Reed scanned the room, holding each set of eyes for a long moment before moving on to the next one.
“I’m not sure what we can do at this point,” Reed said, sounding defeated. “We need to watch closely. Monitor all thatwe can with the FBI and any developments on this case.” He let out a heavy sigh. “If it looks like they connect me to Ford or any of The Sons of the Holy Fire stuff, we need to be ready to burn everything so no one else goes down with me. And I mean burn more metaphorically.” He turned his attention to the nerd side of the table. “You need to be ready to wipe everything and run.”
“I’ve got just the thing,” Kyle said with pride, which was rare for him. I had to say, it was good to see him coming out of his shell more and more. Confidence looked good on him. His boyfriend must have thought so too, because Roland was currently looking at Kyle with this soft expression that made me want to roll my eyes.
“We’ll go over that in a little bit,” Reed said, looking happy to do so. And I was happy not to be involved in it.
“What about Agent Priestley?” Roland asked just as the same question popped into my head. I was sure I wasn’t the only one wondering that.
“I don’t have a way to get in contact with him.” Reed gave a little shrug. “I can only assume he’s ditched his phone. I have no idea what his plan would have been. It’s not really something we ever talked about, but now I wish we had. I guess I have to wait until I hear from him.” He looked out the windows of the conference room into the open office space that hardly got used. Then he said under his breath, “IfI hear from him.”
“What can we do?” I asked as a way to try and snap him out of his darkening thoughts.
He blinked, then turned his attention back to us.
“As much as I hate to say it,” he started, face somber, “we need to take a step back and lay low.”
Except… not a single one of us was good at doing that, and the look on Reed’s face said he knew it all too well.
“Just until we get a better handle on what is going on,” he added, as if that would make us change our minds.
After he looked around the room, he gave a defeated sigh. The kind of sigh that said he knew there was no changing our minds.
Accepting a spot in this team meant you didn’t back down, you didn’t stop.
It didn’t matter if Agent Priestley was innocent or not, we had no other choice.
We had to take The Sons of The Holy Fire down.
We’d been tiptoeing around for too long.
It was time to drop some bombs and end them.
3
Austin
“Pizza or Chinese?” Reed asked, pulling out his phone to order whatever the majority of us agreed on.
Honestly, most of us were so easygoing that the room would usually fill with uncaring grunts and lazy shrugs ofwhateveruntil everyone was looking at Milo. I wouldn’t call Milo picky, but if he was in the mood for something, it was the team’s unspoken rule that he got to choose.
The meeting might have been over, but Reed had surrendered to the fact that we weren’t done working. With the thought of being exposed whispering at the back of our necks and the whole Agent Priestley thing, we were going full steam ahead. The agent had done a lot for us and now that we were on the same page about his innocence, it was time to repay him for saving our asses and cleaning up our messes more than a time or two.
“Well, considering it’s almost sun up, I think breakfast would be more appropriate,” I said with a smartass grin.
Reed’s face fell as he noticed the time on his phone. The conference room had windows to the outside, but currently, they were set to privacy and made to look like dark gray frosted glass.
“Okay, diner food it is.” The moment he locked eyes with me, I knew what was coming next. “Austin, you’re with me.” He moved toward the door. “Everyone, text me what you want. We’ll be back shortly.”
Remy shot a sympathetic smile at my scowling face, while Jameson looked slightly pleased about my discomfort.
“Coming, boss,” I said as I pushed my chair back and stood, but Reed was already halfway to the elevator on the opposite side of the office.
I jogged across the space, getting there just in time to slide inside the elevator before the doors started to close.
“What do you want?” he asked, looking at his phone where the note app was open.
“I could just order when we get there since I’m tagging along,” I pointed out.
