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I listened to the entire conversation.
Fitz asked later for my orders, but I told him to let Bailey proceed. I intended to get here before she got inside, but I hadn’t counted on Matt calling in the building owner’s son, who would have a key and would have no qualm letting Bailey illegally enter an apartment. A call to their security staff reassured me that Tony had thought ahead and had the feeds pulled, so at least there’d be no record of Bailey even being present.
Fitz was waiting for us in the hallway when we topped the last set of stairs.
He jerked his head backward. “She’s inside, doing her thing.” He closed his mouth at the end, and I stopped.
I waited.
He looked at me, his eyes darting inside.
I grunted. “Say whatever you got to say.”
“She needs this.”
His words came swift and without hesitation once I gave him the go-ahead.
I settled farther back on my heels. “Explain.”
I was pretty certain I knew, but these guys were around us almost twenty-four/seven. They got time to sleep. We had the eight-hour shift set in place, but sometimes they chose to stay, and they did that because they worried, because they were almost family by now.
Just before Chrissy’s murder, I had started to wean some of Bailey’s regular guards and use them myself because their skill sets fit my purposes better for the path I was taking against Calhoun. But Fitz was one I kept on Bailey. He was one of her main guys. I trusted Fitz. He was good at his job, and his leadership was outstanding.
He was also a professional, and that meant a lot of his personal opinions, as with most of my men, were kept to themselves. So, hearing and seeing him wanting to express his own thoughts now, I was not foolish enough to not want to hear them. I welcomed it.
“I know you probably know what I’m going to say. She’s awake again. That light went out after her mother died. It’s been gone, but it’s back, and the more she planned with Matt and the other one, the more that light grew. She needs to be a part of this fight, not on the sidelines. She needs it on a vital human level, and that’s all I’m saying.” A beat. “Other than to say, it’s really nice to see her back again.” He inclined his head. “I’m done now.”
That meant I’d put the right guy on her.
I nodded and clapped him on the arm. “After this, you’ll be getting a hell of a promotion.”
He blinked a few times. “That’s not why—”
“I know.”
Josh and the others had already bypassed us, setting in motion their jobs, but I headed for the back door.
I could hear her.
The door was left ajar just an inch. It wasn’t latched, but it was still closed for some privacy.
I opened the door and waited, taking her in, and it was just as Fitz said, but more. I doubted he had stepped back to watch her work. If he had, I would’ve gotten more of a speech. No, no. He said what he did because he saw her planning, but this, seeing her bending over, frowning, squinting at the computer like it was her personal opponent in backgammon, would’ve hit him in the same way but on steroids.
She was breathtaking.
Her hair was falling forward, and she wasn’t tucking it back. That said she was more than distracted. She was obsessed.
Curses were falling from her mouth.
Her back was arched over.
Her fingers were typing like lightning over the keyboard, and she had pulled up her own laptop. It was plugged in. She was alternating between Camille’s system and her own, back and forth, back and forth.
Then she was back to the main system. Her hand on the mouse. She was clicking through screens so fast that I couldn’t make out what each screen was about. Clicking. X-ing. Bringing them back up. Cursing more.
She paused, her breath held.
She was reading, biting her lip.
