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“Fallon?” he asked her.

“It can wait until tomorrow. She wants to know how the budget meeting went for me earlier today. There were four people in it.”

“How did it go?”

Cassie had finally told Fallon the truth about her spiraling and the migraines. Explained that her desire to avoid groups wasn’t because she was introverted but because her brain imploded.

After being pretty pissed at being left out of the loop, Fallon had jumped in to help. She and Cassandra had done what they’d spent three years doing before either one had come to Zodiac Tactical: work the problem.

It had started with meetings with two other people and had been growing from there. Fallon was always ready to jump in if Cassie needed her. Sometimes she had, but more and more she hadn’t.

“It went well. I’m able to keep it together longer these days. I’m never going to teach a class on public speaking, but I’ve got a little voice in my head now that gets me back on track when I need it.” The corners of her mouth tipped up.

“Glad I can be of service.”

She took a sip of her coffee. “Did you hear? Fallon let me know the good news. They set the trial date.”

Everything in him went still. “When?”

“February. And Johnson took a deal. So did two of Rooney’s guys. They’re all testifying against their bosses.”

“Johnson.” Ryder let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Of course Johnson rolled. He was swearing he was unarmed before anybody even had zip ties out.”

“Arlo, Heath, and Rooney were all denied bail again. Heath has the kidnapping and assault charges on top of everything else. Looks like none of them will be seeing daylight for a very long time.”

Good. Let Heath rot in some tiny box until he died. Ryder wouldn’t lose a single minute of sleep over it.

He didn’t want to think about how close he’d come to losing Cassandra that night. If he hadn’t seen that active audio channel… If Cassie hadn’t had the presence of mind to grab that transmitter and keep talking about where they were going… If he hadn’t driven like a man possessed to get to the lodge…

They definitely wouldn’t be here right now.

He didn’t say that out loud, but he didn’t have to. This woman knew him well enough by now that she could practically tell his thoughts before he knew them himself.

“And all six kids are home,” he said quietly. “That’s what matters most.”

“Absolutely.” She was quiet for a minute. Then she tipped her head toward the salt shaker. “Okay. I drank my coffee. What the heck is going on with all this?”

Here we go.

“It’s a sequence for a mission.” He kept his voice easy. “Thought you could check it for me.”

Her eyes narrowed immediately, but he’d known that was coming. She wasn’t going to like thinking someone was encroaching on her turf.

“What mission?”

“An important one.” The most important one.

“You just got back from an op. You were gone eight days.” She set her cup down harder than she needed to. “I was the one running support for you most of that time. Ian didn’t say anything about sending you back out.”

“It came up fast.” That wasn’t true. It had actually been developing since the first time he’d seen her dancing to that god-awful disco music and talking to herself in the lab, if he was going to be honest.

“An op that requires you to learn some sort of computer sequence came up fast?” Her spine went ramrod straight in her seat. “Every sequence that touches a keyboard at Rogue goes through me, Ryder. Every single one. If there was a system you needed to get into, I’d have built the sequence myself.” She looked at the table again. “I didn’t give you a sequence to learn.”

“No.”

Her brows drew together. “So who built this one?”

“I did, actually. And I need you to check it.”