“Why not just say it’s easy as pie?” he shot back playfully.
“I got one better for ya,” I said, letting my country boy accent out willingly for just a moment. “No hill for a stepper.”
“What?” he said, eyes blinking like he couldn’t quite comprehend how the words I strung together made a coherent sentence.
“I’m just saying, we’ll do it. You’ve got a team behind you. A good one, if I do say so myself.” I shot him a cocky grin. Yeah, I knew most of the heavy work would be done by Remy, Milo, and Kyle, but that wasn’t the point. “We’ll get through this.”
A soft smile overtook his face.
It kinda made my chest feel funny. Like his smile was causing my heart to warm, which was super weird. Was this like pride? Heart pride? That sounded strange. I’d done something that made him feel less stressed. Less afraid. Less… backed into a corner without a way out.
Now that I’d done that, I knew there was no going back. I’d have to be a man of my word.
Maybe it wasn’t going to beeasy, but it was doable. And we were a fucking badass team that had taken down hundreds of people already. We’d taken out what had to have been half of their organization at this point.
As long as we didn’t give up, we could end this.
12
Ford
Hiding out was… not that exciting.
Staying stationary only gave me more time to let the thoughts run wild.
I still couldn’t believe this was happening. That the man I trusted for most of my adult life had been using and lying to me.
Supposedly.
I didn’t have proof of that yet.
Still, I had to think about all the things Iknew. Like how I knew that Reed would never fuck me over like that. He wouldn’t lie to me. And everything I’d been told made sense, you know, now that I’d had time to take a step back and replay parts of my life looking at it as a spectator.
I hadn’t been able to move forward yet. I knew everyone was waiting for me to step up, but I was currently still spinning my wheels as I tried to decide who I trusted on my team. I didn’t know. It had me questioning every single thing I’d ever done. Every decision I’d made. Every person I’d interviewed and pulled in to work with me. Every interaction I’d had while I worked for the FBI.
There were many things that I planned for on a daily basis. Many things I kept in the back of my mind and prepared for should they happen. Being that I still went out in the field, there were things like injury and even death that were constantly there in the background. I had a will for the more fatal kind of injury,not like I had anyone to leave anything to, as depressing as that was. And if I should be left permanently injured and forced to be taken out of the field, I had thoughts of which backup positions I would be willing to take.
Sadly, they all revolved around staying with the FBI.
That was who I was.
That was what I’d made myself into. An agent. A damn good one, too. All I’d ever wanted was to take down bad guys and help people. Now look at where I was. I knew corruption existed, but I never thought it would touch me like this.
And maybe that was where I’d fucked up.
“Alright,” Austin said as he took a seat on the ugly plaid couch and turned his attention to me sitting on the floral print one. “I’m not trying to pressure you, but there isn’t time to sit here and kick stones.”
“Like I’m supposed to know what that means,” I said, shaking my head. I cleared my throat, thoughts sobering. “I know. I’ve been trying to think of who on my team I trust the most, but I feel like I shouldn’t trust anyone.”
“You’re letting your head get in the way.”
“Thank you for that,” I said, tone dripping with sarcasm. “I don’t need a shrink.”
“Maybe you do,” he said with a smirk. “Who’s your team leader?”
“Violet,” I said.
He’d been the first one I’d pulled onto my team. Excellent in the field. Well trained with no marks on his record. An outstanding marksman with scores in the top three percent. He also knew how to defuse simple explosives.
