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I shook my head. “Add this to the list of shit that doesn’t make sense. It wasn’t the fucking cartel breaking into Quinn’s place. It was my overachieving ex-boyfriend?”
“Or,” Hux said, dragging the word out. “What if it’s… both?”
“Both,” I repeated, not understanding… and then suddenly, I did. “You think Vince is working for the cartel?”
Hux shrugged, but I could see the fire in his eyes. He got that look often when he was on the right track. “I mean, do we think Vince is just going rogue for no particular reason? Is he really that desperate for a promotion? Or is it more likely that his taste for luxury caught up with him and he had to find an alternate source of revenue once he didn’t have a rich boyfriend to buy his Rolexes—”
The silence in the room punctuated his point.
Hux cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. “Uh. Sorry, boss. I’m gonna go back to not jumping to conclusions now.”
“Yeah, but…” Elvo ran his hands through his hair. “Boss, wasn’t he the one who told you about the missing Horn all the way back in November? How’d he know about that?”
I nodded slowly. I was finding it hard not to jump to conclusions myself. “There have been a bunch of things he knew but shouldn’t have known. Kev, can you take over the tracking surveillance so Hux can call his contact at the DEA? I want to find out what the official status of the Horn case is on their end. Maybe we’ve been going at this the wrong way from the beginning.”
Kev nodded and reached for Hux’s laptop. Hux stared at him with wide eyes. “Fuck that. You can pry this laptop from my cold, dead hands.”
I passed my laptop over to Kev. “The surveillance app is on here too. Let Hux pull it up, and you can use this to keep an eye on Quinn. Thanks.” I shot Hux a glare. “Be a team player, asshole.”
I couldn’t help but look over Kev’s shoulder as he continued to monitor Quinn’s location.
That wedding cake was everything I cared most about in the world. As soon as I admitted it to myself, it seemed so obvious I wasn’t sure how I’d managed to stay in denial for so long… except that it felt so different from any emotion I’d ever experienced before that maybe I hadn’t recognized it.
Vince and I had been puzzle pieces that didn’t fit together, each trying to change the other into someone more compatible. I’d thought that if I just wanted us to work out badly enough, if I put in maximum effort on my own, I could make us work out, and when I’d failed, I’d decided to avoid commitment and attachment entirely so I wouldn’t feel rejected again.
With Quinn, I’d tried to avoid fitting with him from the first day because I’d been scared shitless of what he could mean to me if I let him inside my walls, but it hadn’t mattered. Every part of who he was spoke to me. Lit me up. Both challenged and soothed me. I felt known and unconditionally accepted—even for all the annoying, bossy, overbearing parts of me—but also motivated to become the best, least-overbearing version of myself so I could give Quinn what he needed.
I sat down hard in a chair beside Hux’s station and stared blankly into space.
“You okay?” Riggs asked, pausing beside my chair.
I nodded without looking up.
“Just experiencing the gravitational shift of your personal universe beginning to revolve around a different star than Champion Security?”
I glanced up at him and nodded again.
Riggs smiled. “I’d try to comfort you by telling you this will actually make you better at your job—more careful, more decisive, less inclined to take stupid risks—but I know you won’t believe me yet.” He patted my shoulder. “But if you need me for anything, I’m here.”
“Yeah,” I gritted out. “Thanks.”
When I’d put this team together after leaving the service, I’d chosen my teammates carefully. They needed to be men I trusted to do their jobs, trusted to have my back and each other’s.
I hadn’t realized I’d be creating a family… but that seemed to be exactly what I’d done.
I didn’t breathe normally again until the wedding cake was at least a mile away from the red devil and Quinn (Gorgeous, blue eyes, drinks Howling Turtles) appeared on my phone.
I stared fondly at his contact name. He was so much more to me now… but what was there was all still true.
“Babe,” I said in a rush.
“I’m okay.” His voice held a thread of amusement. “I told Vince your crew was going to use the wedding reception tomorrow as cover to get into the vault. I tried to sound like I was deliberately throwing him off the trail by telling him I didn’t know where the vault was but that I’d caught you more than once in the outbuilding closest to the hog pen. He had that superior look in his eyes, you know the one? Like he knew more than I did, which I hope only means he knew the location of the vault wasn’t in the hog pen and not anything else. Anyway, I’m glad that part’s over, and I’ll see you when I’m done talking to Tommy.”
