Page 20 of The Team (The Milvus Files #3)

Rhett swallowed hard and his face did something that Jay didn’t like. It took a second for Jay to pinpoint it. Uncertainty. “I told Asher I trusted him,” Rhett whispered.

Fucking fuck.

Rhett didn’t trust lightly, and to have that thrown back in his face...

To be fair, Jay trusted Yin and Chen too. But Rhett was different. He didn’t trust many people, he didn’t trust easily. It wasn’t a luxury his life had afforded him. But he trusted his team, and he trusted the Milvus Division.

Well, he had.

And now it was all coming unstuck around him.

Every institution he’d put his trust in.

The state foster system, the army, and now Milvus, had let him down.

Not to mention that Rhett had shot a man in the head earlier.

That man was a fucking dick hell bent on killing millions and he totally deserved it, but still. ..

Taking a life wasn’t easy.

“King said we need proof,” Rhett added. “And to wait.”

“Do you trust King?”

His eyes flashed, the grey storm brewing within. “I want to. ”

“We’ll be okay,” Jay murmured. “Just tell me what you need me to do.”

“You two gonna help us sometime today?” Sid called out.

Jay turned then to see both teams carrying all the bags and crates. They were moving out.

“Shit,” Rhett mumbled, picking up Jay’s med kit with one hand and one of the gear crates in his other.

Jay took a second to appreciate how Rhett’s shirt couldn’t hide the way his shoulders, traps, and biceps moved and bulged. Yeah, even in times like this, with everything hanging over them, he could still take a moment to appreciate his man.

Azrael laughed behind Jay, giving him a quick shove. “You got time to ogle, you got time to work.”

Jay smirked at her. “Fair.” Then he hauled the crate up and followed them out to the plane. Following Rhett meant he could ogle his ass the whole way out.

Rhett felt strung too tight, pulled in too many directions at all the wrong angles.

As if he were thrown into a war with no clue who was the enemy or who was an ally. He didn’t know who to trust, who to turn to, who to believe.

He did trust Yunho, Asher, and Harry. And Jay, undoubtedly. He trusted Sid, Echo, and Azrael. With his life. And he thought he could trust Yin and Chen.

He believed he could.

He wanted to... part of him couldn’t believe Yin wasn’t trustworthy. The man was a Sea Dragon, for fuck’s sake. The Chinese equivalent of a Navy SEAL. They were forged out of integrity.

But whose government did his allegiance fall to now?

The core foundation of Milvus was not to be bound by one country’s legal constraints.

Or their oaths to the UN or NATO.

But like any soldier, Yin would follow orders.

Whose orders he was following was the question Rhett needed answered.

So when Chen abandoned his seat next to Yin in exchange for the lavatory, Rhett was quick to take his place. He fell into the seat next to him, and Yin gave him a nod. “Captain.”

Rhett kept his voice down. “The phone in your right vest pocket.” He held his hand out. “Give it to me.”

Yin’s eyes met his, flashing with... fear? “It’s not what you think,” he whispered. “Please.”

Rhett kept his hand out. “Now.”

Yin’s eyes flinched, and for the briefest second, a mask of distress crossed his face. But then he reached into his vest pocket and produced a small thin phone, and reluctantly, regretfully, he slid it onto Rhett’s palm.

“It’s not what you think,” he said again.

“And what do I think?”

Yin winced again, his mouth pulled down, and he looked Rhett dead in the eye. The genuine sorrow in his eyes struck Rhett as odd, but he was now holding the phone.

Rhett switched it on and, of course, it was all in Chinese. He couldn’t get past the homepage. But he didn’t need to. If Jay couldn’t read it, Yunho could make short work of it .

“It’s a personal phone,” Yin whispered. “I shouldn’t have had it. I know that. I’m sorry. It’s not traceable. It’s not detectable, it’s...”

Yin finished with a sigh.

“It’s now mine.” Rhett inhaled deeply. “I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen. We’re gonna refuel in Bosnia. And you and Chen?—”

“He’s not involved in this.”

Rhett glared at him. “And you and Chen are gonna sit down and shut up. Pretend to be asleep or something, I don’t give a fuck.

Not a word, not a fucking peep. Don’t speak to anyone.

Don’t do anything. Not one fucking thing.

Because right now, I’d be well within my rights to shoot you in your fucking seat and toss your corpse out of this fucking plane, and I swear to fucking Christ, not one person on this plane will try and stop me. ”

Yin swallowed hard and let out a short, helpless breath. “It’s not what you think. I’m not... Ouston, I can explain?—”

“Oh, believe me, you’re going to. But not to me. Save it for the Hague because you’re gonna fucking need it.”

“Captain,” he tried, but Rhett had heard enough.

He’d seen enough.

Yin had a fucking phone on his person, and even if he wasn’t the mole, even if he wasn’t sending information back to Zihao or back to China, he had put the entire operation—Rhett’s entire goddamn team—in jeopardy.

Rhett stood up just as Chen returned, and he slipped past him without so much as a smile and went back to his seat.

“What did he say?” Jay asked quietly .

Rhett turned his palm over, showing him the phone, and Jay’s eyes went wide. “He didn’t deny it?”

Rhett shook his head. “Nope. Said it’s a personal phone.”

“What the fuck?”

“Exactly.” He turned it on, bringing up the home screen. “Can you read this?”

Jay took it. “Speak Mandarin, yes. Read it, not so much.” He pressed something. “Need a password or a fingerprint.”

Rhett smirked, took the phone back, and stood up.

“Without blood, preferably,” Jay added. “It smudges.”

Rhett smirked as he went back to Yin. No words, no explanation, he snatched up Yin’s hand and forced his finger onto the fingerprint button.

Yin didn’t fight it. He didn’t react at all.

Just sadness.

Rhett had expected more of a fight out of him and was kinda disappointed he didn’t get a reaction.

Chen, on the other hand, couldn’t hide his alarm, his reaction. He was about to protest, about to stand up, until Yin put his free hand on Chen’s arm to stop him.

Rhett aimed a fiery glare at Chen for good measure. He actually liked the big guy. Everyone liked him. His call sign of Totoro was perfect. But he was protective of Yin, his bodyguard of sorts. Rhett almost wished he knew more of their story but now it didn’t matter.

Rhett knew Sid had clocked this interaction. If he’d seen the phone, Rhett couldn’t be sure, but Sid didn’t miss much.

Putting Yin on Sid’s radar wasn’t a bad thing.

Another pair of eyes on him, without knowing why, would work in Rhett’s favour. If Yin so much as breathed wrong, Sid would be on him.

Rhett also noticed Azrael. He thought she’d been asleep, but no, she was watching. And Rhett didn’t have to wonder about Echo or Coyote. If Sid and Azrael were watching, then they were too.

His team always had his back.

But he noticed Giardello watching too.

Giardello, who was with Rhett when King had voiced his and Harrigan’s concern about the infiltration of the two newest members. Yunho was looking into it and hoped to know more by the time they landed in Bosnia to refuel.

Rhett hoped to god he did.

Whether Yin and Chen were alive or dead for the next leg of the flight back to London would hinge entirely on what they found on this phone or what Yunho found out.

When the home screen unlocked, Rhett let go of Yin’s hand and returned back to his seat. He handed the phone to Jay. “Can you read any of this?”

Jay frowned at it. “Looks like a burner,” he said quietly.

“There are no apps. Just factory settings. No emails, no calls, incoming or outgoing. No contacts.” He clicked on one button and brought up what looked like unanswered text messages.

Jay thumbed up into the history. “Texts with one number...”

Rhett could see there had been some back and forth a few days ago, but all of Yin’s texts in the last two days were unanswered.

“He said he arrived and all was well,” Jay said. “Whoever replied said work was fine. To be careful, and that they love him. He said it back, and see this character here,” Jay murmured, pointing to one word in Mandarin. “I can’t be sure, because I’m rusty with this, but I think it’s a woman.”

A woman? “He said he has no one back home,” Rhett whispered.

Jay raised one eyebrow, which was silent Jay-speak for and you fucking believed him?

Jay went back to the phone. “Then nothing. Three days ago he sent a message. Said he was okay. No reply. Then all these, asking her to please reply.”

Rhett could see all the undelivered texts.

“This last one,” Jay whispered. “Please,” Jay winced. “Butterfly? I don’t know. Rhett, I’m not sure.”

“Butterfly? What the hell?”

Jay shook his head. “Term of endearment?” He winced. “I’m not sure. Could be a pet name? Could be a code word.”

What the fuck?

Jay closed that app and tried opening other pages. He checked the history, he checked the cache, the memory. He hadn’t used it for anything other than to text this one person.

He also hadn’t wiped anything, deleted any messages, hidden anything.

It didn’t make much sense to Rhett.

If Yin really were trying to hide something, he’d have at least deleted something.

“There’s nothing else,” Jay said, handing the phone back to him. “Nothing.”

“Not that we can see, anyway,” Rhett said, sliding the phone into his pocket. He needed someone with better know-how to look at it. “I’ll be back. Try and get some sleep,” Rhett said. He gave Jay’s thigh a gentle squeeze before standing up.

He made his way to the back of the plane, not making eye contact with anyone. Sid watched him. Echo too. Azrael had her eyes closed, but Rhett doubted she was asleep.