Three black trucks were lined up in the parking area with their noses pointed toward the gates. Jorja swallowed down her fears… could you call it fear when it was mostly apprehension over the uncertainty? She decided she could call it anything she wanted to. Fear of the unknown more than anything.
When they reached the trucks, Gunnar dropped his hand from her back and climbed into the driver’s seat of the first truck. He winked at her, tapped his fingers to his forehead, and fired up the truck. Before she found her voice to ask him not to go, the gates were already closing behind them.
“Shit.”
“You got this, George.” Remi appeared through the archway. “Gunnar’s tough; he’ll deal.”
“And his thigh, will that deal?” She’d been reluctant to bring it up to Gunnar before he left as she didn’t want him to think that she didn’t think he was capable.
That’s a lot of thinking!
Yup, it was. But she was winging it here. She followed Remi back to the main kitchen and sat down when he gestured to a chair.
Seconds later he placed a tub of ice cream, a spoon, and a glass of wine in front of her. “Sometimes you either need to eat or drink away the worry.” He shrugged. “It’s Gunnar’s cheesecake gelato.” He grinned at her. “I wouldn’t dare touch it if he was here. He’d kick my ass.”
She picked up her spoon. “You raid the fridge every time he goes out, don’t you?”
“Damn straight.”
After a few spoons of deliciousness, she could totally see why Remi stole it and why Gunnar didn’t want to share it. “It’s fab.”
“Told ya.” Remi nodded to the fridge. “There’s another tub in there. I aim to have them both finished by the time the guys get back.”
“I’ll help,” she promised. “It will do your brother good to have ice cream to worry about instead of work.”
“Hah, fat chance. Gunnar is a workaholic. The most he’s taken off in years has been when he got shot.”
“Is that what happened to his thigh?”
“Yup. He zigged when he should have zagged.”
“How do you know he wasn’t the first target on the list?” Now that the thought had popped into her mind, she couldn’t shake it free. “And him getting shot wasn’t a screwup. If he hadn’t zigged, would his name be crossed off the list already?” Voicing the thought freaked her out more than she wanted to admit.
Remi stared at her for a couple of heartbeats before he dropped his spoon. “Shit.” He bolted out of the kitchen, leaving his ice cream on the table behind him.
Jorja guessed he was heading for the war-room. She gathered up both tubs of ice cream and recovered them before stuffing them back in the freezer. She held her hand out, almost touching the door for a second after she closed it, just to check it was actually closed and wouldn’t reopen. Out of habit, she double-checked the stove even though she hadn’t touched it, and followed Remi.
“Here.” Remi tossed her a file. “I’m looking too, but I’ve searched this file so many times looking for clues that I might not see it.”
She took it to her desk and got comfortable on her chair with her legs tucked in under her. “What am I looking for?”
“I don’t know. Anything which confuses you.”
“You mean everything then? Because if you want to know about art or artifact sales, then I’m your girl. I know exactly zero about war or missions. Am I even meant to be looking at this?” She waved the file at him.
“Probably not,” Remi admitted. “But when it comes to family, there are no lines I won’t cross, no matter what the cost.”
His words were so close to her own lines in the sand that she couldn’t help but agree with him. She nodded and blew out a slow breath. What could it hurt for her to look and see if anything stood out? She flipped open the folder and winced. Turns out it could hurt a freaking lot. The ice cream she’d just had threatened to make a reappearance as she stared at the photo on the first page and she gagged.
“Shit, sorry.”
“It’s fine… I’m fine.”
Remi rolled his chair a little further away from her as if he’d been on the receiving end of a woman’s ‘fine’ before and didn’t trust it.
Jorja flipped over the photo so she didn’t have to look at the damage of what had been done to Gunnar’s leg and breathed through her nose. She was going through this file and praying there was nothing to find. But just as when she was close to making an epic find for a client, she just knew the information was in this folder… somewhere.
She scanned the first email and the address caught her eye. “Damn, no wonder my email didn’t go through.”
