“No luck?” Sebastian asked me when he saw the look on my face.
He was the only one in Alias Investigations’ office today. His leg apparently kept him out of fieldwork unless necessary, so he was left to hold down the fort while everyone else was out trying to round up the witnesses we needed for our case.
Witnesses that we could no longer offer the protection that we’d promised.
“Yeah,” I said as I sat down behind Gabe’s empty desk, where I’d spent most of my time the last few days. “I swear, they’re not even trying to hide the fact that the bell ringers are pulling their strings. At this point, we may as well hand the whole damn country over to the traffickers and call it a day.”
Sebastian didn’t bother replying to my sarcasm.
What was there to say, anyway?
It was practically true.
The tense silence between us was broken by the sound of the door opening. One of the good things about having Sebastian remaining in the office was that the cute redheaded nurse came around often. I knew I shouldn’t be ogling another man’s partner, and I had no intention of trying anything, but damn it, I was horny. Whenever I was stressed, my sex drive always skyrocketed, but I was too busy to maintain a relationship.
There was no harm in just looking. Right?
Newt placed a cup of coffee on the desk in front of me. “I take it things aren’t going well?”
Just from the smell, I could tell the coffee was exactly the way I liked it. Sugar with no cream, and a shot of hazelnutflavor. We’d only known each other a few days, and the man had already memorized my coffee order.
He really was an angel. Sigh.
It took me a moment for my own words to catch up with me, but when it did, I nearly choked on my coffee.
Angel.
It was such an innocent compliment in any other context, but after dealing with this case, the word angel needed to be struck from my vocabulary.
Thank God, I hadn’t said it out loud.
Luckily, no one noticed my strange reaction, or the coffee I’d spilled on the desk, as Sebastian was busy explaining our situation to Newt.
“Wait. Can they really do that?” Newt asked from his position practically sitting in Sebastian’s lap. “Can they really just refuse to give us a safe house?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Sebastian said, rubbing a comforting hand up and down Newt’s arm.
Newt looked back and forth between Sebastian and me. “But then, what are we going to do? We were able to get a safe house on short notice when we were on the run. Why not now?”
I had no idea what place Newt was talking about, but I was impressed that he had apparently faced his own dangers and come out unscathed. He looked about as ferocious as a chipmunk, but there was apparently some fight under that docile face.
It really was a pity that he was taken. The man was even more my type than I thought.
I was so distracted by this thought that I almost missed Sebastian’s reply.
“We weren’t as much of a threat before. Now, they’re really pushing back against us.”
Newt nervously bit at his bottom lip, his white teeth contrasting with plump pink skin in an alluring way.
“Then, what can we do? We can’t just give up.”
Sebastian got lost in thought for a second, his hand never stopping its comforting motion against Newt’s arm.
“The bell ringers are mostly centered in America. From what we know, they don’t have much international influence. Maybe we could take the witnesses to another country for a while, just until we’re able to regroup and strengthen our case.”
Staring down at my phone, which sat innocently on the desk, I debated with myself.
I had an idea, but would it work?
