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I give him a quick chin lift—yes, I’m fine—and he lifts his chin at me in return. He glances down at his phone for a second before looking back at me. “So, the Hop-less Horseman tonight?”
“Yeah. Finn and Nora are in. You and Georgia coming?”
A smile spreads across his face, his hazel eyes brightening. “Yeah. She’s been working so hard with her online store; I convinced her to finally take a break.”
Nora leans in from one end of the table. “How is her store going? I know Georgia was nervous about starting her own storefront instead of using Etsy.”
Leo’s chest puffs up. “Really good. We’ve been focusing on social media to advertise, and she’s gotten a great response.”
“That’s awesome, man.” Zane grins at Leo from the other end of the conference table. “She deserves it.” Then his gaze shifts to the clock on the wall, and he lets out a low chuckle. “Finn can never make it on time, can he?”
“I wouldn’t want you to feel like you got different treatment from Cole.” Finn slips into the room and plops down in the empty seat next to me. “Since you’re the one leading the meeting and all.”
Cole and Maya are off on their honeymoon in Tahiti, and Zane is taking over the role as team leader temporarily. Their wedding was only a week ago—they had a big party on the Blade and Arrow property—and it’s kind of hard to believe that one of us is actually married. Although Leo and Zane are both engaged, so I guess it’s not so crazy after all.
“Thanks, Finn,” Zane says dryly, his pale blue eyes crinkling. “I appreciate you not leaving me out.”
Finn eyes Zane speculatively. “Does that mean you’re ordering breakfast for all of us, too? I mean… Cole usually does.”
Zane grins at him. “Cole doesn’t usually order breakfast. But he did leave some discretionary funds, so… why not?”
It’s an ongoing thing, Finn and breakfast at the weekly meetings. Not that he can’t buy his own food, he just enjoys poking at Cole until he finally gives in.
That’s one of the things about working—and living—with people you’ve known for so long. The six of us have spent years together in the most treacherous of circumstances, and we trust each other with our lives. Have trusted each other, for that matter. We aren’t just teammates, we’re our own kind of family.
Finn has his phone out, cart open in the app and ready to check out. “Regular order from Dunkin?”
“Fine,” Zane answers. He pauses, opening the folder in front of him. “Okay, now that the breakfast situation has been resolved, let’s get down to business.”
All our expressions go serious, phones placed face down, everyone sitting up straight—when it’s time to discuss Blade and Arrow matters, we snap to attention.
Zane flips through the folder before glancing around the table. “We have one paid job coming up, one confirmed pro-bono case, and another one we’ll have to consider after meeting with the client.”
Shifting his gaze to Nora, he says, “I’m thinking you and I will take the paid one. It’s providing security to a CFO in London. He’s going to be attending an international FinTech conference for three days, so it’s a quick job. There are going to be attendees from around the world, so your language skills will come in handy.”
Nora is our language expert on the team—while we’re all fluent in at least two languages, some of us three—Nora is fluent in Spanish, French, Mandarin, Arabic, Farsi, and Kurdish.
Nora nods. “Sounds good.” She pauses. “When are we leaving?”
Zane’s face goes tight and his shoulders tense. “We’ve got a flight out of JFK for London leaving Thursday morning, and we’ll be back late Monday night.”
He still doesn’t feel comfortable leaving his fiancée, Elle, even though she’ll be safe at the Blade and Arrow headquarters the entire time. But seeing how she was almost abducted by an organ trafficking organization not that long ago, I can understand his concern.
Smoothing his features out, Zane takes a deep breath before turning to face Finn. “I’m going to have you stay at HQ for the next week, keep an eye on things here. And there’s a potential client I’d like you to meet on Thursday—she’s in Suffern, so it’ll be a quick half-day trip.”
Finn leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Okay. What’s it about?”
Zane meets his gaze. “A woman believes her ex-husband is sabotaging her business. She’s had numerous incidents at her store, and after an acrimonious divorce, she thinks he’s behind it. She doesn’t have enough proof for the police to do anything. I want to find out if there’s something to it, or it’s just bad luck.”
“No problem.” Looking first at Zane, then Leo, his normally easygoing expression goes steely. “And I’ll make sure Elle and Georgia are safe.”
Zane shoots him a look of silent thanks, followed by Leo’s quiet, “Appreciate it, Finn.”
“Okay. Last up.” Zane glances between Leo and me. “Rylan and Leo, I’m going to have you two working our next pro-bono case. It’s in Saratoga Springs, so a relatively quick trip up north.”
“This is the one we’re definitely taking?” Leo asks. “Did Cole make that decision before he left?” Usually Cole makes the final decision on whether we accept a client for our subsidized part of the business, although all of us have input.
“No,” Zane replies. “The request just came in a couple of days ago. But I texted him about it, and he’s fully on board. The client was referred to us by Erin, who’s married to Conor, one of Cole’s friends from Texas.”
