Page 24 of Flash Point


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The face on the far right, the one that neither approved nor disapproved, was the one that captured and held Zeke’s attention.

Out of everyone in his life, including Ash, his grandmother, Johona Blackwell, was the one person he wanted to make most proud. He didn’t know why exactly, but it had always been so. She could dole out tough love like a dominant wolf or extend comfort like a matriarchal elephant. Her mind was as sharp at ninety as it was in her heyday as a nurse during the Korean War.

“Ezekiel,” Grams said, “please join me in the chapel.” All four foot nine inches of his grandmother strode down the catwalk, her shoes clanking against the metal grate flooring. Lynette followed in her mother-in-law’s wake.

No one said a word until the sound of an exterior door opening and closing reached them.

Then the shitheads let loose.

“Taken down by a ball,” Cruz said as Zeke began his walk of shame.

“Bling does matter,” Rohan said from the catwalk.

“I’ll meet you assholes at the Annex for the debriefing.” He had intended to bring up the FBI’s offer after the practice run, but Zeke wasn’t in the right mindset to field his brothers’ questions or navigate their reactions. Especially Phin’s.

Later. He would discuss it with them later.

Zeke approached Neuman, visually daring the new guy to add more salt to the wound. If Zeke’s screwup hadn’t eclipsed the recruit’s, Neuman would be enduring their jabs instead of Zeke.

Any time one of them screwed up a test mission, the others did their best to leave a deep mental scar, so that they never made the same mistake again. It was a custom their father started years ago.

Many would find the practice cruel. Blackwells called it a life raft.

With BARS taking on riskier recoveries, they couldn’t afford to get it wrong. Their lives, and livelihoods, depended upon every team member’s success.

Especially the team leader’s.

But Neuman didn’t add salt. He did something far worse.

“You'll get it next time, Z.”

Zeke’s step hitched. Anger tried to boil to the surface, but he wrestled it back to a simmer. Empathy ranked right up there with disappointment on his Suck-o-Meter.

He didn’t need a dirt-behind-the-ear rookie telling him what he already knew. Of course he’d get the damn thing right next time. There was no other option.

A large hand clamped on his shoulder. “Relax,” Cruz said as he squeezed by.

His brother’s warning had the opposite effect of what he had intended. Zeke wasn’t a damn keg about to bust under pressure. He could control his roiling emotions.

Most of the time.

When he really, really wanted to.

Neuman shifted on his feet and swallowed hard enough for Zeke to hear. It was the rookie’s telltale sign of nerves that allowed him to shake the dirty pond water off his back.

He handed Neuman the backpack containing the sphere reproduction with a little more force than was necessary before he stalked through the shoot house, passing a handful of rooms decorated to replicate the home of multimillionaire Dane Warner's palatial Asheville home.

As he passed the makeshift ballroom, he glimpsed his brother, Phin, in a tux, dancing in circles with a delighted ten-year-old Sadie, wearing her finest pale yellow dress.

Sadie was the daughter of one of their long-time, trusted employees, Alejandro Rios, and his wife Clara. She was also Neuman’s stepsister.

Everywhere he turned, he could find traces of the girl. She flitted around the estate, playing bit parts, as she did with their recovery scenario, helping Lynette and Clara set up the rooms, assisting his mom in the office, and shooting targets with him and his brothers.

She was a never-ending whirl of energy and a constant source of joy to everyone she touched.

Jumping in his vehicle, Zeke drove past the Annex, a term they’d used for their office building while it had been under construction. They hadn’t come up with a better name, so the word stuck. His truck rolled by the former Friary, a large stone structure the family had recently renovated and now called home.

It had taken a little over a year, a boatload of money, and a bazillion decisions to update the seventies monstrosity. Oddly, no Blackwells had died during the process.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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