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"Thunder and I..." He hesitated for a second.
"Go on," I growled impatiently.
"We got some intel from Neptune, and we had to see if it checked out."
I let my eyes pierce into his. Back in the days when we did ops, Paladin used to joke and tell me I had a killer gaze. Literally. I could either make someone fall in love or make them run for their lives with the way I looked at them.
He knew I was channeling the latter energy right now.
"You thought it would be wise to go off on a little op on your own without even telling me? Are you out of your mind? You could have compromised yourself and this entire—Paladin, what the fuck?"
He shuffled his feet miserably. "I'm sorry," he replied, his tone whispery with anxiety. "I didn't. Listen, Skipper, the only reason we did this was because we wanted to see if ..."
He opened and closed his mouth, and suddenly, I felt sorry for the man. I knew why he'd done it. I let out a weary breath.
"I get it. You wanted me to get my closure. But this isn't a film, and we're not romcom heroes, Asher. Anyway. Why're you here? What did you learn?"
"Omar's back, that's for sure," he replied, his brows creasing. "But that's not what I'm worried about."
The corners of my mouth twitched. This was Paladin's classic way of sayingI'm sorry we didn't take you along, it wasn't that great anyway, I promise it sucked.In other words, shit had gone down, and he was feeling guilty that I hadn't been a part of it.
"You really wanna go with that?" I asked, trying my hardest to not smile. His saying he wasn't worried about Omar being in Oakmont was, well,plum foolish, as we said down here.
"Okay, I may have misspoken. I am worried about Omar," he replied, casting his eyes to the carpet, "but there's something else."
"Enough with the cliffhangers, Paladin. You're really not good with them," I half-spoke, half-barked. "What did you see?"
Then, he raised his eyes to meet mine. And I saw a lot of emotions there. Fear, sadness, but most of all, there was an urge to shield me from the words he was about to say.
"Cole," he whispered. "I saw Cole, Reed. He's alive. He's with Omar."
* * *
It waslike there was no floor beneath my feet, like I was suspended in a free fall, entirely unsure of where or if I'd ever land.
"You're mistaken," I replied for what felt like the fiftieth time in the last fifteen minutes since Paladin had broken the news to me. "It can't be."
Thunder had entered the room. He poured me another drink. I turned my back to them while I downed it, this time in one gulp.
"I was there, Cap," he said gravely. "Paladin's got a bit of a lazy eye, but not me."
I almost snorted my drink out. Even in the middle of something of this magnitude, these two were going at each other. Fuckers.
"Okay," I finally said. "Did Neptune get back to either of you?"
"He did. He told us there's a strong chance Omar is planning something with a civilian. He's hazy on the details, but it seems he's in town on a contract job."
"Omar's doing contract work?" I turned to face them, suddenly confused. "Why?"
"Apparently, he handles individual cases for this high-profile group called Trojan. They're not just invested in the kind of ops we handled. They also do assassinations, kidnappings, cyber theft, you name it."
Miguel interjected. "Omar's been here for a while. It could be that he came because hurricane Pandora's headed for us and he had to send intel on the town's vulnerabilities to his outfit. But as far as we know, he's not here to mess with the system. Just one person."
"Neptune was right about one thing," Paladin said, exhaling a long, slow breath. "Wherever Omar smells money, he goes there. Whoever has got him on to this case is likely shelling out a lotta dough."
I cursed under my breath. With Pandora mere days away, I was already worried about Oakmont's safety. No matter what, this town had been my birthplace and the home I returned to when my own flesh and blood rejected me.
The fact that Omar was here with the intention of messing with the equilibrium was already bad enough.
