Despite how gentle he was with her, he hadn't argued when she said she wanted to come and sit in on their intel gathering session this morning. In fact, he’d gone one better and given her something to look through. A database that he hoped might help them identify the woman who had come up to her at the park to ask her to warn Dragon and the others.
While all six of the Delta Team guys were adamant that the woman was a problem that needed to be eliminated, Cassandra couldn’t help but feel that was wrong. The woman had information she could only have if she was closely involved in Dr. Gardner’s experimental trials, there was no denying that, but she’d sensed a weariness in the other woman.
And all of that aside, Cassandra had something personally to be grateful to the woman for. Without that woman seeking her out, she never would have contacted Dragon again. Her pride and hurt would have led to her keeping her distance, and she wouldn't be where she was at this moment.
Which felt like right on the cusp of something amazing.
Don’t get scared and back out on me, Dragon.
I know you think you were born a monster first and then it was made so much worse by what that man did to you, but no monster could have cared for me so sweetly last night.
When the phone rang, she looked up from the screen she was absently staring at, and her fingers stopped fiddling with her bandages.
Last time she’d gotten a phone call it hadn't been good news.
Although, to be fair, the evening had turned out a whole lot better than it should have after learning that her house with pretty much everything she owned inside had been burned down.
It didn't surprise her in the least, that Dragon immediately stopped what he was doing and reached over to ghost a hand over her hair. For someone who viewed himself as a monster, he had taken to the role of protective caretaker like a duck to water.
Steel picked up his ringing phone and answered it. The rest of them watched him like a hawk, and he rolled his eyes at them, but reached for Rose and tugged her up and onto his lap. The other woman went easily, and it gave Cassandra hope that if both she and Dragon kept making an effort to fight through their personal fears, soon they could be as easy with one another as Steel and Rose had become.
“Hey, Connor,” Steel said, and Cassandra knew the verbal greeting was for her benefit, so she would know this was likely about her and she could prepare herself.
If her brother was calling Steel with this intel and not her, it had to be about her house, and she realized maybe she hadn't done as good a job as she’d hoped of convincing Cade she was fine when he called last night.
Maybe that was a good thing.
Maybe it was time she stopped pretending that she was okay when she wasn't. Just because her brothers had new lives they were building, it didn't mean they wouldn't still be there for her. It was definitely well past time she let them in and allowed the people in her life to support her as she struggled to make sense of her new identity.
Whatever Connor was telling Steel, he was nodding along, his expression inscrutable, as he listened to her brother. The mostly one-sided conversation went on for a solid five minutes,with Steel asking minimal questions, certainly not enough for her to figure out if it was good news or bad.
When Steel’s eyes finally met hers, he held her gaze. “Just so you know, I'm going to be telling your sister all of this,” he said calmly. After a pause, he nodded. “Damn right she can handle anything. Thanks, Connor.”
“What did he want?” she asked as soon as Steel set down his phone.
“Cops got the man who set fire to your house. Fire investigators were doing their job at the scene, when they noticed a man hanging around watching. He looked nervous, odd, out of place, so they called the cops, who took him in for an interview. He confessed to being the partner of the man who broke into your place. Said he was desperate, and his brother-in-law promised him this would be an easy job. He backed out last minute on going inside that night, said he’d be the getaway driver instead.”
“Coward,” Dragon muttered.
“When he realized his brother-in-law was dead, he admitted to tampering with Dragon’s car. Said it was just supposed to kill you, for punishment, revenge. When he didn't hear any reports of a car crash killing two people, he assumed you were still alive and decided to try to draw you out. Decided he may as well go for the money since he wouldn't have to split it two ways anymore.”
“He folded quickly. He wasn't the mastermind,” Blade noted.
“He get paid an advance as well?” Thunder asked, his fingers already poised above his keyboard, ready to input whatever information Steel gave.
“He did.” Steel rattled off some banking information, and Thunder went to work.
Cassandra waited for the relief to come, knowing that the person who had set fire to her house was in prison, but it didn't come. Instead, she rifled through the intel she’d been looking aton the screen for the last hour. Any database the guys could get their hands on they’d been searching to ID the woman from the park.
They’d had no luck, and neither had she.
Only …
“What are you thinking, Cassandra?” Voodoo asked, studying her.
Suddenly, all eyes were on her, and she squirmed. “Nothing much.”
“We don’t do that here,” Dragon told her. “If one of us has an idea, we share it and talk it through.”
