Page 66 of Juan

Philly stilled, then bobbed his head. “It’s true. I do. But I figure someone has to.”

“Why does someone have to?” Adrian asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“Because on the rare occasion one of us tries to keep a secret from the others, it’s up to me and my amazing powers of annoyance to ferret that secret out,” Philly said.

Adrian looked at Juan, then Dulcie, then back to him. Juan wagged his head from side to side. “It’s kind of true.” She looked to Dulcie, who gave a reluctant nod.

“A shrink would have a field day with you all,” Adrian muttered.

“Oh, Dr. Leventhal loves us,” Philly said. “We’re her star pupils.”

Juan shook his head. “We’re her clients, not her students. She’s not our Yoda to your Jedi.”

“Says you,” Philly shot back.

“Who’s Dr. Leventhal?” Amber asked.

For once, Philly looked as if he was considering regretting what he said, but Juan had no issues with it. “She’s the psychologist we all worked with at one time or another while in the army,” he answered. “We all served together, either on the same teams or specific ops, but as we each left, she’s the one who suggested we join forces and consider getting involved in the work we do. The non-business work we do.”

“She knows all our dirty laundry and sob stories and figured it might help each of us and the world if we turned our shitty experiences toward something with a purpose,” Philly said.

Juan glanced down at Amber. He’d mentioned going to therapy, but he hadn’t delved into the details. Not because he didn’t want to. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The experience hadn’t been comfortable. Helpful, but not comfortable. But the rewiring of his brain that he and Dr. Leventhal worked through together years ago took a back seat to their current situation.

Her deep brown eyes studied him. He held her gaze, silently telling her they’d talk more later. For her, he’d go into the nitty-gritty details of his sessions, if she asked. But at the heart of the matter, there wasn’t much more to their relationship than what Philly said. Although Dr. Leventhal’s suggestion that the men who now made up the Falcons family work together had had a far more profound impact on each of them than Philly’s summary captured. And that was a piece of him Amber deserved to know. She deserved to know just how his found family had saved him. Slowly, she nodded.

“Seems like a woman I’d like to share a glass of whiskey with,” Clara said.

Pulling his attention from Amber, Juan chuckled. “You two would get along like a house on fire.”

“Might have the world’s problems solved by the time you reached the bottom of the bottle,” Dulcie added with a grin.

“Well, if she’s a whiskey drinker, then I might have to agree with that,” Clara replied, earning a chuckle from her daughter. “Now, back to the most important question. Is there anything we can do to help Stella prepare for this meeting tomorrow so that the breathing turd that is Anthony Ely gets everything he deserves?”

Chapter thirty-one

Tension held Amber’s body still as Leo connected his laptop to the larger screen hanging from the wall in one of HICC’s offices. Spencer sat on one side of her, Daphne on the other. Sabina, Callie, Ethan, and Chad, Sabina’s husband and the head of HICC’s West Coast operations, occupied the other side of the table. Like some weird watch party. Only they weren’t viewing a sports match, but instead the raid. Or the “serving of the warrant” if she wanted to be polite about it.

When Callie first mentioned the possibility of a warrant, visions of Anthony being carted away danced in her head. The possibility of never having to worry about him again, of a peaceful life for her and Zoe, a life unshadowed by their past, had lured her into an almost euphoric state.

Now, forty-eight hours later, she was jumping out of her skin. The delay had allowed Toni to go in and clean up her toys, which, as Callie pointed out, could have put any case at risk if the Feds found them. Something no one wanted. But every one of those hours also gave Amber’s mind the opportunity to conjure a hundred and one what-ifs.

What if they found nothing? What if this was their only chance? What if he managed to hear of it beforehand and ran? So many what-ifs.

“What’s this going to look like?” she asked, although to whom, she wasn’t sure.

“There are nine people involved in executing the warrant,” Sabina answered. “Six FBI and three DEA, including Grace. The FBI will lead, but the DEA will play their part. Scopolamine isn’t an easy drug to find, so they don’t hold out a lot of hope of finding it, but they will do a thorough search.”

“Every agent has a body cam, but we’re only linked into Grace’s,” Chad continued. “We want you to look for anything out of place. I know you already did that with the pictures and video, and the things you identified will be the first places they check. But seeing the house through the eyes of a live camera might reveal additional differences.”

“How long do these things usually take?” she asked.

“Depends,” Sabina said. “It’s a big house. He’s a bit of a minimalist, so that will reduce the time, though. I’d say the initial pass will take a couple of hours.”

“And he’ll be there the entire time?” The thought of seeing him, maybe hearing him, twisted her stomach. Spencer’s warm, reassuring hand curled over one of hers while Daphne did the same on the other side. Forcing in a slow, deep breath, she fixed her attention on the other side of the table.

“It’s likely he will be present,” Callie replied, her voice gentle. “He may even call his lawyer in, but the warrant is airtight. The lawyer won’t be able to stop the search; he can only ensure the agents stay within scope.”

“Okay,” she said on an inhale.