. “She doesn’t have a husband…”
“Two million dollars says otherwise?—"
Jeep kept talking as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “…like the job description you looked at said. But do you know what she does have? She’s got Caleb Hunt, that’s who.”
FNG’s fingers, which had been rubbing at the corner of the table, stilled, and his eyes dropped closed briefly. “Hunt? Are you shitting me?”
“Nope.” Logan popped the end on the word. “Just in case you think he’s about to let this go,” he pointed to the one-way glass almost directly to Caleb’s chest as if he could see him. “he is behind the glass right now, watching your every move.”
“He’s probably sizing you up for a hole in the ground, too,” Jeep added for good measure.
“He can’t do anything to me from behind the glass.” FNG had either found his balls or lost his sanity. “I’m still tempted; two million is a lot of money.”
Both Dalton and Caleb growled. It pissed them off that FNG could be so blasé about the whole situation. Caleb decided if Dalton wasn’t going to fire him after this, then there would be problems between them, because there wasn’t a hope in hell he was having a wanker like that on his six. Caleb silently promised Jeep as much beer as he could drink and the most expensive bottle of whiskey he could find when Jeep kicked the jerk’s chair and he landed on his ass.
“That’s police brutality.”
Logan snickered. “We aren’t the police, dumbass.”
Jeep hauled him back to his feet and pushed him into the chair again. He leaned in until he was almost nose to nose with him. “June is off limits. She belongs to Hunt, which means she is ours. We protect what is ours. You know what that means, right?”
FNG swallowed hard, but he nodded to indicate that he understood.
“Will we cross the line?” Caleb wondered how far Dalton would be willing to go for Rose. He watched Jeep and Logan pressing their target for more information on the people who chased Rose.
“We will if we have to.” Dalton kept his eyes on the interrogation room. “But she’s your woman; that makes it your call. You can decide what happens this time.”
“And if there’s a next time?” Dalton arched up an eyebrow, making Caleb fidget under his penetrating gaze. His boss never did a damn thing without considering all the options first. Blowback on his business and his people was something he’d mitigate whenever possible. He’d trust his call on this, no matter how much he craved the opportunity to smash the asshole in the interrogation room’s nose out the back of his head.
“If he’s stupid enough to come for her here again,” Dalton said slowly, “then we take care of business ourselves. Even if it means we have to take him overseas to do it.”
“Understood.” He could live with that. “As long as that motherfucker leaves today, and he doesn’t give Rose up to the jackwad searching for her.”
Dalton nodded. He leaned over and hit the button to communicate with Jeep, relaying the decision.
Caleb’s mouth twisted into a satisfied smirk when the FNG stiffened as Logan and Jeep told him the decision. “Okay.” He hoped like hell this was the right thing to do. “Call Jasper. Have him come get him.”
“If I call Jasper, Snow will lose her shit.” Dalton winced. “I was going to have the boys drop him off.”
“Huh?”
Dalton scrubbed his hand down his face and huffed in annoyance. “There was an incident at the Honkytonk the other night. Jack said he’d take care of it, but Snow is madder than a cornered rattlesnake, so I’m guessing that didn’t work.”
“Snow is just gonna have to deal.” Caleb knew she would. She’d be all kinds of mad about it, but there was nobody better at compartmentalizing when needed than Aria Keane.
“Okay, it’s your funeral.” Dalton reached for the phone.
This right here was why he liked working for Dalton. He let them have some autonomy when he could. Their opinions were taken into account when possible. It mattered. “Thanks, Boss.”
The hour it took for Jasper to arrive was spent gathering the FNG’s gear and belongings and dropping them onto the steps in front of HQ. They wanted no reason for him to have to come back here once Jasper was done with him.
Caleb didn’t dare get too close to the prisoner. His need to kick his ass was enough to warn him that crossing the line between his moral code and his desires was too fine to risk it.
Movement coming down the ranch road caught his eye, and the tension eased in his shoulders. Jeep and Rexar were going with Jasper and the prisoner to ensure there were no issues on the way to town. “Thanks for doing this.” He nodded toward the approaching vehicle as he spoke to Aria.
“I’m only going because I owe you,” she called over her shoulder as she jogged toward her truck. “I’d much prefer to be baking and drinking wine with the girls.”
“I appreciate it.” He grabbed the fucker’s gear and stomped to the cruiser. “Thanks for coming, Jasper.”
“Dalton filled me in.” Jasper may have been talking to him, but his eyes were fully on Aria.
Caleb was about to ask what happened between them, but Jeep and Rexar picked just that moment to arrive with the prisoner, and the chance was lost as they put him in the cruiser and slammed the door behind him.
Five minutes later, Caleb stood next to Dalton as they watched the convoy heading back toward the ranch gates and glanced at him. “Do you get the feeling we fucked up by not dealing with him ourselves?”
“Yeah,” Dalton admitted softly. “If it was anyone else but Jasper, I’d be chasing him down and telling him we made a mistake.”
Shit.
That’s not what he’d wanted to hear.
“Go on.” Dalton jerked his chin toward Bravo house. “Send my wife and son home and spend some time with Rose. If we need to, then I have a damn army to call on to protect her.”
“You got it.” He had a feeling Dalton was hoping he could find out more about Rose’s situation if he had some time alone with her. He wasn’t so sure there was anything else to tell. But he’d take the opportunity to spend more time with her. Every second they were together were seconds he could use to try and persuade her; a small town in the middle of nowhere Montana was as good as any to take a stand against her ex.