Dammit. All these months, he escaped Scott-free from her post; she saved his ass, and if he had just done what Axis Management wanted him to do, she wouldn’t be here in a hangar, about to be… who knows what? Her head spun. Shipped? Sold? Ivy stood up, stomped her feet, and screamed all the despair she had inside her. She was going to kill Gabe if she ever saw him again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE – GABE
“What is this, an intervention?” Gabe glared at the wall of Bandit Brothers in front of him. Quinn shook his head, Logan smiled, spread his arms wide, and Nick stepped forward, pulling out a chair across from Gabe. He had been at Atteli’s getting the pizza when Nick had strolled in the pizza place, telling them to hold it for later. He said Gabe they needed to see him at Axis Management.
“Yeah, you could call it that. You can’t go on this job for Winston-Reid because it will violate your contract with Axis Management.”
“Like that contract was real?” Gabe thumped the table with his fist.
The doors to the conference room opened, and Erik strode in, nodding to them all.
“Did you all sign one? Didhe?” Gabe pointed at Erik. He had no problem with the guy and owed him one for getting him these jobs with Stone Security, but Erik didn’t go out of his way to make you feel good. Quinn maintained it was Erik’s fault Jordan was dead, even though it was an invisible technology that foiled them that fateful June day.
“You got something against me, Arthur?” Erik was suddenly in his face.
“No. It’s just you seem to get all the prime jobs. You seem to always be working, but nobody decided you had to go off rotation.”
Erik shook his head at him. “I don’t walk around angry and then crash to exhaustion. I can work like a bulldog and not burn out. It’s my talent.”
“Who said it was?” Quinn said.
“Hey guys, this is about Gabe.” Logan leaned on the table. “Look, we love you on Team Stealth, and for whatever reason, Xander and Ares asked you to sign that piece of paper that promised you wouldn’t work for someone else. Come on, you can trust them by now.”
“Yeah, I don’t sleep with them,” Gabe said.
Logan slapped his hands on the table and spun away from them, running his hands through his short, spiky hair.
“Easy, Gabe. We’re just looking out for you. You got Ivy back. Things are on the upswing. Just take some time off and forget about working for Winston-Reid,” Quinn said.
They were all so damn calm, all of them. They probably didn’t have nightmares when they closed their eyes. Nick had his hair slicked back and was wearing contacts, meaning he was probably on the job. If they had been taken off rotation, they would feel differently.
He was so tired of people interfering with his business. His brother, his father, Ivy, and everyone had an opinion of how he should work. And how he shouldn’t. He stood up, toppling the chair to the floor.
“Heard your opinion. Thanks. I’ve got to go get a haircut.” Gabe walked out the door, and Erik stood to block him.
“Three.”
He put his palm on the door, then turned back. “What are you talking about, Quinn?”
“Three guys. That’s how many came home out of the six they sent on the deployment of medical supplies. Two wouldn’t talk to us. One did. He made it back, but with his arm blown off. They were washing dirty guns and money, Gabe, under the guise of being an NGO.”
“You’re bullshitting me,” Gabe said. “And how did you even know I was going to work with them?”
“Your submissive has more balls than you do,” Quinn said.
“Damn it. Didn’t she learn from last time?”
“Thankfully, she still gives a fuck about you,” Nick said. “We were all too raw from Jordan that we didn’t stop to fully investigate Ivy’s story. This is big, Gabe. Your brother is an investor.”
“He’s the one who told me about the job!”
“Maybe he doesn’t know they’re running dirty,” Logan said.
“I don’t know. This is crazy. I don’t believe it,” Gabe said. But he knew it was true. Cole had never done anything for him. And it was Cole who sent him both jobs. The one with Ribbon of Aid and this one with Winston-Reid.
“I need to talk to Ivy.”
“You do that and then do whatever Xander and Ares told you to and forget about private contracting. Or if that’s what you want to do, find a good one and sign off here,” Quinn said.
