She smiles at him, and irrational jealousy stabs into me. “I’m good, Knight. How are you?”
He grins at her. “Living the life, you know.” Then he lifts his chin at me. “Rogue. All good?”
I nod at him. “All good. Thanks for letting us in.”
“Of course.” He gives Sofia another smile, and I only just manage to keep from snapping at him. Which is stupid—he’s my best friend, I know he’s just being friendly, and honestly, if I had to pick someone else for Sofia, Knight would be it.
But I don’t want to pick someone else for her. I want a chance to fix things between us.
“The guys are waiting in the conference room,” Knight adds. “There might still be donuts left, unless Jester finished them all off.”
“Jester?” Sofia raises her eyebrows at me. “Let me guess. He likes to make jokes?”
“Something like that.” I rest my hand on her lower back as I guide her towards the elevator. She shivers, so I pull my hand away. “Sorry.”
She glances at me. A tiny smile curves her lips. “You’re fine.”
Oh. Well, then.
I put my hand back. Maybe she’s just nervous, being in a new place, and my touch makes her feel safer. But whatever the reason, I’ll take it.
While we walk, I give Knight the most recent updates. “Okay. I finally got all of Sofia’s files restored. It took longer than I expected thanks to some recent security upgrades with the cloud storage company’s servers. But combined with the files on the USB Houdini retrieved, we should have plenty to go through.”
That’s the main reason why we’re here, to have my closest friends help with Sofia’s case. She and I could comb through the hundreds of files ourselves, but it’ll be quicker with their help. Plus, on a personal level, I just want them to meet her.
Is it wishful thinking that she might warm up to me if she meets my oldest friends? That she might see me in a more positive light because of it?
Maybe.
When we’re close to the conference room door, I touch Sofia’s arm to get her attention. “It’s just going to be me, Knight, Wraith, Jester, and Houdini. And you, of course. But you can trust these guys. I promise.”
“You served with all of them, right?” Sofia asks.
I explained how I knew them yesterday when I brought up the trip to HQ, but I’m happy to go over it again. “Yes. We were all on the same team together. Wraith left a couple years earlier than me to join the CIA?—”
“We don’t know what he was thinking,” Knight interjects. “Leaving us for the CIA. Crazy, really.”
“So,” I continue, “we’ve worked together for years. I trust these guys with my life. Ihavetrusted them with my life, and they’ve done the same.”
Sofia nods solemnly. “Okay. And they’re your… employees?”
“Not really. More like colleagues. I own the company, so technically I’m in charge. But we work together. I run all the big decisions by them.”
She nods again. “Got it.”
“We each have our own specialties,” Knight adds. “Like I’m in charge of the canine services division. And I head up all our first aid trainings.” He pushes the conference door open. “Rogue is our computer guy, as you know.”
As we walk into the conference room, three heads swivel towards us. Jester’s the first to greet Sofia, practically boundingover with his hand outstretched. “Hi,” he tells her cheerfully, “I’m Jester. Or Jaxon, if you’d prefer.”
“Jester heads up event security and risk management,” I explain.
Houdini approaches at a more normal pace, but still with a smile on his face. He shakes Sofia’s hand, practically swallowing it with his much larger one. “Sofia. Nice to meet you. I’m Houdini.”
“Nice to meet you,” she replies. “Thanks for going to my apartment. And for bringing some more things back for me.”
He nods at her. “Of course. Happy to.”
“Houdini works primarily with security systems and HAZMAT,” I tell Sofia. “Plus picking locks. But we don’t talk about that part.”
