“Oh, so much happened. A whole lotta nunya business.”
Joker snorted. “Told ya he wasn’t gonna spill.”
Thankfully, the door opened, and King walked in, followed by Jay, whose gaze went straight to Ryden. The smile that appeared on his face made Ryden’s breath catch. Damn, he was beautiful. Jay sat in the chair beside Ryden, facing the others, and King made his way to the front, choosing to stand at the head of the table rather than sit.
“Before we get to what Jack found, Jay insists on being involved. Try to contain your shock.”
No one was shocked.
“Since Mason and Red are off-site with clients, Saint, you’re officially assigned to Jay as his protective detail. I’ll get a contract drawn up after this.”
As expected, Jay did not look happy. At all. Saint gave Jay an apologetic smile.
Jay shook his head. “King, I don’t?—”
“This is not up for debate. You want to be involved? You’re assigned round-the-clock protection. Official. That’s the deal.”
“I could do it,” Ryden said.
King barked out a laugh that quickly turned into a deep frown. “Absofuckinglutely not.”
“I figured that from your expression. Didn’t expect you to say it out loud, but sure, no, I get it.” Ryden cleared his throat. This was going to get awkward. He could feel it.
Jay groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can you please put that thing away, King?”
Ace jumped back, his horrified expression making Ryden laugh. “Put what thing away?”
“King’s judgy eyebrow,” Jay grumbled.
“I do not have a judgy eyebrow.”
“You do,” Joker said. “It’s the left one.”
“Oh, for the love of—Fine. I have a judgmental eyebrow. That does not change the fact that Saint is going to be Jay’s protective detail because everyone in this damned room has fallen in love with someone they were supposed to protect. Saint’s already in love, so I don’t have to worry about another damned romance happening during an assignment.”
“Um, excuse me.” Jack put a finger up. “But I think you’ll find none of us were officially on duty or assigned to protective detail when said romances happened. Ace is the only one who fell in love with his client while on protective duty.”
Ace threw his arms up. “What the hell, bro? It only took him like a fucking decade to get over it.”
“Who says I’m over it?” King growled.
“Fuck my life.” Something seemed to occur to Ace. “Wait, you were protecting Leo when you two hooked up.”
“First of all, we didn’t ‘hook up.’ We were in an underground government black site, not a nightclub. Secondly, I wasn’t hired to be his protective detail. I was asked to keep him safe as a favor. There was no contract.”
“There was a verbal one,” Ace offered smugly. “Between you and General de Loughrey.” King narrowed his eyes, and Ace grinned wickedly. “I’m just saying. Your romance with Leo falls into a very gray area.”
King crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re about to fall into a very gray area.”
“That makes no sense,” Ace said, clearly amused.
“My point is, I’m not taking any chances.” King waved a finger between Ryden and Jay. “Keep it in your pants. At least until this is over.”
Jay’s cheeks flushed a bright pink, and Ryden wasn’t sure whether to run for the hills or crawl under the table. Dideveryonethink they were sleeping together? Since when? Glancing around the room,no oneseemed surprised by King’s words. Wow. Ryden had always considered himself very observant. So much for that.
“On to business. What have you got so far?” King turned his attention to Jack, who picked up his tablet and started tapping away. The screen on the wall came to life, and profile images of the Marines who’d been at the wedding appeared.
“These five here,” Jack said, highlighting everyone except their fake Marine, “were all discharged, but I haven’t found info on their official discharge. I’m still working on gathering intel, but they were involved in several special ops missions, so I need to tread carefully. Our friend Martin, as Ryden suspected, is not a Marine. He’s not military at all.”
