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“You look familiar,” he murmured. “I can’t place it, but I know I’ve seen you before.”
Without hesitation or prevacation Nebraska returned, “Brazil.”
Smith nodded.
“Fortaleza?”
“Bahia,” she corrected. “Vitória da Conquista during the riot.”
What the actual fuck? Brazil was Smith’s last assignment for Patheon before we wrapped up and handed everything we had to Layla’s CIA contact.
“Jesus. Fuck me running,” Zane cursed low and slow. “No need to explain why you’re here. The answer isn’t no, it’s a fuck no. Go home, tell Charlie to keep his business out of mine and we’ll forget he pulled this bullshit. He so much as whispers Bridget Keller’s name I’ll unleash Theo. If that’s not incentive enough, which it should be, explain to your father Theo won’t be alone and the last time I had to take time out of my day to go out into the field, it got messy.”
Kira leaned close to Layla. “Is that what he calls breaking his tooth off biting someone’s throat?”
One could say my first in-person encounter with Zane Lewis was something straight out of a horror flick. Through the years, I’d heard whispered stories, tall tales that sounded more like myths than truth. Finding Zane in the basement of a house during a rescue operation proved those tales were indeed myths—the man was far, far more dangerous than any story I’d ever heard about him.
My introduction to Zane Lewis was one of the most grotesque of my life, and that was saying something after spending ten years in the most impoverished, crime-ridden cities in the world. The man had been covered in blood, and yes, he’d been missing a tooth. His captor lay dead at his feet, looking like he'd been mauled by a lion. I’d never asked straight out if he’d torn the dead man’s throat out with his teeth. Partly because I didn’t want to know, mostly because I respected Zane and a man had to do what a man had to do to get himself out of a hostile situation. Thus, it made no difference to me how he’d freed himself.
But it had been gory and brutal.
And it would seem Zane had passed this particular trait down to his nephews. Linc’s sons Robbie and Asher had a bad habit of sneaking into the conference room and hiding under the table to eavesdrop. Their mother Jasmin called this recon training—I guess that’s what you got when two top-shelf operators bred. Another example of that would be the random and frequent Nerf gun wars.
However, Jasmin wasn’t happy with her boys when they’d snuck in before an important meeting with the Marshals assigned to protecting Bridget. The meeting went south when one of those Marshals proved to be on the take and pulled a gun and took Kira hostage. The man holding Kira at gunpoint had stepped too close to the table. One of the boys took this as his opportunity to play hero and savagely bit the man’s calf. The pain and shock took his attention, giving us the opening we needed to take him down without him shooting Kira in the head in the process.
Since neither boy ratted out the other, that proved biting wasn’t the only thing they got from their uncle but also his unwavering loyalty. Zane had christened them Cujo and Chewy.
Nebraska brought the conversation back to why she was there. “If you’ll look at the Raven file, you’ll understand Charlie is no threat—”
“Don’t need to look at a file to know Charlie Michaels is not now nor will he ever be a threat,” Zane cut her off. “You can leave now.”
Nebraska nodded and pushed back from the table.
That was it?
She came all this way and was giving up?
For reasons I didn’t want to explore, that disappointed me.
When she took to her feet she glanced around the table one more time, stopping on Layla to warn, “You can’t trust Ashcroft with this.”
It was then an already tense situation turned twitchy. The air in the room went stagnant and the temperature fell by a few degrees at Nebraska’s outrageous claim.
Inspector General Ashcroft had been the man behind Patheon, or at least the man who had given Layla approval for building the team. As soon as Ashcroft and Layla approached Cash, Smith, Jonas, and myself we quit the CIA and went rogue under Layla’s leadership. Implying Ashcroft couldn’t be trusted wasn’t offensive, it was a disrespect no one in the room would stand for.
“I suggest you use the door before you can’t,” Zane growled.
Nebraska didn’t heed Zane’s warning. Maybe she had a backbone after all.
“Maddon has a lot of friends. He’s been with the Agency a long time. Well beyond when he should’ve retired. However, his global contacts make him invaluable. I’m not suggesting Ashcroft isn’t trustworthy, I’m saying Maddon’s network is such that you shouldn’t trust anyone outside this building with what’s on that drive.”
All eyes were on Nebraska, but Smith’s stare was different. If I didn’t know any better I’d say it was laced with a tinge of respect.
Zane, being Zane, didn’t miss this either.
“Do you have something to add, Smith?”
My teammate glanced at our boss before he went back to Nebraska.
