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“ T hen what happened?” Jack is munching on food while I give my debriefing, which shows all the interest she has in being on intel-gathering duty. She hates it. Just as much as I hate retelling my embarrassment of the night.

“We left.” I sit on the bed and lie back. Still can’t believe everything that happened—or rather, what didn’t happen. I expected much more than just stopping in for a quick look around and then leaving. Color me beyond shocked when I learned that Casper canceled our reservations to stay on the property too. C8 pulled a lot of strings for that, and he almost ruined the entire mission.

“You left?” I can hear the crinkle of the chip bag being closed, meaning I have her full attention. “You were at a sex club. He saw you almost naked, petted your head, and then you left? I’m not trying to tell you how to run this mission, but damn, girl, even I know how to get a little something going in a place like that.”

I snort at Jack’s response. Yeah, right. The girl has never been interested in a boy since before we started working with C8. And it’s not a boy-only thing. I can’t think of a time when I ever saw her try something with anyone, boy or girl.

“I don’t expect you to understand. This mission differs from all the others.” I’m annoyed by everything. Including how he made me crawl to him. I hated it even though he made it seem like that somehow gained me favor in his eyes. Not that I need to gain favor, or even apologize. My actions were for the mission. He was a soldier. He should know how it goes. No one says “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings” during a mission. Sure, if someone dies, we say “sorry for your loss,” but that’s as far as it goes. No further. He needs to get over his ego being stepped on and move on. He wanted his club out of C8’s debt. This is how it works. Not with me crawling to him like a fucking dog for his enjoyment.

“How so?”

“For one thing, you’re not here.” She grunts at that, pulling a smile out of me. “And two, we’ve never had someone outside the Crazy Eights be part of an operation.”

“Sure we have. Remember that time we used the sheriff down in Louisiana? What about that time with the Jets?” I can practically see her shrug off my comment.

“Used is the operative word for both those times. And neither makes my point. The sheriff was part of the drug operation we took down, and the Jets didn’t work with us. They just had no issues with us becoming cheerleaders to find the bomb that concessions worker hid on the bottom level.”

“We’ve never gone after one of our own before.”

That is the reason I need to keep my head in the game. Especially since it’s Jack who’s the one reminding me and not the other way around.

Candy is more than a job—she’s family within C8. Her being lost like this could have happened to any of us. It wasn’t that she wasn’t strong enough to be put in a sex trafficking gig. That girl is one of the toughest I’ve ever seen. The duration of her undercover operation might have been the factor. Maybe we have a mole, and someone sold her out. The possibilities are endless for how we wound up here. But we are, and there’s no reason to pretend we aren’t. And I need to remember that. Not that I’m forgetting her and the mission, but with Casper here, he makes things a bit… fuzzy.

“Right. Tell me what you found.” I need to stop my bitch fest. I gave my initial check-in report; now I need to listen to what my team has to tell me.

“Nothing new here. Candy is still dark, but so are the buyers. We continue to believe that the auction hasn’t occurred, but we still don’t have a date or time. I’ll have Matrix run the aliases of those you met tonight and get back to you. Tell that boy toy of yours that the outfits need to stay on next time or else move the cameras before he cuts them off. Boss wants to remind you that we need both visual and personal knowledge for this to work for some of our other parties involved.”

I nod, even though she can’t see me through the phone. “Copy that.”

I hear a chime go off in the background.

“Oh, the pizza and cookies are ready.”

“Pizza and cookies? Seriously?” She might be my sister, but I’ve never claimed to understand her eating habits.

“What? They cook at the same temp. Don’t tell me I don’t know how to time manage. I’ll check back in tomorrow unless we find something out sooner. Toodles.” She hangs up before I can even voice my goodbyes. Typical.

I toss my phone onto the mattress beside me and close my eyes. I’m not hiding, just resetting. When we arrived, I asked for my room and beelined for it. I claimed I needed to check in with my team because of the change in sleeping arrangements, but I swear I heard Casper chuckle at my hasty retreat.

I need time away from him too. Space to clear my head and think. I thought I would have some more opportunities for being on even footing. I should have realized that I wasn’t the only one pretending to be someone else when we first started getting to know each other. After tonight, I realized I hardly know this guy at all.

And I don’t hate what I’m learning. Which isn’t smart. It’s downright stupid.

“Talking to yourself a part of what got you the job? Might want to update that training handbook of yours. Telling someone your thoughts can be risky.”

I throw my arm over my eyes to block him out. I didn’t jump when he entered. He wasn’t that sneaky. Even if he was trying to come in silently, I would know. He might like to tease me about the training the Crazy Eights gave me, but he would be shocked to see what it really takes to become a C8 operative.

“SEALs only have to do twenty-four weeks of BUD/S. C8s go through forty weeks of equivalent training that we got from retired BUD/S instructors and former SEALs. After that, we have another twenty weeks of specific training before we even start working as part of the team.”

“What phase is Abigail—I mean Rue in?” he asks.

“None. She’s still in the recruitment stage.”

He says nothing, so I pull my hand away from my face and look at the end of the bed to see him standing there with his head tilted.

“Seems excessive.” I raise my eyebrow at his judgment. “Wouldn’t you want them in training sooner than later? Not only from the standpoint of increasing team size but also available resources in all areas and less turnover.”

“What do you think recruitment is for? Not everyone is field clear. We need HR reps like any company. Recruitment’s not just to see if they fit in but if they’ll last. We also use recruitment to see what aspect they’ll be a part of. Just like the Hounds and your prospects, not everyone gets the invite to come to the first stage. We might train like the military, but we’re as exclusive as some of the government contracts. We don’t take just anyone.” I drape my arm over my eyes and smile. “You’d never make the cut.”

He grunts at my dig. “Pretty sure that’s because I’ve got balls and not a pair of tits.”

“C8 operations take in all kinds. We might prefer a certain level of delicacy that few men possess, but that doesn’t mean we don’t recruit males too. If it helps, some girls have bigger balls than you.”

“Yeah, that helps. Great mental picture.”

He steps away, and my grin widens before I hear him go around the room, opening and closing drawers.

I heave a deep sigh before I sit up and look around. “Let me guess, we’re sharing the room.”

“Figured you’d want to keep the ruse that you and I are a couple. If you prefer, this chapter actually houses their vamps. You could bunk with them, but they might keep you awake. Rumor is, this group of Hounds is more into sharing the vamps in the open than some of our other chapters, the mother chapter included. But if you’re looking for more of a show tonight than what you saw at the club, knock yourself out.”

“This wouldn’t be a problem if we’d kept the reservations. The room we booked was a suite. We had two beds. Now you’re going to have back pain.”

My words have him going from bent over, looking in his duffel bag, to standing straight and staring at me. “How do you figure?”

I wave my hand around the room as if it’s obvious, but he still doesn’t get it. “You get the floor, big guy.”

He barks out a quick laugh that startles me. I’ve never heard such a joyous noise from him. Makes me want to grin, but I don’t. I even bite my lip to fight it off.

“Funny. Pretty sure I can keep my hands to myself.” He turns his back to me to get back to unpacking. “I wasn’t the one crawling to get some.”

That damn chuckle of his gets my teeth grinding. I take a deep breath, count to ten, then twenty, before I take the high road.

“Why did you do it? Why change the location? We had everything set up. Weeks of prep you just threw away so you can hang out with your ‘boys.’”

“Those ‘boys’ are part of our cover. And if your group was any good, they would have known we have a brother on the payroll for that place, and me just going in without letting him know would have blown our covers before this even kicked off.”

I roll my eyes, but the effect is lost since he’s still not turning around. Who knew a guy was that into unpacking? Figured all men, especially bikers, would just grab something and sniff-test it before wearing it. He’s refolding and making the edges neat on each shirt before putting it in the top drawer of the dresser.

“We knew. But he wasn’t supposed to work tonight. We had him switched till next week. If we were still here by then, we could have brought him in. If not, then no one outside the mother chapter would know about us.”

“Yeah, I know.” He looks over at me for a second before he goes to the attached bathroom. “I told him to switch back.”

It’s childish. Not civilized. And yet I don’t care. I still stomp my foot at him. It has zero effect on getting things worked out, but it feels good to a part of me that just wants to yell and scream while throwing things.

“So mature, pet. Perhaps I should call you brat instead.” He speaks loud enough for me to hear him from the bathroom, and I half wonder if he expected that reaction or if he saw it through the mirror.

“No. Just no.” I walk—okay, stomp—into the bathroom. Don’t care if he wanted privacy; he should have closed the door. But I think having it open was to keep a bit of power on his side. If he can pee with the door open, he either cares very little about me being comfortable or he really is playing the couple role up. “You don’t get to call me that.”

“Now? Or ever?” He continues without giving me a chance to tell him as he washes his hands. “’Cause I already did, and last I checked, I don’t answer to you. I might work with you, but never for you.”

“Fine, whatever, you work with me. We can ignore the fact that your club’s debt to us weighs on this one mission being a success. But, like you said, whatever. What that means, then, is that we’re equals. No more of this high-and-mighty shit, deciding without me. We’re a team in this. You want me gone just as much as I want to be. So, let’s do this job, as a team, and get gone. This power play you’re trying to pull is only delaying us.”

“Okay.” He crosses his arms and leans back against the sink. I ignore the flutter from the visual his stance gives me. His body screams power and dominance, and he’s just standing there. It’s unfair to the rest of the male population when they have to compete against men like this.

“Okay?”

He shrugs. “Like you said, neither of us wants to be here longer than we need to be. Want to talk in here or in the bedroom?”

“Um, I guess the bedroom.” The sudden change has me nervous enough to hesitate and look down for a second before looking back at him and pushing my hair behind my ear.

He nods as he pushes off the sink and goes to walk by me into the other room. “But I’m still going to call you pet. Get over it.”

He’s so close that when he speaks to me, his breath on my neck raises goose bumps along my skin. Of all the names he could have called me, it’s not the worst one. I just don’t understand why I like it so much.