Page 126 of The ARC Unit: Breach

“Denied.”

“Worth trying, boss.”

Wolf knew what had made the wrists personal, and I’d be lying if I didn’t feel even a little bit curious about it. Watching them, I finally understood that Jackal challenging Wolf had never been the opposite of respect. He had expected Wolf to know where the line was because he wholeheartedly trusted him with it.

Jackal leaned back into the couch and exhaled carefully. “Now that we’ve grown emotionally, can I have my gun back?”

“No,” Bear and Wolf said together.

Jackal closed his eyes. “This place is bullshit.”

Chapter Eleven

MIA

By 9:15 the next morning, Bear had turned one end of the operations table into a gear check while Jackal supervised from the couch with the authority of a man who had been specifically told not to participate.

“You’re folding those wrong,” Jackal called.

Bear kept working. “They’re restraints, not fitted sheets.”

“Presentation matters.”

“And your presentation is currently sweatpants and a hospital bandage.”

Jackal looked down at himself. “The bandage is unfortunate. Everything below it is still operational.”

Viper, seated beside him with a laptop open across one knee, did not look up. “You look unemployed.”

I covered a smile with my coffee mug and went back to the screen Raven and I had been working through since breakfast. One of the contacts pulled from Varga’s phone belonged to a dispatch supervisor at a transport company. So far, he looked exactly like his title suggested since he handled driver changes and vehicle assignments when schedules fell apart.

A few messages between him and Varga lined up with weeks when Cerberus had been moving women through southern Germany, so we couldn’t dismiss him completely. We just didn’t have enough to know whether he was involved or whether Varga had been using an ordinary dispatcher without telling him what the vehicles were really carrying.

Wolf agreed there was no reason to grab him yet. Bear stayed ready in case something changed, while Raven and I kept digging.

Wolf had dressed for work inside the office instead of a raid, black cargo pants and a fitted shirt with his lower face covered by the plain mask he wore around us. The heavier tactical belt sat on the table beside him while Bear checked the smaller pieces of equipment that would go with the team if the dispatcher gave them a reason to move.

Raven leaned closer to my screen. “Looks like his work phone stayed at the office overnight. His personal phone went home with him.”

“And Varga was messaging the work phone?”

“Yes.”

I looked back at the activity log. “So we don’t even know if this supervisor was the one answering him. Someone else on shift could have had the phone.”

“Exactly.”

Wolf looked over from the other side of the table. “What do you want to do?”

I turned the monitor toward him. “Watch the office another day before we grab anyone. If that phone is shared between employees, taking one supervisor might tell us nothing and warn the rest of them that we found the number.”

Wolf read through the log. “And if he leaves with something useful today?”

“Then we follow him.”

He nodded. “Good.”

Something about the quiet approval in his voice made my pulse jump.