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Sebastian
My feet are draggingwhen I finally walk through my front door. Not only did my trip home take two days longer than I planned, but Alec called and had a job for me to go straight to after. I was thankful for the extra time away, but I’m pretty sure I have even had a combined full night of sleep since I left over a week ago. I’m fucking exhausted.
I don’t even bother trying for my bedroom, instead I just get myself to the couch before crashing. It feels like I’m only asleep for ten minutes before my phone starts going off again with text notifications. With a groan, I pick it up and see the DMS group text going off and Alec calling a meeting in an hour. I let out a low groan as I reluctantly stand up from the couch to go get showered and changed.
According to the time on my clock, I managed to get in at least a few hours of sleep. But it still doesn’t feel like nearly enough. It’s not as if I’m not used to running on little to know sleep. But for the past few months, it just feels worse. I know why, but I refuse to acknowledge it.
Once I’m finished getting dressed, I still have enough time to hurry and find something to eat. Of course, like I should have expected, my fridge and cupboards come up bare. It’s not often that I bother cooking considering it’s usually only for myself and I generally don’t have the time. But I usually try to keep at least some chips or some other quick snack on hand. I failed this time apparently. I grunt in irritation and resign myself to raiding the fridge at HQ just as my front door opens.
“Hey, I heard you were back.” It’s not uncommon for Collins to just walk in. Everyone has a key to each other’s place for safety reasons, but it’s kind of an unwritten rule that we don’t just walk in without knocking first. Except Collins. At least when he comes over here, he doesn’t seem to feel it necessary to knock. I don’t usually mind since I live alone. I’m not sure I would classify him as my best friend, since I don’t really feel like I have one. But he joined Dark Matter security a few years ago, and we hit it off pretty well. Since we’re both single and aren’t close with our family, if he even has a family, we tend to migrate toward each other in our free time.
“This morning.” His eyes bug out at my response, probably because he’s mentally calculated how little sleep I must have gotten.
“Damn, no wonder you look half dead.” I give him a deadpan look, showing how unimpressed I am with his shit. I don’t even want to look in the mirror right now because I know I look like The Walking Dead, but I don’t exactly care to bring attention to it. “I’m sure Alec would understand if you wanted to skip the meeting to get more rest. I can just give you the highlights later.”
I shake my head sharply before he even finishes his sentence. I appreciate his concern but the one thing I always make sure of about myself is that I’m available when Alec or the team needs me. Dark Matter Security is all I have in my life, and I won’t ever do anything to put that in jeopardy.
“I’m fine.” I feel my stomach start to roll with hunger, but it’s not the first time in my life I’ve had to ignore it. At least now I know I’ll at least be able to eat sooner. There were plenty of times in my life when I had no idea where or when I would get my next meal or even a snack. It’s a simple luxury I have now that I’ll never take for granted.
Collins eyes me wearily for a moment, probably to see if I’m going to fall over and start snoring right here in my kitchen. I resign myself to just getting some food after the meeting and grab my phone, wallet, and keys off the counter. “We should get over there.”
Thankfully he doesn’t push me anymore and just follows me out of the house and we walk in silence down the street to HQ. It’s only a minute before we’re breaching the porch and the front door opens. Tanner’s eyes immediately land on me with concern.
“Woah. You okay, man? You look borderline zombie-like.” Collins lets out a loud laugh and slaps me on the shoulder.
“At least I’m not the only one who sees it.” I ignore my friend and just push my way past Tanner to get inside.
“I’m fine. Let’s just get this meeting over with.” Neither man says anything else as they follow me to the meeting room where Alec and Wyatt are waiting. Tanner goes over to the bank of computers at the side of the room and does a few things while we wait for the rest of our men. Grant comes after a couple of minutes and greets us all quietly.
Mason Grant is the newest member of our team. I don’t know the guy very well, and usually the fact that he’s a cop would automatically make me hate him. But he seems to have his own secrets and the fact that he’s an official member of our team tells me that he’s not like normal cops.
I take my place against the wall by the door, a habit I developed at a young age. I stay close to the exit and ready for anything to happen. Collins stands next to me just as the door opens and Cole, Jax, and Gunnar all walk in. Jax and I are two of the original members of the team, besides Alec, Wyatt, and Tanner. I wouldn’t say we ever bonded or anything, but we’ve always gotten along well and have never doubted the fact that we have each other’s backs. A lot of shit went down when Jax was attacked in Paris, including a couple guys thinking he may have been a mole. Alec never said it out loud, and he still took the steps to find him, but I have no doubt the suspicion and fear crossed his mind. Collins was the only one that said something about it, and that caused a lot of turmoil between him and Gunnar for a while. I never suspected Jax for even a second though. I had different theories. Of course, the fact that his long-lost brother was hired by Gunnar’s ex-boyfriend to kill him and get him out of the way so that he could get Gunnar back, wasn’t one of them. The whole thing still makes my fucking head spin.
Jax and Gunnar sit next to each other and from my spot against the wall, I can see them clearly. Gunnar’s hand immediately goes to Jax’s thigh and just sits there. I’ve known the two of them were together from the moment it happened years ago. Though they never actually hid it from everyone, they didn’t really make it too obvious either. But over the past few weeks, ever since the dust began to settle from Jax’s attack and the following events, they’ve been more and more open about it. And I’m fucking glad. I may not be extremely close with either of them, but they’re good dudes and they deserve to be fucking happy. I’ve seen too much shit in my life to care who loves whom.
“Alright,” Alec says, demanding everyone’s attention from where he stands at the head of the table. “Grant has a shift, and we have a couple of jobs that require immediate departure, so I’ll make this all quick.” He sits in his seat but doesn’t miss a beat as he continues talking to us. “We’ve been tracking the Feds and the steps they’ve been taking since our raids on Johns’ operation. Chatter has mostly begun to die down. The children that were kidnapped from their families have been returned. There are a few who don’t have families for one reason or another and they’ve been placed in foster care. We’re keeping track of them to ensure their safety and that they’re taken care of.”
Dark Matter Security makes a lot of fucking money on the jobs we do, not to mention the number of times our targets think they can bribe us to not follow through with the job. We always let them believe it might work. The money we get from that always goes into separate funds and is used for cases like this. We don’t want these kids to grow up without food or basic needs when their lives have already been complete hell. So we create accounts for them and ensure they’re taken care of. It’s something I suggested to Alec years ago when the jobs and money really started rolling in. I was thankful that he agreed to it, and ever since then he hasn’t looked back. It’s just an automatic thing he does now without any thought it seems.
Alec moves on from that topic and goes into assigning us jobs. I wait to hear mine and what I need to do, but it never comes. He assigns Collins and Jax to a job in Maine, Cole and Gunnar to a job in Florida. He even assigns Tanner to a new recon job. But my name never comes, and I don’t like that one fucking bit.
“What about me?” I finally ask, and normally that would be something Alec would get irritated over, but it seems like he was expecting it this time.
“There was another note left for Anya yesterday. This time on their office door.” My body stiffens with anger at that knowledge. “There hasn’t been anything at her place since we put the camera’s in, and Tanner went first thing this morning to add some at the office. But I want someone close to her to monitor suspicious activity.”Fuck.It makes sense that he would want me on this job since I was the one that stayed at her place the first time it happened. I’ve already been seen by her neighbors, and if she suddenly had a rotation of men in and out of her place, it would raise suspicions. Or ruin her reputation.
“You don’t want her staying here?” I already know the answer, but it’s my last-ditch attempt to get out of this.
“No,” Alec shakes his head. “We need her to be seen at her normal places and stick to her usual routine. If she suddenly disappears from her apartment for an extended time, it'll most likely stop, and we’ll never find out who it is.”
“What’s the plan when we do find the creep?” Collins asks. Something like this isn’t generally something we would kill someone over, but with the fact that it’s Alec’s sister, it could go either way.
“It’ll depend on who it is, but we’re prepared to take the legal steps. Grant will work with Anya to file a protective order and all that shit. We’ll just add an extra layer of protection and make sure whoever the fucker is, keeps his distance.”
I’m a little surprised by the fact that Alec has such a level head about this, but I’m sure Willow and Anya have a lot to do with it.
“So you don’t want me to engage with anyone?” I ask, because if I’m going to do this, I need to be able to get this shit over with as soon as possible.
“Only the usual to figure out who could be responsible. But we’re not taking anyone out. At least not yet.”
