AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Same,” she agreed. “I was looking forward to getting to the safe house and catching some shut eye. Things around the office have been crazy lately, and sleep has been hard to come by.”
“Yeah, we’ve been pretty busy too, lately. I felt about ready to drop when I got back here tonight, but then, I found the back door open, and that sure woke me up,” he admitted.
“I’m sure that it did,” she said.
“Why did you stop by here tonight?” he asked. “I mean, if you were tired and just wanted to get to the safe house, why stop here?”
“Because I wanted to try, one last time, to get you to come with me. I knew that Dante wasn’t going to leave you alone. He was going to come for you whether he thought that you screwed up and gave him a get-out-of-jail-free card, or not. When I got here, I just had a feeling that something wasn’t right.”
“I get those sometimes too,” Joel admitted. “My intuition saved my ass more than a few times over the years.”
“Yeah, me too,” she said, “and, when I walked around to the back door and found that it was open, I knew that the alarms going off in my head were warranted.”
“Yeah, I’m just trying to figure out how they got back out of here without crossing paths with us,” Joel said.
“I’m betting that they went out the front door when we were coming in,” she said. “I noticed that it wasn’t locked on my way up the stairs.”
“Yeah, I just thought that they came in that way, but your theory makes sense,” he said. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and rounded the kitchen island. “I picked up two shadows on my cameras. The pictures are poor quality, but I could make out two of them.”
Trista looked at the video feed and nodded. “I count two guys also. You can tell by their build that they are probably men.”
“I thought so too,” he said. Joel was surprised at how easy it was to work with Trista. He almost expected a fight with her at every turn, but she didn’t give him one.
“I’m glad that you agreed to stay here with me,” he admitted. “It’s nice to know that you’ll have my back.”
Trista shrugged, “I just thought that there’s safety in numbers. If you plan on staying here, you’ll need backup,” she said.
“Well, thanks for being my backup,” he breathed.
“I’ll do the dishes while you put the food away,” she offered. “The guys should be here soon, and I still have to come up with a way to get Melody to forgive me.”
“Don’t be upset if that doesn’t happen tonight,” he said. “Melody can be a tough nut to crack. Just give her some time.”
Trista nodded and took his plate from him. “Thanks for the advice, Joel,” she said.
* * *
Savage had shown up with his husband, Bowie, and Throne tagged along too. Thorne was a new guy at the club, but from what Joel knew about him, he liked him. He was a genius at security and Savage was smart to bring the new guy along.
Axel and Melody showed up shortly after the guys had and Melody gave Trista the stink eye, just as she thought she would. He cornered Melody when Trista was checking in on the guys, and even though he knew better, he asked his partner about forgiving Trista.
“Why should I?” Melody asked. “She lied to me, and in case you’ve forgotten, she held you at gunpoint just a few hours ago. What—you two are besties now and I’m supposed to just forgive her?”
“No,” Trista said from the doorway to the kitchen. “You aren’t supposed to just forgive me. I haven’t even asked for your forgiveness and Joel asking you for it, doesn’t count. I’m truly sorry and would love for you to be able to forgive me someday, but I know that it’s going to take some time. For now, all you need to know is that I only did what I had to do to keep Joel safe. He was my assignment. I was supposed to bring him in and get him to release Dante Gemini. Once that was over, my assignment ended. I’m here now as someone who wants to help you both. I want to keep Joel out of the Gemini Brother’s hands and to do that, I’m going to have to stay here. But you have my word, I’ll keep him safe,” Trista said.
Melody barked out her laugh, “You’re going to keep Joel safe?” she asked. Trista nodded and Melody laughed again. “You do know that he’s quite capable of taking care of himself, right?” she asked.
“I assume so,” Trista said. “But I’m just letting you know; I won’t let anyone get to him. I’ve got his back.”
“Isn’t that sweet? Joel, I thought that your partner was the one who had your back. Now, you’re letting the CIA handle that job?” Melody asked.
“That’s not how she meant it, Melody,” Joel defended. The last thing he needed was a showdown in his kitchen just before dawn. “Listen, it’s late and we’re all tired. How about we just table this conversation for another time?” he asked.
Axel joined them and wrapped his arm around his wife. “I agree with Joel. We’re all tired and maybe things will look better once we all get some sleep. The guys are finished, and Savage is ready to head out unless you need anything else,” Axel said.
“You all have already done so much. I think that we’ll be good from here on out,” Joel said.
“Are you coming into the office in the morning?” Melody asked.
