“Excuse me,” he murmured and righted the chair. His fixed gaze never left her extraordinary face.
She and her brother were nearly identical. It didn’t matter that he’d only seen her once over sixteen years ago. He’d know her anywhere.
“You’re Shanna Fox.”
She narrowed her gaze as she assessed him, her face becoming fiercely formidable. She didn’t say a single word.
Of course he knew Devin Fox’s involvement with the Disciples of Havoc. Had even spent a small amount of time soul searching his past and how it would impact his present objectives. He eventually decided he could, if push came to shove, arrest the man he owed his life to.
What he hadn’t expected was to see Dev’s younger sister at this meeting. Surely the government had fully vetted her before putting her on this team.
Jesus. After everything he’d seen so far, how could he be sure?
Why hadn’t he had this crucial bit of intelligence before walking into this meeting?
“You two know each other?” one agent asked, nonchalance dripping from his tone, but curiosity blazing in his eyes.
“Not that I know,” Shanna replied, instantly on guard.
Cash decided against responding. He didn’t trust his voice.
Could Shanna remember him?
The attorney general’s office knew of Cash’s past. They’d all agreed there was little chance Dev ‘Devilman’ Fox would remember Cash as a boy from their onetime interaction all those years ago.
“Cash is joining our team from the mothership in DC,” the man clearly in charge explained, skirting around the sudden confusion in the room. “I’m Malik.” His hand swept to the right. “Joe is an internet specialist and will be your handler. You apparently know Shanna. Emma is her handler.”
A fist came across the table from Joe, along with a good-natured grin. He met the fist bump.
“She can regularly bring you to your knees,” Joe teased, hooking his head toward Shanna.
Emma groaned and made a dramatic show of rolling her eyes.
“It’s never gonna happen between them, but Joe won’t give it up,” Emma explained and reached a hand over the table in greeting. “I’m Emma and I need to know what’s going on here. Is this some new layer to add to the team because our plates are already pretty full?”
Her curious gaze shifted between him and Shanna.
Shanna’s brows remained furrowed as she glanced at Malik as if he might have the answers.
“Had any of you read the reports, you’d know Cash lived around here as a young boy. Isn’t that correct?”
Cash nodded, intertwining his fingers, locking them in place in his lap. “Lived here might be stretching it. I went to Dallas ISD for three months, where your brother went to school.”
Shanna looked blankly at him, questioning such a simple explanation. “I’m five years younger than he is. You wouldn’t have known me through school…”
The sudden rush of emotion caught Cash off guard. He sat back in the seat, staring into the eyes that looked very much like the Dev he remembered from back then.
He’d had no idea these long buried memories would resurface like they had. It wasn’t a time in his life that brought easy memories for him. Images played like a slideshow through his head where he’d been a victim of some of the most hateful bullying he’d ever witnessed since.
His parents had always been wholesome people. Naïve to the troubles of the world. Putting their innocent child inside such a tough as nails elementary school had doomed him.
That was the last public school he’d ever attended.
“I—” He started and stopped, glancing at Malik. “It’s all in the report, right?”
Malik nodded, perhaps with the briefest hint of compassion in his eyes. “Catch up on your own time. Ryan comes to us from the federal levels of the DEA. He brings his expertise to help get us more fully on the inside of the Disciples. I was just getting to that point when you arrived.”
“Why?” Joe blurted before Malik could move on.
