“Oh, shit. What now, Elizabeth? I seriously can’t handle one more thing. I’ve got Amy issues, pregnant fiancée issues, and the brink of war going on. Can we just sugarcoat this shit and cut me a break?”
She laughed.
“Become the president, he said. It will be fun, he said. I guess it’s not so much fun, Baldy. Be careful what you ask for, King Midas, it might come true.”
He snorted.
“Just tell me, smartass.”
She dropped the bomb.
“My brother is divorcing Axelle. Get ready for the blowback. Tag. You’re in the line of fire with me.”
He gasped.
“What? Why? They seemed happy! Why the hell are they getting divorced? That’s bad!”
She told him, but only because Axelle was planning on leaving the FBI. She had to give him a heads-up, because they rolled like that.
Axelle leaving put her in aBADposition—as in she was going to have to hold two offices up.
ALONE.
Axelle should have given her a heads-up out of compassion for the person who was going to be holding the whole FBI world on her shoulders.
“Well, that’s the least of your issues. She’s been offered a job by the CIA. They’ve been poaching Feds again, and she’staking it—or so she said to my brother. She’s bailing, Baldy, so be prepared.”
Gabe sighed.
Only, Elizabeth wasn’t done.
“You can’t say shit about knowing either. I told you so we don’t get buried in the shit. You also can’t saddle me with her job if she does leave. This is all classified. I’m not taking the director’s job, and I don’t care what you say, offer, or threaten. I’m up to my eyeballs with bullshit, and I don’t want any of that.”
He laughed.
Why?
She called that.
“Am I that transparent?”
She didn’t miss a beat.
“Yeah, Casper. I can see right through you. Go haunt some other person’s life. I like where I am, and with Wyler having cancer, Ethan wanting to be out here, and wedding after wedding coming up, I can’t carry one more thing. I’m at max capacity,” she warned. “I will up and quit. Trust and believe my big tits will be in a bikini on a beach somewhere while DC burns around you. So if you fuck around, you will find out. I mean it.”
Gabe understood.
Elizabeth was doing a good job, and she was right where she needed to be.
For now.
One day, maybe she’d move up, but for now, she was running it like she owned it.
The hard part was going to be finding a person who could work well with Elizabeth, and not get their feathers ruffled because Elizabeth LaRue Whitefox-Leonard-Blackhawk wasNOTan easy person to run a ship with on a daily basis.
“If she bails, you’re on duty. You’ll have to pick up the slack until I can find someone.”
She freaked out.
