Page 27 of Deliverance

Marcus laughed. “He did. I’ll probably get at least two hours. Worth it, though.”

“He didn’t say a word to me,” I said, thinking back.

“Of course not. You could probably burn this building to the ground, and he would hand you the matches for next time. We all would.”

“I’m starting to believe that,” I said softly.

He kissed me softly, then groaned when I clenched around him. “Okay, we have to stop.”

I giggled. “You’re right. I’m already going to get some shit from Liam and Izzy.”

Marcus helped me off his lap, then reached into a desk drawer and produced some wipes to clean us both up. He refused to let me help, and I basked in the feeling of being taken care of.

Once he disposed of the wipes, he pulled me close, his hands on my hips. “Sleep in my bed tonight?” he murmured, then leaned down and kissed my forehead.

“Yes,” I breathed.

I meant what I said earlier. There were no rankings in these relationships, but I was enjoying getting to spend some one-on-one time with each of them. It was a lot to balance, and I was worried that, one day, they would want more out of a relationship than I could offer—their own person they didn’t have to share time with—but that was a worry for another time.

“Good. Get back to work before I keep us in this office all day.”

I slipped back into the conference room. Izzy and Liam flashed me twin smirks, which I pointedly ignored. I stopped next to Dominic at one of the whiteboards. I couldn’t read his expression as he handed me a marker and a stack of files. I didn’t feel guilty about taking time with Marcus, but I did feel weird standing next to Dominic now.

We stood at the whiteboard for another hour. Dominic pointed out patterns, and I wrote them out on the board. Liam called out numbers and locations from his laptop, and Izzy asked questions when we needed to clarify something. It was fine. Normal.

Except every time Dominic’s hand came close to mine to move a file or adjust something on the board, I noticed. Every single time.

I didn’t know what to do with that yet.

CHAPTER 12

EVELYN

“Charlie team is still on the Peterson contract, right?” Alexander asked.

We were sitting in his office, going over schedules for the next few months. It was like putting together an elaborate puzzle. A puzzle that had only gotten harder now that we had more contracts and not enough teams. We had already placed a halt on new contracts for a few weeks, but we still had a flood of recently signed contracts to organize first.

I checked my tablet. “Yes, through the end of next week. I don’t anticipate Peterson extending the contract either.”

“Okay, can we pull Delta team to the Keenan contract?”

“No,” I said. “Delta team leader just had a baby, so he’s on paternity leave. And we promised them a break, so they’ll be out for at least a week. Echo team can start the Keenan contract, though, and Delta can take over halfway through?”

Alexander rubbed his chin. “I don’t really like switching teams out halfway through, but we might have to in this case. Where are we at with hiring additional teams?” He leaned closer to his computer as if he could magically make more teams appear on our roster.

“Gamma team is set to complete training in three weeks. We’re vetting the other applicants loosely, so at least another week or so before we can finish deep dives on each of them.”

“It’s a good problem to have,” Alexander said. “I just hate the timing here. We need to have some teams free in case Kingfisher strikes again.”

I hummed but didn’t respond. We had already had this argument. I wanted to keep SDS out of this as much as possible. Kingfisher was coming after the Archers, not SDS, and the less they were a target, the better.

“I know you disagree,” Alexander said, leaning back from his computer and locking eyes with me. “But I would let this whole company fall apart if it wasn’t useful to us right now. Our teams are trained. We can handle Kingfisher.”

I sighed. Marcus had echoed similar sentiments yesterday, but I still wasn’t convinced. “This is your company, your livelihood. Kingfisher already has a target on your backs; why make it bigger?”

“Do you really think that SDS wouldn’t have gotten involved eventually with everything going on?” Alexander arched an eyebrow at me. “There’s no way we would have let human trafficking slide in our city. It was inevitable that we would get involved. This way, we had a heads up.”

He was right. At the first whiff of something wrong in the city, Alexander would have gotten SDS involved. Their morals wouldn’t have let them stand by while people got hurt. That still didn’t mean I liked that they were involved. Kingfisher was gunning for me and the Archers, and I had a feeling I would be facing him directly at some point in the future.