Page 24 of Jonas (Silver Team #4)

“Yeah, but this had a specific target—Delcon. Your whistleblower didn’t scratch the surface of the number of plants inside the building.

The place is so infested the Chinese might as well own the business.

From the top down, it’s overrun. I called my contact at the Agency.

She admitted they knew about Maddon’s blueprint and they worried the Pentagon was a target. ”

Zane’s head lulled forward.

“Fucking, fuck, motherfuck, fucking shit, twatwaffles.”

“I’m sensing by the extra use of the F-words there’s a new issue?” Derrika mumbled.

There’s always an issue with the CIA when they’re involved, mucking up the works.

“Nope. He’s just showing off his vocabulary.”

“The ‘twatwaffle’ came from his coloring book,” Kira put in.

“Pipe down, pipsqueak.”

Without another obscenity-filled tirade, Zane stomped up the stairs.

Derrika leaned closer to whisper. “Impressive. The most F-bombs I can get in a sentence is two.”

“That was mild. Stick around, the good stuff comes out when he’s pissed.”

Derrika’s eyes widened and her lips pinched, but it was the way her brow winged up that had me smiling.

“What else did your contact tell you?”

Lore glanced over at Cash to answer him. “Nothing. That’s why I called Charlie.” Lore paused to look back at Nebraska. “I’m sorry, Dove, I should’ve called you, too.”

“You should’ve.”

The women went into a stare down. Surprisingly, with a sigh Nebraska broke first and glanced at Easton. He pulled her to his side, and as soon as he had her where he wanted her, he dropped a kiss to the top of her head. Nebraska relaxed into him.

Never had I been so jealous of a teammate.

The way Nebraska so easily found comfort in her man. The ease in which Easton gave it. I never thought I wanted that kind of connection. I’d been wrong. I wanted it, I’d just never found the woman I wanted to give it to.

Derrika’s knee nudged mine under the table.

I had an urge to pull her into my lap and see if she fit as well as I knew she would. But right then I couldn’t, so I didn’t, but I would the first chance I got.

“If Anson’s dirty?—”

I didn’t let her finish. “How’d he find you to offer you a job?”

“I did some work for his friend a few years ago. An attorney who needed an investigator on an embezzlement case. Ben, that’s what the attorney’s called, explained the situation without mentioning Anson’s name or Delcon and asked if I was interested in taking the case.

Obviously, I said yes, and Ben gave Anson my information. ”

Fuck.

“He knows your real name.”

I didn’t need confirmation, yet she supplied it, “Yes.”

“You got a family you’re worried about protecting?” Cash asked.

Her real identity getting out didn’t pose any greater risk to her safety—her image would’ve been captured on one of the many cameras at Delcon.

Her chances of going undercover in the future might be an issue unless Kira, Garrett, or Shep could wipe any traces of her picture off the darkweb if it had made its way there.

But right then I wasn’t worried about her future employment. I was more concerned that Cash had brought up her family.

“Um…no.”

Her less than confident tone had all the men in the room zeroing in on her. Lore and Nebraska weren’t far behind the men. And the only reason why Kira hadn’t joined was because she was now lost to her screen and whatever intel she was digging into.

“No?” Cash pushed.

“Cash,” I warned.

Since her hand was still on my thigh I didn’t miss when it twitched ever so slightly. But even if I had, I wouldn’t have missed the indecision rolling off of her.

Finally she settled on a partial truth, and cautiously muttered her understatement, “We’re not close.”

Cash’s eyes skidded to me before he settled back on Derrika. There was a flicker of acknowledgment in Cash’s gaze. His situation was much different than Derrika’s but he knew better than to push any topic of childhood or parents.

“Got it,” he said and looked back to Lore. “So, how long you planning on staying?”

“Why? You planning on asking me to go steady?”

Beside me Derrika blew out a relieved breath. Across and down the table, Cash flashed Lore a wicked smile. Lore’s return smile was damn near as devilish.

Zane bounding down the stairs broke whatever spell the two of them had cast over the other.

“My wife wants to talk to you,” Zane announced.

“Which one of us?” Theo inquired.

“All of you.” Zane fiddled with his phone, then held it out toward the room. “You’re on speaker.”

“One of you needs to promise me to keep my husband on a tight leash.” Ivy’s voice echoed through the basement.

The collective groan was well-timed and indicative of none of us wanting that task.

“I’ll babysit him,” Kira offered.

“You won’t be in the field,” Ivy denied. “Theo?”

My teammate’s tan skin bleached. “I’ll make sure we have a dentist on standby.”

Zane smiled wide, showing off his fake front tooth. Not that someone would know it was fake unless you knew the story.

“I really need the full story,” Derrika murmured.

“My husband shapeshifted into a coyote?—”

“A coyote?” Zane protested. “More like a wolf.”

“More like a rabid animal.” Ivy sighed. “Please don’t let him go scorch the earth. He still doesn’t understand you can’t burn a whole city to the ground to save one person.”

“You can’t?” Cash quipped.

“No, Cash, you can’t. And for encouraging him, you’re on babysitting duty when we get back.”

Cash suddenly looked sick to his stomach.

“You know, I’ve rethought my position. You’re right. That behavior’s totally unacceptable. My apologies.”

“Thought so. I’m counting on all of you to keep my husband out of jail. Zane, take me off speaker.”

“We have insurance for that, right?” Smith asked.

Easton pulled Nebraska closer before he returned, “For what?”

“Bail money.”

“I’d have to double check but I think it’s part of our ransom insurance,” Kira rejoined. “Though Zane doesn’t carry insurance on himself. He thinks it’s a scam and doesn’t want ransom paid if he’s ever taken.”

Derrika shifted and watched Zane as he moved to the corner of the basement, still talking to his wife. Her gaze came to mine when Zane turned his back to the room.

“I couldn’t get a read,” Derrika quietly started. “Is she worried or not?”

She was asking about Ivy and I understood why. But if she’d ever seen the two of them together she wouldn’t have to ask.

“She’s scared out of her mind. She covers it up by throwing attitude.

She does this because she knows if she shows the barest hint of concern it’ll set Zane off and the possible scorch-the-earth scenario turns into a definite.

There are two things in Zane Lewis’s life you don’t fuck with: his wife and his kids.

There’s no fuck around and find out when it comes to them.

There’s only fuck around and die—that includes scaring his wife.

The rest of us, he has our backs—always.

He loves his brother, his nephews, he protects what’s his.

But Ivy, Eric, and Rose—they’re sacred.”

I hadn’t realized my mistake until after I’d finished.

The ravished look on Derrika’s face said more than I suspected she’d want to expose.

But it was clear—not only from what she’d told me but from the hurt in her eyes—she’d never had anyone love or care for her the way Zane did his wife and children.

It was also clear she felt pain over never having it.

More, there was envy in those blue orbs—envy that covered yearning.

Fuck!

“Dee Dee?—”

“It’s good she has that.”

Oh, yeah, I’d inadvertently gutted her.

Fuck.

“It is,” I agreed. “And people like us who never had that know just how good it is.”

She didn’t miss my understatement.

“You’re right, we do.”

“And just to say, Ivy didn’t have it all that great growing up, so she knows, too. That’s why she shields her man the best she can. It’s a two-way street with them. She gives him what he needs and he returns that.”

Thankfully, Zane returning to the table interrupted me from saying more and digging my hole deeper. He tactlessly announced, “I hate pussy.”

I heard Lore and Derrika’s matching gasps. No one else batted an eye or made a sound.

“He means pussy cats ,” Kira explained.

“I’m allergic.”

“That’s your excuse about everything you don’t like,” Nebraska rightly pointed out. “And by the way, you can’t be allergic to paperwork.”

“I have a valid doctor’s note that says I am,” Zane returned.

The lengths Zane would go to get out of paperwork stretched as far as him paying his personal physician a boatload of money to write a fake excuse.

“Ivy told you about the new Himalayan she got Eric?” Nebraska asked, with the first smile I’d seen from her all morning. “He’s so grumpy he’s adorable.”

“Great, grumpy pussy, just what I need,” Zane grunted.

I was unprepared for Derrika’s bark of laughter. Moreover, I wasn’t ready for her to slam her forehead onto my bicep and roar her hilarity there while taking me along for the ride. My arm shook with the force of her amusement.

I felt Cash’s gaze boring a hole through the side of my head. I didn’t bother turning to look at my friend. I knew what he saw, and I knew what I’d see in his expression if I faced him.

Like me, Cash didn’t welcome uninvited touching.

Neither of us were the hugging type. Neither of us had been touched with kindness throughout our childhoods.

We’d discussed this and both of us were self-aware enough to understand why we didn’t like it and neither of us planned on putting in the effort to resolve the issue.

But just like Derrika reaching out under the table to hold on to my thigh, her head resting on me while she giggled herself stupid was welcomed—not tolerated but very much welcomed .

“Sorry,” Derrika sputtered. “But really, grumpy puss…” she couldn’t finish through her tittering.

I heard rather than saw Lore join in. As soon as she did, Nebraska and Kira did, as well.

It was Smith who broke the men’s silence. “Hate to break it to you women?—”

“Oh, no, Five, no one needs your two cents,” Kira halted his enlightenment. “I have intel to deliver.”

The laughter quelled to snickers. Derrika lifted her head. I barely suppressed my urge to tag her around the neck and pull her back to where she was.

“What’d you find?”

Kira lifted her head and smiled over the top of her laptop.

“First, the mayday call has been uploaded to the server. But last night I was poking around.”

“More like obsessively searching,” Cooper corrected.

“Actually, if you must know, I went down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories.”

There was a collective groan, except Cash, he remained silent.

“What?” he asked when I glanced at him. “Like we don’t all know that most of those theories aren’t grounded in a kernel of truth.”

“Well, one of them gave me an idea,” Kira went on. “Chips.”

“You want a snack?” Cash muttered irritably. “I get a girl’s gotta eat when she’s gotta?—”

“No, computer hardware. Remember a few years ago when the head of the National Security Council was quoted as saying that a transformer was confiscated at a port?”

“And the statement was walked back a few weeks later but the internet went wild. Yes, I remember,” Zane growled.

“That back door into our power grid was a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream,” Kira stated.

“It’s also how the Chinese shut down the power in Phoenix.

It’s also how they’re going to shut down more of our grid.

I checked, but I want Shep and Garrett to double check and make sure I’m not seeing what I want to see, but it’s also how the Grainger lost control.

The captain said there was a full override of the ship’s systems. Most of the ship’s hardware came out of China. They used the same kind of backdoor.”

“Can we override their backdoor?” Smith inquired.

Kira slowly slid her gaze down the table. When it landed on him, she didn’t need to say a word, her expression said it all.

We were fucked.