“Not a good idea,” Elijah told her without looking up. “Someone might recognize it and connect it to you. We don’t want them having any idea where we’re hiding you.”
“Of course,” she groaned. “I’m going to catch a couple hours. “
“Want me to come finish what we started?” Elijah did look up at her this time, grinning. He was still wearing his cowboy hat, and she couldn’t resist the urge to walk over and flip it off his big head. She didn’t need to, however, since Zander looked up from his cards, glaring at the cowboy. The next moment, a thump was heard, and Elijah was grimacing in pain. “No reason to kick me, asshole. Shit, everyone is so violent tonight, and now my poor hat has touched the floor. It didn’t deserve that.”
She didn’t say anything, turning towards her bedroom. Sleep. She might get a couple of hours, and there was no reason to stress over the IMPO agents all over her apartment. What was done was done. Now, she just needed to figure out how to keep her secrets while forced into their care.
At least it wasn’t Axel in her apartment? That was some sort of fucked-up silver lining.
12
JASPER
Jasper watched her move into her bedroom and couldn’t ignore how their lanky Sawyer had grown up into a stunning and confident woman. He swallowed the lump in his throat and turned to Zander, noticing that he was also watching her walk out. Shit, so was Elijah.
“She’s barely changed,” he said, sitting down at the table. “Still the same Sawyer.”
“She’s darker,” Zander whispered, voicing something that was obvious to him and Jasper. “You can see it in her eyes. Life hasn’t been easy, even if the money she’s sitting on says something else.”
“Y’all are a weird bunch, you orphans,” Elijah chuckled. “You had her, and you left for the IMAS? Lost your fucking minds.”
“You joined the IMPO at eighteen.” Jasper frowned at him, but Elijah just shrugged.
“I wasn’t leaving behind a gorgeous woman like that.” He grinned. “There was nothing at home for me.”
“Other than her, there was nothing for us,” Zander growled. “You know that. It’s not like you’ve never seen pictures of her. Elijah, we’ve been on this team together for six years.”
“She was supposed to stick close to the orphanage until she aged out, then come to us.” Jasper was dealt into the hand and sighed. They played in silence for nearly ten minutes, only tapping the table to send messages, until Vincent walked back in.
“James is fine with us spending one more day here in New York. He’s also got the backup team waiting in Atlanta, so they can get eyes on her when we land. They’ve been told not to engage to avoid spooking her.”
“Shit, we need to deal with Jon?” Elijah sighed, and Jasper brought his eyebrows together. “He’s a fucking prick.”
“He’s Old Guard, and yeah, he’s an asshole.” Vincent nodded, “but he’s the leader of the only other team we can count on if shit goes sideways on the East Coast.”
Old Guard was a term used for those who were agents before the IMPO did a massive restructuring, nearly two decades ago. They lived by a different code, one that Jasper and the guys didn’t. The IMPO’s leaders had decided they wanted to entice more people to join, since there weren’t many Magi who wanted to lose what freedom they had to work for their government. So, new rules were brought in while several, including those on physical standards, were thrown out.
It led to people like Zander joining, with his ears gauged out an inch wide and tattoos covering his body while always getting more. It led to Elijah joining, an openly bisexual Texan who didn’t believe in pretending to be anything he wasn’t. Then Jasper considered himself, the permanently injured one. They were a team of misfits, and all of them would have been found unfit for a number of reasons before the rule changes.
Jon Aguirre hated their team, but both teams were based in Georgia, making it convenient to get help from each other.
“If he gives you shit, let me know. I’ll talk to him as best I can,” Vincent told them. “I wish I could do more, but he hates me, too, so it’s not like he’ll listen. James isn’t their handler either, so they have no reason to pay him any mind.”
“Just as long as he keeps his pet names for us to himself,” Zander growled. “IRA, Brokeback, Cripple, and all of that fucking shit. We would be fine if he kept his fucking mouth shut.”
“He calls me Vinny,” Vincent sighed. Jasper winced. That was fucking cold. “His names for Quinn don’t need to be repeated under any circumstance.”
“Yeah,” Elijah sighed. “So, we let her say good-bye, then we hop on the jet, get her past Jon and his team. Then what?”
“James wants us to train her.” Vincent held up his phone. “Once things with Axel have settled down, he wants us to recruit her into the IMPO. She’s got the talent, the sense of justice, and it would keep her out of trouble. She wouldn’t be the first criminal brought to our side, and he’s made it clear that while we have her, we still need to work. So, she’ll be getting on the job training with us, as well.”
“Maybe we should ask her if being an IMPO agent is a job she wants,” Jasper whispered, worried they were going to chase her off if they pushed her to join the very thing she had tried to hide from.
“She’ll have a choice, but while she’s with us, she’ll need to follow us around.” Vincent gave Jasper a tiny smile. “Afraid she’s going to betray us and help the bad guys?”
“No,” Jasper told him quickly. “But-”
“Good, because Jon is apparently already raising hell in Atlanta, and we need to be a unit on this. We can’t have him trying to find weakness in the team.”
“You are so fucking weird.” Zander shook his head at their boss. “One minute you are cold as shit to her, and now, you want her on the team.”
“Not our team, but we would be recruiting her into the IMPO.” Vincent shrugged. “James had some solid points about the situation.”
“If she joins the IMPO, she can use her old ties from being a criminal to help cases, create set ups, helping bring down big names all over the world.” Jasper nodded. It was a smart move, but he felt uncomfortable talking about her future without her in the room. They hadn’t even had her in custody for an hour, and now they were whispering about making her train to become an agent? She was going to blow a gasket.
“I knew someone else would see James’ side.” Vincent nodded. “So, we need to kill time until we can get her on a plane. While she’s dealing with the gym, we’ll pack up all her stuff and get it ready to go. No reason to buy her new clothes in Georgia. She’s got plenty here, it seems.”
“Look at you,” Elijah grinned, “worried about her stuff.”
“Fuck off.” Vincent glared at him. “I don’t want us wasting our money. And it would be our money. James had the tech guys lock out her accounts when I called him. She’s completely dependent on us now.”
“Oh, that’s going to piss her off,” Zander chuckled. “I’m looking forward to this. What about you, Jasper?”
“I’m wondering if everybody will still be among the living when we fly out of here.” Jasper gave Zander a knowing look. They had intended to let her keep her money because growing up semi-poor and dependent on others had always made Sawyer very protective of her resources. She might not have realized it, but Jasper knew she liked having money ready just in case shit went down.
“Blame James.” Vincent rubbed his temples in a circular motion. “He made that call. His reasoning was that, if she was poor, she would be more likely to take paying work that wouldn’t get her arrested. He also reminded me that her money was gained from illegal activities. Charlie doesn’t pay her for anything she does in New York. She doesn’t even take winnings from the fighting ring they are a part of. Charlie gets all of that, as well.”
“Why don’t we give Charlie everything?” Elijah asked. “He could use it, since we’re taking away his employee and his friend.”
Vincent turn
ed back to look at Sawyer’s bedroom door, and shook his head a little. Jasper knew where this was going, so he just spat it out.
“Sawyer has no idea Charlie was in on this,” he told Elijah. “It’s obvious. And she’ll be furious when she finds out, so giving him her money could possibly make this worse.”
“Really? I mean, we’re leaving her car and motorcycle here,” Elijah chuckled. “Surely-”
“We’re actually not leaving those here,” Vincent shook his head again. “They are going to be sent to our place and locked away in the garage with their keys in my safe.”
Jasper looked at Zander, who was frowning. What was Vincent trying to do, wipe her from existence?
“Why?” Jasper asked, turning back to Vincent.
“Because we need to leave no evidence of her here to keep Axel from killing Charlie or any other bystanders who won’t know where she is.” Vincent’s mouth was a hard line. “And that sucks for her, I know, but she can’t come back to New York. Not until Axel is no longer hunting her, which means not until Axel is in prison or dead.”
“You really think he’s going to hunt her to the ends of the earth?” Zander snorted. “We figured maybe six months tops, and then she could walk away.”
“Axel always gets what he wants. He won’t stop until he has her or whatever he wants from her,” Elijah mumbled. “Come on, we’ve been chasing that SOB across the globe for five years. This team was built for the express purpose of catching him. She’s not going to be able to walk away until we have him.”
Jasper chewed on that. He knew that already. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but he knew it.
“Let’s just play some cards.” Vincent pointed to the deck they always had with them. “Nothing we can do right now with her getting some sleep, and we’re stuck here until we deal with her requests.”
“At least she’s not still trying to kick our balls through the wall,” Elijah mumbled petulantly. They all chuckled softly at him and his plight.
“She was only trying to do that to you,” Zander rolled his eyes.
Jasper waited for her at breakfast while the other guys were down in the gym with Charlie. He had shown up early, expecting them to already be gone. Luckily, the old man hadn’t given anything away when he saw them. Jasper wasn’t sure how Sawyer would take the betrayal, and it wasn’t something he wanted to confront that early in the morning.
“Good morning,” she told him brightly, sitting down with a bowl of yogurt.
“It’s nearly noon,” he reminded her, taking a sip of his coffee. They hadn’t expected her to sleep in like this.
“I don’t teach anything in the morning.” She shrugged, “so, this is my morning. I have too many late nights to be waking up any earlier.”
“I know,” he sighed. “So, your class will be here in an hour?”
“Yeah, enough time for me to eat and get stuff set up for Charlie to take over.” She took a couple bites of her yogurt. “Tell me, did you contact him or the other way around?”
He couldn’t stop his flicker of worry.
“How did you figure it out?” He was looked away from her. “And we cornered him.”
“He would have been more concerned about you all being here if he didn’t already know,” she told him quietly. “I’m not mad. Charlie just wants me safe, and if he felt the need to help you, then I’m not going to hold it against him. It’s just how he shows he cares. He’s seen me go through a lot.”
He didn’t know how to take this from her. He thought she would have stormed out and confronted Charlie, but here she was, sitting with her breakfast, shadows and secrets filling her eyes.
“He didn’t tell us much,” he offered her, hoping to relieve any sense of betrayal she might not be showing him. “He just said you showed up a few years ago, needing help. He brought you in, taught you how to fight, protect yourself. Within a few months, you were out in the streets helping other people. He offered a little more in terms of your work, just so we had a better idea of how you pulled off the secrecy.”
“Layers,” she chuckled. “I look at life in layers, compartmentalize different sections so they don’t bleed together. The fact that you are sitting here though, proves I didn’t work hard enough.”
“We have all sorts of technology and Magi who helped, that Axel doesn’t.” He shrugged. “You were smart to keep your face covered for everything. Not your mistake to have the mask knocked off.”
“I could have gotten into the security and wiped the tapes from existence.” She pointed her spoon at him. “I screwed up, and now I’ve got IMPO agents dragging me out of my house. Don’t play with me, Jasper.”
“I’m not playing with you.” He smiled gently at her, hoping to ease her a little. “If it weren’t criminal, I would be incredibly impressed by what you’ve done.”
“You are too nice,” she groaned. “Where’s Zander? He’ll give me the argument I want.”
“Let’s not start that again,” Jasper sighed, taking her bowl from her. At their best, Zander and Sawyer were perfect together; Jasper had always known it. At their worst, he was needed to step in and fix things before they killed each other. They were explosive, temperamental, and passionate people which made it necessary for Jasper to stay between them. “Go get ready. Wear something you can travel in. Elijah and Zander will be packing your things while you and I see your students. Vincent is handling some other details.”
“You think I’m going to let two strangers pack my shit?” She stood up slowly. “You’ve lost your damn mind, Jasper.”
“Fine, then make a bag of stuff you don’t want them messing with, and they will make sure it gets on the plane.” He didn’t want to know what that bag could possibly have in it.
“Fine.” She suddenly sounded cranky. With her, there was no telling what would set her off. Jasper rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and prayed for a moment of strength. Having her back in his life was going to be wonderful, stressful, and, sometimes, downright terrifying. He shouldn’t have expected anything less.
It took the entire hour before her class started for Sawyer to have the bag ready. Jasper tapped his foot, waiting for her. Elijah and Vincent were waiting with even less patience to get in and pack her things.
“Good lord, little lady,” Elijah grumbled when she finally walked out. “Took you long enough.”
“Fuck you,” she growled, shoving the bag into his arms. “Don’t look through it. It’s my fucking underwear. Unless you’re into being a fucking pervert, in which case, I hope you don’t mind losing fingers.”
Jasper coughed, reaching out to grab her arm so he could drag her away before anything else could come out of her mouth. He didn’t make it in time, as Elijah gave a pithy response before Jasper could separate them.
“Considering I could see your underwear by just asking, I’m not sure why I would need to go through your panty drawer,” he teased. Jasper knew it was innocent flirtation, but he also knew Sawyer wasn’t going to take it that way.
“Like you have a chance,” she snarled. What had pissed her off since she had woken up? Jasper groaned, and started dragging her away. “He’s a fucking prick.”
“Elijah is harmless,” he told her on the stairs. “He flirts with everybody, it’s nothing personal.”
“Like that makes it any better,” she huffed.
“Sawyer, I need you to calm down,” Jasper finally sighed. “I get it. This fucking sucks for you. You’ve built up a life and a place for yourself here, but we don’t really have another option. We need to keep you alive. We can’t let Axel continue to leave bodies all over the planet, and we need to bring him down.”
“That’s not why I am upset,” she growled. “You’re about to see why.”
She left him confused on the stairs. He raced after her, wincing at the ache in his knee and the shooting pain up his thigh and into his hip. It was getting worse, and he already wasn’t allowed to do anything too physically active during assignments. He was a geek anyway,
so that was okay, but damn, working out was hard when one entire leg didn’t want to cooperate. Keeping up with her was going to be a nightmare.
He found her in a room connected to the main gym and put it together. Nearly twenty kids, almost all of them under the age of sixteen, were waiting on her. They looked at her like a goddess descended to teach them, a big sister that would always love them. Hero worship was an understatement.
And the smile on her face was glorious. Radiant. She hugged the smaller ones, one or two looking like they were probably only seven or eight. She exchanged goofy secret handshakes with the older ones, and laughed when a couple tried to trip her up.
He had known, but he had never witnessed it. Charlie hadn’t allowed them in the gym when it wasn’t Fight Night, and he didn’t have cameras for Zander to break into. Jasper stood awkwardly at the door, watching it play out. These kids loved her, and she loved them. She was relaxed, and the cocky swagger she usually kept was missing. She was at ease in a way he’d never seen her, even when they were young.
“Alright, so I have some bad news for all of you,” she called to them. “Everyone gather around.”
Jasper swallowed a lump in his throat. Tiny hearts were about to be broken. Jasper didn’t like to witness this level of emotion. It made him itchy and uncomfortable, but someone had to keep eyes on her at all times.
“Last night, I learned some bad news, and I’m going to need to leave for a little while.” She knelt to the smaller children’s eye level. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back, if I can, but I was told that I’m in danger, so they need to hide me away.”
She was being honest with them, and he frowned at it. Did she really think they needed the gory details? Couldn’t she just say she was going on a business trip?
The Redemption Saga Box Set Page 11