His words help soothe my nerves until I meet his gaze. There’s real fear behind those steady blue eyes. Along with a man who’s barely holding it together.
But he’s doing it. For me.
I look around the table at the other three people I only just met. People who’ve already decided they’ll burn down the world for me.
So I swallow hard and nod. “Okay.”
On my other side, Parker clears her throat. “Can we talk about the elephant in the room?”
Connor takes a long swig from his bottle of Coke. “You mean how we keep the world from knowing Grace is alive until we want them to? That elephant?”
Parker shakes her fist in the air like she’s ringing an imaginary bell. “Winner winner, chicken dinner.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Grace
The tension suddenly filling the room threatens to suffocate me. Under the table, I try to reach for AJ’s hand, but he’s on my left, and my fingers find only air.
He stiffens, as if he can sense my growing panic, and scoots a little closer to drape his arm around my shoulders.
Parker nods in my direction. “The minute we take Grace to Austin Memorial for that neurology consult the doc wants her to get, this stops being our op. APD will grab it. We’ll be benched—again—while they stumble around trying to figure out who did this to her.”
Who did this to her.
She says the words like I’m a puzzle they can solve. Find all the missing pieces and voila—I’ll be whole again. But I’m so much more than missing pieces. And even if every one of them fits back into place, I’ll never be the person I was before. I didn’t deserve to wake up here with a broken brain. Or a missing life. Or with three years of horrors I may never remember.
“Seein’ a neurologist won’t be a problem,” Connor replies. “We can find a doc we can trust. One who’ll see Grace off the books.”
I wish I felt comfortable enough to ask him how. Luckily, AJ does it for me.
“Care to explain?”
After he finishes the last of his Coke, Connor runs a hand over his thick brown beard. “Pritchard. Well, or McCabe. One of them will have a contact we can trust.”
I don’t know these names, but the way he says them—and the way AJ, Jasper, and Parker react—gives me the courage to find my voice.
“Who’s…Pritchard?”
Connor’s slow smile should reassure me. It does in some ways, even if I don’t understand why. There’s a quiet confidence about him. I wonder how long he was in the FBI. And what he’s been doing since.
“Major General Austin J. Pritchard. Retired,” he says. “He used to run the Joint Special Operations Command.”
“I d-don’t…know wh-what that is.”
“JSOC is the highest military organization in the United States. Pritchard was forced out last year after he went off book and rescued his sister and her guy from some shit down in Venezuela,” Connor explains. Something dark settles in his gaze. Whatever happened…was terrible.
“A few months later, Ryker McCabe—the biggest, baddest sombitch to ever serve in the United States Special Forces—suggested Pritchard do somethin’ with his life besides worship the ground his fiancée walks on. So he did. Started recruiting.” Connor smirks. “The man done rolled up to me with the most cliché line ever.” His voice changes, his Texas drawl fading, and a thick, New England accent taking over. “‘We help people with nowhere else to turn.’”
“Pritchard needs to hire a PR firm,” AJ mutters. “That’s terrible.”
Connor chuckles, the sound thin, but there’s still a hint of amusement in his grim smile. “Terrible, but accurate. Pritchard’s got a few of us now. Griff, who was CIA before he was injured; Zephyr, one of the best hackers in the country besides McCabe’s wife; and me.”
“Hey, what am I? Chopped liver?” Jasper asks. “He offered me a job two hours ago.”
AJ stares at his twin for a long moment. “And you took it without even talkin’ to me?”
“Five extra minutes in this world don’t give you the right to talk me in—or out—of anything.” Jasper scoots his chair back a few inches and crosses his arms over his chest. “And you were busy. So, yeah. I took it.”
