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“Toothbrush and toothpaste, floss, beard trimmer, soap, comb, shampoo, nail clippers, vitamins, hand lotion, and condoms. That, along with clean towels, is everything in the bathroom. I’ve been all over Trees’s kitchen and living room tonight. Nothing. I’ve also been in his spare bathroom and bedroom multiple times. More nothing. He has a prepping shed that I helped him reorganize a few weeks back. It’s boxed supplies from reputable vendors. That’s it. And I’m done with this shit. Put me on another assignment. And take out the fucking clause in my contract that doesn’t allow Tessa and me to have a personal life together. How the fuck would you feel if someone kept you from your wife for entirely arbitrary reasons? You’d kill a motherfucker, and I’m about ready to. Fix it or I’ll quit.”
With a stab of his finger, Zy ended the video. He didn’t know how he’d walk away from EM Security Management. In order to repay his bonus and satisfy the penalty, he’d owe them way more money than he had saved. He’d think of something, even if he had to swallow his pride and call his father. A worst-case scenario, for sure. But nothing was more important to him than having Tessa. And if he had to burn down everything to make that happen, then by God, he would.
January 11
The Monday after Zy made the video, he sat the bosses down in the conference room and showed them every second of the footage. Unfortunately by then, catching their mole had moved farther down their priority list. Logan, Hunter, and Joaquin were in crisis-management mode because all hell had broken loose.
After that, the holidays had been anything but quiet…
Zy’s teammate, Cutter Bryant, had gone from sucking face on the side of a California road with famous TV beauty Shealyn West to being her tabloid lover. Just after Christmas, Cutter had told the bosses that he and Shealyn would be getting married on the first Saturday of the new year in a private ceremony at her grandparents’ ranch in the small town of Comfort, Texas, and that they should plan on replacing him because he was moving to Los Angeles. After that, the trio of assholes had been in hyperdrive, trying to find someone big and bad enough to fill Cutter’s shoes.
Zero luck on short notice. They interviewed a few, and even Zy had to agree the fit wasn’t right.
Besides being down a teammate, things had gone from bad to worse when the paparazzi hounded Cutter and Shealyn from wedding to honeymoon, an old-timer in her tiny town had been murdered on their wedding day, then a local group of eco-religious fanatics had started threatening Shealyn’s grandparents.
Josiah Grant had gone to the event that weekend to provide extra muscle and was still there because the danger hadn’t let up, despite Cutter and Shealyn having jetted off to Hawaii on their honeymoon. In fact, the shit was getting deeper, and rumors were swirling around the office that Josiah was lingering in Comfort because he was fucking on the job with Shealyn’s younger sister, Magnolia. And from the scuttlebutt he’d overheard, it wasn’t just sex. Zy had a feeling deep in his gut they would soon be down another teammate, and where the hell would that leave them?
Especially since One-Mile had gone rogue and been in Mexico for damn near a month, trying to kill drug lord Emilo Montilla. The good news? He’d finally managed two days ago in a one-and-done shot. Then he’d escaped clean and ducked out of the country. Zy hoped that Walker’s success meant that Valeria, her baby son, and her sister, Laila, the one they’d rescued from Montilla’s compound, would be safe and could get on with their lives. Time would tell… At least the mole who had been feeding information to Montilla and his cartel would seemingly be out of business now.
But as soon as One-Mile had returned home, the crazy, sarcastic fucker had somehow finished sweeping the pregnant preacher’s daughter, Brea Bell, off her feet, despite the fact that her father was no fan of his daughter’s baby daddy. Now there was talk of another wedding on the horizon. Would the team lose the sniper to wedded bliss, too?
Fuck. Zy knew that if he quit, he’d be stranding Trees, who seemingly had no intention of leaving his job. He couldn’t even tell his best friend why he should. Then Trees would be in situations he might not be prepared for, trying to be not just the tech guy but the muscle, the hostage negotiator, the spy, the sniper, and the demolitions go-to. That wasn’t him. But if Zy stayed, he stood almost no chance of ending up with Tessa, especially since she’d cut off most communication since the Christmas party. They both knew they’d been playing a dangerous game of chicken. Tessa had simply flinched first, and he wasn’t surprised. He’d pushed her too far because he wanted her too much.
