AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I assume you’re not speaking to me,” Stevens drawled.
“No, sorry, more fun news, and I’ve got like four hours to handle too much before I have to be back undercover.”
“How big is this? Elijah just gave me a lecture that we need to stop making everything the big dogs, and you called me. Are you telling me to delegate this?”
Aidan winced and shrugged when I looked at him. “This is too big for underlings.” He looked at his phone. “I can push back what I have today so you can keep your cover. Tell him to send Dylan and we can work on this with whatever team. I promise. Let me help take this off your plate.” He moved his hand to my shoulder when I hesitated. “I want to. You saved all those kids. Let me help.”
“Thanks,” I sighed. “Yeah, okay, send Dylan if he’ll fucking behave with whatever art experts you have. I promise I’ll get you good PR with this. We’re helping the German and Spanish governments with this.”
“I’ll be there too. If there are governments involved, I’m on scene.”
Fair enough.
I let out a sigh that could be heard across the huge compound it was so loud and tired. “Every fucking time I think I’m finally done and can just do my own shit—do you know how many years I’ve done things without ever seeing ISLE? Now it’s—”
“This was how it always should have worked,” Aidan reminded me gently. “That’s the change. It’s unfortunate because of how it’s affecting you personally, but this was how the system was set up to work. I wish it did with the vampires. I know ISLE wishes it did with other councils.”
That made me feel better at least.
I spent the next ten minutes giving out orders and handling more and more. Relief filled me when we got word the wife and kids were all safely on the plane and it was taking off with our teams.
Phil and Dylan had matching looks of shock and complete befuddlement after Kyle gave them the rundown, both focused on me.
Phil shook himself out of it and recovered first. “You took down one of the biggest child trafficking monsters in theworldin…”
“Today,” I answered. “Yeah, just now.”
“No, he’s asking when did you start this?” Dylan asked, pinching the bridge of his nose for some reason.
“Melissa gave me the information Saturday night,” I answered. “I got with Kyle Sunday morning. We went from there.” I shrugged.
“So you pulled off thismassiveoperation in under forty-eight hours and you just call us in to help with the art?” Phil pushed, gesturing all around.
“I’m missing the disconnect,” I muttered, looking at Aidan.
“It would take most organizations months to pull something like this off,” he replied.
“Ahhh, right, well you have to worry about funding and bureaucracies and oversight and bullshit,” I explained with a bright smile. “Lots and lots of bullshit.Wedon’t have to do that.” I pointed to myself. “Iam the boss and the funding and the oversight. I don’t like bullshit, so we skip the bureaucracies and just get the bad guys.”
Kyle snorted. “Andthenthere’s a bunch of messes the other VPs come in and clean up when she pisses people off.”
I narrowed my eyes at him but then smiled when he simply shrugged. “That’s normally true. I can’t deny that. But there’s not this time so suck it.”
“I’m very sure there are a few Spanish officials who—” he started to snitch.
“Right, thanks for reminding me that I need to get the dirt on them. Corrupt fuckers. That one guy must have some kind of tie to this place. His desires were not to dig too deep or shoot me. Like geez, that’s not obvious.” I looked back at Phil. “So yeah, this is now ours for the demons we’re rescuing. We’d like to strip it and get going on what we need, but stolen art.”
“Boss, news just broke the guy is dead,” someone called over. “There’s gotta be a leak for that fast.”
“Get the finalized press release to Elijah,” I ordered. “Add in that ISLE helped in the cleanup since some of the kids trafficked were supes. Whatever he wants to add to make it work.”
“Wait, don’t lie about—” Dylan interjected.
“Did she fucking say it was a lie?” Kyle seethed, shoving Dylan too hard so he stumbled back several steps and fell. “She didn’t fucking lie. There were supe kids found with the others. We’re going to handle that too.”
“Take a walk,” I snapped, toning it back when Kyle shot me a hurt look. “I woves you too, but no thumping the deputy director of ISLE, especially not when people are watching, okay?”
“You’re not a liar,” he grumbled, shooting Dylan another pissed look. “No more than every other fucking demon, and it’s notour faultthat we have to lie so much.”
