Theo was much more blasé about the whole thing, stating that if it came down to it he’d transfer so I could stay at the SF field office. He’d stay in the field office in the capital during the week and drive to San Francisco on the weekends. I didn’t want that, he deserved to be with his pack full time. So all we could do was work hard to keep it a secret. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep it up though. It ate at my thoughts constantly and I would have to force myself to think about anything else so I didn’t start climbing walls with how crazy it made me feel.
Theo continued to tap on the steering wheel, before he finally turned his entire body so that he was facing me, “We want you to move in with us at the penthouse full time.”
Well so much for working together to keep our relationship a secret.
“I can’t move in with you guys, Theo....” I started but he cut me off.
“Just hear me out, Guppy, they may switch us so that we have new partners, but with Cruz as our new director they probably won’t transfer us. He isn’t as much of a hardass about the rules as Jensen is.” Cruz was replacing our previous director, Jensen, who was a stone-faced alpha who was still stuck in the FBI of the 1950s. In fact, if Jensen had his way, alpha packs would have stayed the traditional female omega and alpha males or male omega and alpha females. Like how it used to be back in the day.
Jensen also hadn’t been fond of the female agents in the office, often berating them for the smallest of mistakes. He had retired last month, and I’d never seen so many of my coworkers smile at once before.
Theo slid his hand into mine and I looked down at our entwined fingers, my fingers were longer than his, and I could reach my thumb up to stroke the skin on top of his hand. I smoothed little circles on the soft skin there. I wasn’t normally a very touchy person, but this was one of my favorite things to do.
Theo could probably see the ‘no’ already forming on my lips because he used his free hand to gently cover my mouth. “Just think about it, okay? You don’t have to answer right away.”
I didn’t have a chance to respond because the sound of an approaching car cut our conversation short. Headlights illuminated the end of the alleyway as a dark sedan cruised by and turned so that it could park in front of the dock directly in view of our alleyway.
Gone were Theo’s soft eyes and pleading expression. In their place was the stone-cold FBI agent who was at the top of his field. He was capable of turning it on and off at will, something that I was still learning because it took me a few blinks to shift into FBI-mode. Theo opened his car door slowly, and silently and slid out of the car, his gun already coming out of his shoulder holster.
I slipped out of the car after Theo, keeping myself low in order to keep my footsteps silent. I plastered back to the brick wall next to Theo, and he gestured for us to slide along the wall to get a better vantage point of what we were dealing with.
The goal was to catch them in the act of physically exchanging illegal firearms so that we could bring them in. After that, we would try to go for their bosses. Either way, we needed to keep these guns off of the street.
My heart pounded heavily in my chest, a side effect of the adrenaline that had begun to pulse through my veins like a heady drug. I was, once again, glad that Theo and I weren’t alone at the pier tonight. Four other teams were stationed around the pier, hoping to close in on the unsuspecting goons on all sides so that they couldn’t escape. As soon as we had seen the headlights, Theo had activated the silent alarm in the SUV, alerting the other agents in the dark. They undoubtedly already had the dock surrounded.
Slipping my handgun out of its holster, I turned off the safety and gave Theo a nod, to let him know that I was ready. I could hear the sound of murmuring conversation from the group that stood together on the dock and even then, I could only pick up a few words. They were speaking primarily in Russian and I regretted focusing on Spanish and Chinese during my time at Quantico. I just barely managed to pick up the words: guns, meetup, and the name Volkov.
We stood listening for what felt like forever, though it was probably only around ten minutes. We were waiting for a specific thing to happen, guns and money needed to be exchanged in order for us to finally be able to make our move. Theo gave my arm two taps, letting me know that it was almost time, when a gunshot rang out from the shadows of one of the nearby buildings. It was immediately followed by the shout: “FBI! Drop your weapons!”
Shit. We’ve been made.
Theo cursed and pushed away from the wall, holding his gun in front of him as eight other FBI agents spilled out from the shadows and pointed their guns at the group on the dock. The five men standing at the dock wheeled around, pulling out their weapons. I scanned the scene in front of me, there were two cars parked in front of the dock. Theoretically, there could be up to ten men on the dock, even though we could only see five. I knew that for meetups like this, either side usually brought as much manpower as possible. This meant that there were at least five potential combatants hiding somewhere in the dark.
My eyes darted to the dark expanse of the area in front of the docks, focusing on a shadow here and there as if one of the gangsters was hidden within their depths, ready to throw our operation into sheer chaos. I didn’t like it but, luckily, we were as hidden in the shadows as they were.
“Who fired?” I asked under my breath as we moved in, our steps in sync as we walked back-to-back and pointed our guns at anything that so much as twitched in the shadows.
“My money is on Reynolds.” Theo was referring to the rookie who had more muscles than brains. It wouldn’t be the first time he had accidentally discharged his weapon in the field during an operation. But it could be the deadliest.
Theo and I entered the ring of light together and the four other teams of agents followed.
“Drop your weapons!” My voice boomed loudly and I pointed my handgun at a heavily tattooed Japanese man, who was still busy trying to figure out who to point his gun at. He immediately dropped his gun, obviously seeing that he was liable to end up with a new lead piercing if he so much as even flinched wrong. Once the gun was on the ground he put his hands up. What a smart goon.
“Well, this had turned into an utter shitshow.” Theo groaned as he trained his gun on the leader of the Russians, a burly scarred blonde man with a face that only a mother could love. The man had a large black duffel bag gripped in one hand and there was another one at his feet.
“Drop it.” Theo barked at the man in Russian, and the bag dropped to the ground with a dull thud.
The rest of the men followed his lead and dropped their weapons to the ground and, suddenly, we had control over the situation again. It wasn’t going to be a clean arrest and Director Cruz was sure to chew our asses out when we got back to the office...but at least they would be arrested and the guns would be taken into evidence lock up rather than end up on the streets.
“Who discharged their weapon?” Theo questioned as he stepped forward and kicked the guns back towards us and away from the gangsters who, now, all had their hands high in the air.
“It was me, sir.” Reynolds stepped forward, already looking nervous. His partner, Agent Arias, just shook her head and sighed. She’d been dealing with this idiot for six months, and he hadn’t improved any since leaving the academy. I smelled desk duty in his future if he wasn’t outright fired.
“Remind me later to kick your ass.” Theo nodded for one of the agents to step forward and begin cuffing the men. He turned to look at me, and shot me a commiserating look, the ghost of a smile on his face as he began to speak to me, “Collins, I need you to....”
Theo’s voice trailed off as he looked at me and frowned, his eyes had dropped to my chest and whatever he saw there had confused him. I looked down at my chest and, there, right in the center of my chest, was a glowing red dot.
“They’ve got long-range,” Theo bellowed as he took a step towards me. “Everyone, get down!”
