Jayson must have picked up on her concern because the smile disappeared from his face. “I know I should have found a better way to deal with the situation.” He pushed a big piece of pasta onto his fork with a chunk of bread. “But it’s not in me to stand around and let someone say that kind of crap about my friends.”
She smiled. “I know, and I appreciate that you were sticking up for Ivy and me and the rest of the shifters. Just watch yourself around those two, okay? I wouldn’t put it past them to try and get back at you somehow.”
She expected Jayson to disagree and say she was worrying for no reason, but he surprised her by nodding as he helped himself to more lasagna. “Yeah. I think I’ll be watching my six for a while when it comes to Powell and Moore.”
Layla relaxed. Was it too much to hope Jayson’s good mood was permanent? She was itching to ask him what had happened today, but she was so happy they were having such a good time that she didn’t want to jinx it.
“Dick mentioned that you’re doing well in your training,” Jayson said as he set his knife and fork on his empty plate. “He said you’d probably be heading out on your first mission soon.”
Suddenly, the lasagna didn’t taste nearly as good as it had just a few seconds earlier, and she pushed it aside. Of all the subjects Jayson could have brought up, this was the absolute worst.
Layla hadn’t been looking forward to telling Jayson about the mission because she knew he probably wouldn’t handle it well. It was something they were going to have to talk about soon, considering she was on standby to leave at any moment, but a part of her had been hoping she might put off telling him until tomorrow morning—preferably while they were lying naked in his bed.
“Do you know where you’ll be going?” Jayson asked softly. “Or who you’ll be going with?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She’d stopped talking to Jayson about her training because he always got so depressed after their conversations. In some ways, he was like the sick kid stuck at home while all his friends got to go out and have fun. Layla didn’t think of what she was doing as having fun, but as a former Special Forces soldier, Jayson almost certainly did.
She would have dropped out of the training if she could have, anything to take at least this one burden off Jayson’s shoulders. But she’d made a deal with the DCO director more than two months ago to become a field agent if he would hire Jayson and give him a job at the DCO. John Loughlin had done his part, so she would do hers. Even if things hadn’t gone the way she’d expected.
None of that mattered now. What was done was done. And whatever she said now would almost certainly ruin this night beyond repair.
“I’m going with Clayne and Danica,” she told him. “They’ve been chasing an arms dealer for weeks. I’m supposed to provide backup when they finally catch up to him, but I don’t know exactly where that will be or when.”
She held her breath, waiting for Jayson to flip out because she hadn’t told him about any of this before now, but to her surprise, he didn’t say a word. He simply sat there, nodding his head and gazing off into space like he was thinking over what she’d just said.
“I know you can’t give me any details, but this guy you’re going after, is he dangerous?” Jayson finally asked.
Layla mentally cringed, not sure how she should answer his question. Of course the guy was dangerous. The DCO wouldn’t be going after him if he wasn’t. The guy had a reputation as a stone-cold killer and a businessman who would sell weapons to whomever could pay him the most.
But if she told Jayson that, he’d lose his mind for sure. On the other hand, she hated lying to him. Besides, she was a terrible liar. Jayson would see right through her.
“He’s a scary guy,” she admitted. “He specializes in selling chemical weapons technology and is responsible for the sudden increase in that kind of stuff showing up in places like Syria, Northern Iraq, and the Sudan. The worst part is that no one is even sure exactly what this guy looks like. Based on the name he goes by, the analysts assume he’s from a Slavic nation, maybe Yugoslavia before it broke up, or Poland. All they can say for sure is that he’s very good at knowing when he’s being tracked and that it rarely ends well for the people who go after him.”
Jayson’s eyes widened in alarm. Crap, she probably should have left out that last part.
“Fortunately, I’m just there to help run the operation from a remote command post,” she added quickly.
Jayson slowly let out a breath, the panicked look disappearing from his eyes. “So you won’t be directly involved in apprehending the guy, right?”
She shook her head. “Nope. I’m only going to keep an eye on everything with cameras to make sure this guy doesn’t turn the tables on Clayne and Danica.”
While she wasn’t exactly thrilled at the idea of going up against someone as dangerous as the arms dealer her first time in the field, it didn’t make a lot of sense to send her halfway around the world just so she could sit at a computer and watch other operatives do their job. She didn’t say that to Jayson, though.
Across from her, Jayson was staring off into space again, lost in thought.
“You okay?” she asked.
He jerked, snapping his head up to look at her. “Yeah. Why?”
“Because you look like you’re a million miles away,” she said. “I know you don’t like the idea of me being a DCO agent, but…”
“It’s not that,” he said. “I mean, I’m still not thrilled about you going into the field, but I’m dealing with it. I was actually thinking of a conversation I had with Dick today.”
Layla’s stomach clenched. Jayson’s relationship with the DCO’s deputy director had made her uneasy from the first time she’d seen them together. Even though she, Ivy, Landon, and every one of their other friends had told him that Dick Coleman was dangerous, Jayson seemed to consider the man a friend.
“What did you talk about?” she asked.
Jayson shrugged, picking up his glass and taking a long drink of iced tea. “He was telling me about a new drug he thought might be able to heal my back.”
