He managed a rueful smile for her that resembled a grimace.
“It doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved either,” Mason pointed out.Lincoln was operating under ‘innocent until proven guilty’ rules right now.That or ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’Either could backfire spectacularly.
“He knows,” Harris said, and it was clear from his tone that he agreed with Drew and Mason that Zeus was not to be trusted.David was frowning fiercely.What his opinion was, Mason couldn’t be sure.
“I’m not firing him unless we have clear proof that he’s working with Devlin.So far, we don’t.”Lincoln shot a look at Jaxon, who nodded.
“He’s received no odd payments, he hasn’t gone through any files he shouldn’t, and he seems to just clock in, do his training and his job, then go home.”Jaxon shrugged.“If it wasn’t for the way he keeps getting set up, he’d be pretty boring.”
From the way Jaxon phrased it, he wasn’t convinced of Zeus’ guilt.Neither was Mason to be honest, but he wasn’t going to presume innocence either.
The elevator doors opened, and the man himself stepped out, along with Jensen and Miguel from Harris’ team.All of them looked grim, so Zeus’ expression indicated nothing out of the ordinary.
Grant stepped forward to open the door for them, so they didn’t have to use their key cards.If Zeus noticed that almost everyone was looking at him, his expression didn’t show it.He zeroed right in on Drew, who had dropped his head down again and was letting Darcie tend to him.
“What the fuck happened?”Zeus asked in apparent bewilderment.“I was barely gone for an hour.”
“Someone came in during that time.The cameras looped, so we don’t know who, and they got the drop on Drew.”Claudia went through the events in a clipped tone, her gaze focused on Zeus, as was Mason’s.He wanted to see the other man’s reaction.
Drew grunted again, unhappy at being reminded of the fact that someone had managed to get him from behind.On the other hand, going at someone Drew’s size made most people take pause, even highly trained operatives.Maybe especially highly trained operatives.
“Why did you leave when you did?”Lincoln asked, and despite the circumstances, he managed to make himself sound curious rather than accusatory.
Still, Zeus stood a little straighter.He was no fool; he realized what it looked like.To be fair, it made it more improbable that he’d have set things up like this, when Mason thought about it.
“Noelle called me.She said she got home and thought there was someone in her house, and she was scared.”Zeus’ tone was wooden.Flat.
Mason had the feeling he was angry, though it was debatable whether he was angry at Lincoln for questioning him, the situation in general, or Noelle.He would be stupid not to wonder if it was a setup, considering the reason they’d broken up.It could easily be Devlin again.
But she must have sounded convincing.
“I thought you two broke up,” Jensen said with a frown.
Zeus shot an exasperated glance at him.
“We did.”
“Tell me you wouldn’t go check out your ex’s house if they called you saying they were scared,” Darcie said, frowning at Jensen and then shooting that frown around at everyone else.“Every single one of you.”
“Yeah, but… she cheated on him.”Jensen was still frowning.
“I told her to call the cops, but she said she had, and it had been ten minutes, and they still weren’t there.”Zeus’ tone still had no inflection.He could have been recounting the weather.It was clear he didn’t feel like he should have to share all this information.
“Did she seem truly scared?”Harris asked, frowning.
“She did, or I wouldn’t have gone.”
“It could have been a double setup,” Mason offered.“If Devlin didn’t care about scaring her, he could have sent someone to her house to mess with her, figuring she would call Zeus if she couldn’t get in touch with him.”
Everyone looked at him.
“The way your mind works is scary sometimes,” Miguel muttered.
“Only sometimes?”Jensen asked, shaking his head.“That’s so fucking convoluted… how could he be sure she would call Zeus?”
“Maybe that’s not what happened, and she’s just a really good actress.”Mason shrugged.“We might never know.”
Zeus stood silently.He was watching Lincoln and no one else.While the trust of the team mattered, it was Lincoln who would make the final decision.If he was worried, it didn’t show on his face.
