“Six months!” Lucky abandoned his back and forth tour of Walter’s office and dropped back down into his favorite chair. Six months? Only six months? “Any idea who?” While Lucky wouldn’t want Walter’s job—too many rules, too little wiggle room—he couldn’t imagine anyone else filling the boss’s formidable shoes.
Walter stared at his hands, shoulders slumped for the first time in recent memory. “There’s a short list of candidates.”
He probably didn’t want to know, but Lucky asked anyway. To even continue this conversation meant it might actually happen. Denial could be a wonderful thing. “Anyone you’d feel comfortable taking over?”
Walter’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “A few.”
“Who?”
“You’re a senior agent, and I’ve argued that, as such, you should be included in the selection process.” Furrows appeared across Walter’s forehead. “Jameson O’Donoghue seems to be the most likely candidate for my successor.”
What the ever-loving fuck? “O’Donoghue?”
The bastards. What could Lucky do? What could he say? Why couldn’t Bo be here, who’d know exactly how to handle such news?
Walter clucked his tongue and shook his head, lights catching on the gray in his formerly black hair. “I know you don’t like him, but he has a stellar reputation and a solid background.”
Would Lucky even have a future with that asshole running the show? Or anyone but Walter Smith?
Lucky sucked in a deep breath. Had he ever really confessed the truth to this man? “Although I might be difficult at times”—an understatement of epic proportions— “you’re one of the main reasons I’m still with the bureau.” Walter, Bo, and now Loretta Johnson.
“I know.” Walter’s normally booming voice scarcely rose above a whisper. “And you’re the main reason I haven’t retired already. Now, I wanted you to hear the news straight from me. I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t discuss this with anyone until I’m ready to make an official announcement.”
“I can do that.” Keeping the secret might kill him, but he could.
He staggered out the door in a daze. Walter leaving? The familiar hallways of the SNB offices no longer felt homey. The cubes he’d woven through for years suddenly became barriers, the corridors alien.
A building. Take away Walter and the place became merely a building.
He barely stopped in time to avoid a collision. A royal pain in Lucky’s backside stared down, all gym-buffed body with thick, blond hair, sky blue eyes and chiseled jawline. On anyone else the striking features might have made them hotter than hell. Not this jerkoff. Funny how Lucky and the boss just spoke of Jameson O’Donoghue, and who should appear but O’Donoghue’s chief brown-noser, Owen Fucking Landry.
Phillip Eustace followed Landry like a bad smell. What a miserable excuse for a human being. How could Rett willingly see the guy naked?
Landry leaned to the side, resting an elbow against the wall, blocking Lucky’s path. Phillip might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he knew enough to keep his distance.
Lucky glared. “Out of my way, asshole.”
The idiot grinned. “Oh, I think you’ll be finding me in your way a lot in the near future. Changes, they are a coming.”
A rookie rounded the corner and Landry straightened, narrowing his gaze and lowering his voice to a snake’s hiss. “Mark my words. Your days are numbered.”
Walter leaving. The final eight years of Lucky’s debt to society paid in service to the SNB. Going out every day not knowing if he’d return home.
“They already are, motherfucker,” he muttered to Landry and Eustace’s retreating backs.
***
“Are you okay?” Johnson asked for maybe the thirtieth time, staring into the rearview mirror of her Jeep.
“I’m fine,” Lucky huffed from the back seat, wedged in beside a booster seat and a box of toys. Why couldn’t she leave him alone? He would be fine, if he could transfer some stress to Landry’s face via fist.
“He’s lying,” Bo said from the front passenger seat. “But he’s not going to tell us one damned thing until he’s good and ready.” He sipped from a cup of decaf green tea, the familiar scent, while not appetizing, still offered comfort.
Johnson braked at a stop sign and turned to Bo. “We can always beat it out of him.”
Her snide-assed comment didn’t deserve an answer.
Bo swung his arm back, grabbed Lucky’s hand, and squeezed. “I have better ways of getting him to talk.”
