But why?Before I went AWOL, I hadn’t gathered new information in nearly eleven months.
My phone buzzed with a text, drawing my attention away from the report I was typing up.
Cole
Here.
Thank God. I needed a break before I threw my computer out the window and let it fall thirty floors down to the sidewalk. Maybe some fresh air would help, though there was a stark difference between Appalachian air and Manhattan air.
I logged out, pocketed my phone, left my suit jacket behind, and headed to the elevator.
My dress shoes squeaked as I walked down the pristine corridor. I missed my boots.
Cole was waiting in the courtyard in front of the Javits Building. The fact that he was head and shoulders taller than the average person, wore a burly, unkempt beard, and still dressed in tactical gear like we were in the Teams made him easy to spot.
He turned to face me as I strode out of the building. I caught my reflection in the polarized lenses of his sunglasses. All buttoned-up, combed over, and fucking respectable.
I hated it.
“Look at y?—”
“Shut up,” I groused at Cole as I crossed the plaza.
“Still saying no to working in the private sector?” Cole asked. “Because I don’t have to wear shoes like that.”
He was lying.
Cole wore dress shoes and suits all the time, especially when his client was some fancy-pants one-percenter who needed protection and his unique skill set.
“Are the Marshals still saying no?” I asked.
His sigh of defeat was a clear answer.
I swore under my breath and pinched the bridge of my nose as I tried to regroup. “She needs to be put in witness protection.Bothof them do.”
Cole raised his hands in surrender. “I agree. But the requirements are what they are, and the Feds aren’t bending the rules after the circus you caused, even if you’re one of their own.”
I swore and kicked at a stray piece of gravel.
Cole put his hands up to stave off my ire. “But I’ve got guys on a constant rotation to keep an eye on her.”
“Thank you,” I said as I braced my hands on the back of an empty bench and tried to mentally work through the problem.
When I had been cleared by internal affairs and called Cole, he gave me a brief rundown of what had happened after the FBI pulled me out of Las Vegas.
Amelia had also been arrested in Las Vegas, questioned, and then released from FBI custody and left to find her way back home. Since Valentine and most of his associates had been arrested back in New Jersey, they deemed that she didn’t need protection.
The U.S. Marshals agreed.
Just the thought of her alone in Las Vegas made my blood boil.
According to Cole, the FBI had kept the backpack she had on her person, along with a few grand in chips, as evidence for the investigation into me, but the bag had just been a decoy. She’d outsmarted them by stashing the rest of her cash, chips, and our supplies in the other bag that she hid in the resort.
My girl was a fucking badass.
Of course, she told all of this to Cole, who she called from my burner phone after leaving FBI custody, going back to the casino, retrieving the real bag from where she’d hidden it, and winning the rest of the money for Joel’s freedom.
She didn’t know that Valentine was behind bars. Then again, she was smart to stick to the plan. Valentine struck enough fear into his soldiers that they’d keep doing his bidding rather than getting out while they could. He didn’t run his organization like a business. He ran it like a cult. Valentine was their god.
