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Once Casey is dressed, we head back through the safehouse to Ace's office, taking a longer route to avoid whatever is going on in the kitchen. If Ace is surprised to find Casey trailing behind me when he opens the door for us, it doesn't show in his expression. He just gives us an easy smile and announces, "Welcome to my oasis."
"Oasis?" I question, eyeing the room as I step inside. It's still the same sparse office space that I saw earlier with too many computer screens, a simple couch, and empty cork boards waiting to be filled with all of our rescues. Definitely not what I'd call an oasis.
To each their own?
Ace ignores me. "There's food and drinks in the mini-fridge, but don't spill on my babies or I will end you. The systems are set to never go dark, so you don't have to worry about passwords or anything like that. Left screen shows the outside cameras. Middle are the inside hot spots, but there's a drop-down menu in the corner where you can see every common area. Right screen is where you'll be receiving updates on missions. Don't worry too much about those unless a request pops up for Maison. If that happens, get Maison immediately. His new phone number is on the pad there. If anyone in the house sounds an alarm, the alert will go off in here and wherever they are will appear in a red box on the center of the middle screen. There have already been two this morning. We've already had a runner, too. And Maison is currently in the kitchen trying to get a survivor to calm down and believe that he's not going to be punished for accidentally breaking a plate."
I take a deep breath, letting the mass of information slowly filter through my mind. "The runner is okay now?"
"In with Dr. Singh," he says with a wave of his hand, referring to the in-house therapist here. "That man is working miracles left and right today."
"And Travis? Has he popped his head out at all?"
"Nope. We got your order to leave him and Carter alone for as long as they need, but fair warning that Maison might not obey much longer. Since he's, you know…"
"Actually the boss?" I finish with a laugh.
Ace smirks. "That, and impatient as fuck."
"I'll talk to him. Anything else I need to know?"
"That should be it." Ace nods at Casey, his smirk softening to a warm smile. "You good, Casey?"
I try not to feel happy about the way Casey ducks behind me, hiding from Ace. "I'm fine."
“Good. I’m glad.” Ace hooks a thumb at the door. “You know I rarely sleep. Wake me up if you need me.”
“Will do.”
Once Ace is gone, I turn to Casey with the intention of telling him to get comfortable on the couch. My plans change as I see he’s now standing in front of Ace’s desk, his eyes scanning all of the screens. After a moment, he settles his gaze on the middle one showing the video feeds of the most popular areas inside the house. I can’t tell which room he’s interested in until he asks, “So, that’s him then? Carter’s brother?”
It should be strange that he has to ask, Maison being the center of attention on stage at the party last night. Then again, Carter was also part of the stage's attention, and I remember how hard that was for Casey to handle. I doubt Casey was able to look too closely at what went on up there.
I find the feed for the kitchen, seeing Maison sitting cross-legged on the floor with one of the survivors from the compound - Nolan. He seems to be doing all the talking, Nolan just staring at him with wide eyes. A shattered plate is still on the floor between them. "Yeah, that's Maison."
"Shouldn't he be, like, resting?"
"Probably, yes."
"Is he too cool to admit he's hurt?" Casey asks. He scoffs after, like he thinks it's ridiculous, but I can hear the insecurity in the question.
"It's not that. Maison has a lot of guilt he's wrestling with. If he hadn't made some of the choices he made, Carter would have never been sucked into all of this. I think he sees what happened to him as some sort of twisted penance. He got checked by a doctor already, but other than that, I think he's probably going to make himself push through it."
"I get that."
The words startle me. "You do?"
"The feeling of guilt." Casey shrugs like it's nothing, but his cheeks are pink, and his voice shakes when he continues. "If Carter hadn't been kidnapped, I wouldn't have been saved, right? I mean, DuGray was on your radar obviously, but would I have made the list of slaves to save? I - I noticed he wasn't at the party last night…"
I wince. “Yeah, he wasn't important enough to be at the party. He was on our task force list after you, but there’s no guarantee with that. Especially with him living outside of the region…”
“Task force list?”
“A list of names we'll hand over to different task forces around the world who will clean up the outliers leftover from the operation. Since we don’t control the task forces though, there’s no guarantee that everyone on the list will be taken down. We try to take on as many names as we can ourselves so we don’t have to send very many to the task forces, but we can’t take them all down on our own. Especially ones so far away, like DuGray.”
“When will you know if he’s been… handled?”
“He won’t be. Not by them.” I lower myself to the desk chair, not sure how Casey will take this next part. “I took him off the list when I bought you.”
