After a long, passionate kiss, Blake finally murmured, “Thank God, baby,” as she squeezed Brooke even more tightly. “I wish I could have dropped that son of a bitch myself, but it looks like you and Indi had it under control.”
“Your woman is a badass, Blake Seibert.I’mkeeping her,” said Indi, holding still so Drew could wrap a strip of cloth tightly around her flesh wound to stem the bleeding. “She took hold of this operation like a pro and totally ran the show.” The APS associates cocked their heads at Brooke, their eyebrows raised. “Apparently, we did some killer move she learned in Utopia with Blake’s crew. ‘Smoke,’ I think she called it.” Explaining what had gone down in detail, she laughed as the eyebrows raised even higher. “Moral of the story: donotfuck with this woman.Ever, because she will hand you your ass. I can think of a few past Infinity operations where I could have used her.” Silence filled the room.
An inscrutable look on her face, Blake then quietly said to Brooke, her voice soft, “So…instead of listening and simply keeping yourself safe—even though youknewwe were here and in the process of breaching—you decided to take matters into your own hands?”
Brooke huffed and poked Blake in the chest, thunder darkening her gray eyes. “We didn’thaveten minutes to wait for you, Blake! And,” her narrowed eyes grew even more stormy, “if you think for even one second I was going to stand there and let a lowlife piece of shit like Clay Langston have me cowering like a pussy, you obviously don’t know who you’re dating!”
“Yep. She sounds just like my wife,” muttered Shaelyn to Dani, who had followed the rest of APS and Infinity into the operations room.
Nodding slowly, the look on her face becoming more impassive, Blake merely said, “We’ll discuss this further at home.” Brooke rolled her eyes. “Right now, however, we need to head back to the APS complex. Bryn and whoever else can stay and talk to the St. Petersburg police while we take Indi to see Zev so she can get that bullet graze taken care of. Then we can meet in the big conference room to debrief.”
“Oh, Lord,” Riley mumbled, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We’re going to leave an Infinity Security operative at the mercy of Zev Kyriakos? Fuck my life.” Indi looked quizzically at the APS team as they collectively blew out a deep breath.
Bryn gestured at her twin and Teagan. “The three of us will stay here and finish up with the St. Pete police. They will need to speak to both Brooke and India at some point, but that can wait. The rest of us can go back to APS so Indi can get that arm taken care of, and Jaime will meet us there. Vince, however, is still talking to Sandy.”
With a soft look, she turned to Brooke, holding her gently by her shoulders. “Little sis, Gene is going to beabsolutelyfine, butyou need to know Clay Langston shot him when he went to Gene and Sandy’s house to lift the keys for Cask & Canvas.” Brooke gasped and paled. “Sandy was thankfully at the store when that bastard showed up, but she got home just a few minutes after Langston left and immediately jumped into action. Gene is at Bayfront. He had to have surgery because the bullet went into his upper right chest, but they extracted it with no issues, and he is going to fully recover.”
“Is Sandy okay?” Tears were streaming down Brooke’s face.
Bryn briefly hugged her, then stepped back so Blake could take her femme into her arms. “That’s onestronglady, little sis. She and Gene are extremely lucky to have each other. Vince is with her, and I suspect he’ll have more than a few ‘thank-yous’ to pass along from a few people. Clay Langston murdered Rob Kilgore, Thom Berger,andJack Norris because of his greed. They were scum, yes, but no one appointed Langston judge and jury. He had no right to take their lives. I suspect that if Clay had survived, he’d be looking at capital murder charges.”
With a voice that was equally gentle, Drew inquired, “Are you okay, little sis? Not only have you been through one hell of a lot tonight, taking a life can have more than its fair share of minefields, no matter how justified it may have been.” Her smile was reassuring. “While this was a clear case of self-defense and there won’t be any legal repercussions, you never need to struggle through the aftermath of the emotional impact alone. You know we’ll always be here for you.”
The face Brooke turned to her, although streaked with tear track marks, was cold. “That evil piece of shit murdered his partners, Drew, then shot Gene Wheeler and was doing his damnedest to kill meandIndi. And let’s not forget: this all started because he and his grifter, scum-sucking, con artist friends were trying to embezzle from a good man with a wifewho has been battling breast cancer. You think I’m shedding afucking tear over him? No, maybe Rob, Thom, and Jackdidn’tdeserve to die the way they did, but when you choose to live a criminal life, then you pay the consequences of the risk you decide to take.
“Reflex Rebranding is no more. I, for one, won’t lose a wink of sleep over my part in that either. And I never,everwill.”
?ω?ω?ω?
“Brooke and I only had a minute or two to look in the folders we found taped to the underside of the file cabinet drawers at Cask & Canvas. We saw enough to tell us, however, that Rob Kilgore had built athrivingbody brokering racket, unbeknownst to the other three partners of Reflex.” India Lunastar—wearing a new T-shirt with the edge of a clean white dressing peeking out from under the sleeve—stated as she took them through what had happened at the microbrewery.
Bryn, Riley, and Teagan had returned from dealing with the aftermath of Clay Langston’s shooting, Jaime was back from Bayfront, and Indi had finished in the infirmary, so both the Infinity and the APS management teams—Brooke, Kelly, and Piper in attendance as well—were assembled in the large conference room to break down the events of the entire Reflex fiasco. Indi’s bullet graze had been deemed superficial, although Dani had remarked that India would now have a scar to match the one on her other arm, prompting the Infinity operative to stick her middle finger up and roll her eyes.
When everyone had first arrived at APS, Kelly and Piper had met them at the front entrance to take Brooke and Indi to the infirmary to see Zev Kyriakos and her wife, Iliana, who was a registered nurse. After checking Brooke over to satisfy herself that the graphic artist was okay, Zev had then disinfected Indi’s wound and wrapped it in a fresh gauze bandage, gentlytaking care of her while chatting amicably with the quiet Infinity operative as she did.
Kelly and Piper’s eyes had narrowed. “You do realize Indi is just as big of a badass as the twins and the Seven, right?” Kelly had snarked, only half in jest, as she’d slammed her hands on her hips. “She probably could have dropped all four of those punks from Reflex Rebranding without breaking a sweat.”
“A small golden angel like this? Give me a break, Kel.” Only Brooke had caught the stealthy wink Zev had given India, whose lips had twitched. “Besides, I bet she doesn’t driveherpeople half as crazy as you two drive me. It’s a miracle I’m not on sedatives myself.” Unable to help herself, Indi had burst out laughing while Kelly and Piper’s jaws had dropped. “There you go, Ms. Indi. All done,” Zev had told Indi as she had released her, her dark eyes twinkling. “While I don’t make it a practice to prescribe sedatives, I know what dealing with these two is apt to be like. Come and see me if I can help.”
“She issuchan asshole,” Kelly had groused even as she and Piper had started chuckling themselves when they’d left the infirmary. “But a day without Zev Kyriakos sarcasm is unfathomable, although it certainly would be lesssnarky.”
Now, Indi finished telling everyone what happened up until the time Brooke had pulled the trigger. “My client Marion’s mother was in those files.” Her jaw clenched. “Unfortunately, there is no way to recover her remains, which I’m going tohatetelling Marion, but Infinity can set things in motion to at least recover what assets ‘Rob Vonn’—Rob Kilgore—stole from her. Shae and Dani will work with the Tallahassee police to identify his other North Florida victims so their assets are recovered as well.” Her small smile swept over them. “On behalf of Marion, I can’t thank APS enough for what they did. While I hurt for Marion because we can’t recover her mother’s remains, Infinitywill at least give her some kind of memorial in remembrance so she can begin to heal.”
Everyone’s eyes were soft. “It was our pleasure,” said Bryn, nodding at her. “Every ounce of reputation Infinity has earned over the years, you have mostdefinitelydeserved. As far as we’re concerned, you can take our backs anytime. In the meantime—tomorrow, when we’re fresh because it’s getting late—I’d like to sit down and really analyze the information you and Brooke found.
“Incidentally, Clay Langston had evidently put a pretty hefty bounty on both the APS management team and the Infinity operatives. I think it’s safe to say that now, because there is no possibility of a payout since Langston is dead, those bounties no longer exist. And the muscle Langston had hired to steal the product and equipment for his embezzlement scheme have faded into the woodwork because, again, no payout.”
“What about Rob Kilgore’s body brokering crew?” asked Jaime.
“Cyb3rmoonhas disappeared,” Drew told them. “There has been no trace of her in Purgatory. As uber-focused as she had been on the body brokering industry, maybe that fell apart when Kilgore died. It’s certainly why there’s no trace of his body brokering crew anymore. Both Dara and Ari said there has been whispers about his death and who was responsible. However, I’m still convinced there is somethingmuchbigger in play here, and thatCyb3rmoonis still around somewhere in the thick of it. It may not be a matter of concern for APS, but my gut instinct is telling me I still need to follow the thread. We’ll see.”
The team agreed to meet back in the morning after they had all gotten some sleep. “You did amazing today, little sis,” Riley told Brooke as everyone stood up. “Although I’m not quite sure the Annie Oakley routine is going to fly in the future.” She arched an eyebrow at Blake as Brooke snorted. “There areusually repercussions for Sin Two violations,and you know it. But I’m pretty positive you and your butch will be having that discussion when you get home.” Brooke took Blake’s hand with an eye roll.
“Get some sleep, everyone,” said Bryn as they moved to the door. “No doubt the information in those files is going to piss us the fuck off when we finally read it all. Like Drew, though, I’m feeling there’s a lot more to this entire clusterfuck—and that APS just might be pulled into it, whether we want to be or not.”
Chapter 29
“Blake!” Brooke squealed as Blake’s hand came down on her bare ass. “You have to be fuckingkiddingme!Ouch!” The sound of another smack echoed through the room. “I said I was sorry! I already told you, there was no way I was going to let a lowlife piece of shit like Clay Langston make me cower like a pussy!”
