“Doesn’t he share one with Quinn downstairs now?” She frowned.
“Oh, yeah, but he told me he wasn’t going to stop messing up my bathroom, just so I know he’s always thinking of me, or something ridiculous like that.”
“Oh, you poor man. Yes, you can come with me. Don’t try anything.”
She was still laughing as she got out of the shower, dressed, and went downstairs. Especially since Vincent didn’t think to get anything to wear before the shower, so he had to walk in a towel to his own room to find clothing.
She found the rest of the team before Vincent made it down. There was a sudden awkwardness as she walked into the dining room to find them putting out dinner for everyone. Charlie was nowhere to be seen, probably hiding until the meal was called.
“Hey guys.”
“There she is,” Zander exclaimed, grinning. “Come on, sit down and we’ll do this now.”
She collapsed into a seat.
“So, you talked to Vincent? You aired all that out?” Elijah sat closest to her. “You going to be okay?”
“I’m going to be okay,” she promised. His hazel eyes didn’t leave her face. He was waiting to see if she broke. “I’m sorry. I should have told all of you how I was feeling, I really should have. It would have stopped what I did to Naseem.”
“Yeah,” Jasper agreed.
“But I healed him and told him to get over it, so it should be fine.”
She snorted at Zander’s comment. Vincent did know them well, and she should have really believed it. This was Zander they were talking about.
“In the heat of the moment, we were mad at you, but really? We should have been watching out for you better. You took on everything after James died. We knew this case would be hard on you and we missed it. For that, we’re sorry.” Jasper reached out to her, taking one of her hands. “We’ve been a mess for the last few weeks. I’ve been worried about me so much that I forgot you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she mumbled, squeezing his hand. “We’ll be okay.”
“Yup, we all made our mistakes and we’re not going to make anymore.” Elijah clapped his hands together. “Quinn?”
“Packs sometimes have problems. We will prevail. We’re strong survivors.” Quinn looked between them. “As long as we remember what makes us better than them. As long as we remember what makes us stronger than them.”
“You said it yourself, Sawyer.” Vincent walked in at that moment. “The difference between us and Axel’s people? We stand by each other. We don’t leave each other out in the cold. We’re not competing against each other. We’re a team, a unit, and we care. They don’t.”
She nodded. “So, what’s next?”
“Next? We’re going to eat dinner, once someone finds Charlie-” Elijah was trying to explain.
“He’s on his way,” Zander announced. “I already sent him a quick message.”
“Perfect.” Vincent sat down on the other side of the table from her.
Charlie walked in a minute later, looked around at all of them, then his eyes fell on her. “Did you forget I was here earlier today?” he asked politely. “We used to have a rule-”
“Oh shit, Charlie, I’m sorry!” She began to laugh. “I’m so sorry! No hanky-panky when anyone else was home, I know. My bad!”
Charlie just glared at her. She couldn’t stop laughing.
“After dinner, we’re going to bunker down and talk the case while we wait on word about the last raids. Jasper, Elijah, and I will all be hooked up to the communications, each listening to our own team to get a live idea of what’s going on.” Vincent dished up his own food as he spoke. Sawyer realized she was going to need to get some herself if she wanted to eat tonight. Everyone looked like they were starving. “That way, we can know our next move as soon as possible. Sawyer, any ideas on what we’ll find tonight?”
“I don’t think this will be like the last couple of nights.” She sighed, dropping her plate in front of her. None of the food flew off, which she was thankful for. She hadn’t wanted to be asked about this just yet, though she was only stating the obvious. “I think after his play here in New York, he’s going to call his people to him and hide, let it blow over.”
“He’s going to try and get ahead of us again,” Jasper commented. “Fits his MO.”
“Exactly.” She nodded, sitting back down.
“Is this really what he does? He makes a big hit, shows himself, then disappears while everyone scrambles to try and find out where he went?” Charlie took a bite of food when he was done talking, looking between everyone on the team. “Coward.” His mouth was full.
“It is. He’s not the type to do too much publicly unless it’s very personal, which is normally when he gets very sloppy. He’s also not one to ignore the actual threat, but I would say he’s absolutely avoiding the team right now. He hit you, Charlie. He hit the prison.” Vincent looked at her again, waiting for her to continue.
“But he hasn’t come for us,” she finished. “Normally, when someone is a big enough threat, he hits them directly. Whether it’s by assassin or his own skills, he deals with them. But…”
“But he always fails to kill little miss, which probably means he would rather distract you and just keep you off the trail.” Elijah pushed his food around with his fork.
“Which is only a deterrent.” Jasper groaned. “He knows it’s going to stop working one day. One day, we’re going to catch him.”
“Which we know as well,” she agreed. “Which means this game is different.”
“He’s laying a trap, you think?” Vincent frowned at her.
“Yeah, but I want to see what we find from the raids first. Just to make sure I’m not wrong.” It only made sense. “He’s got everything he wants on the criminal front. We can take out his underlings as much as we want, but if we don’t catch him soon enough after that, he just replaces them and it’s business as usual. He doesn’t want to keep losing good people. He knows we’re never going to stop.”
“We could wait it out for another four and a half years,” Zander suggested.
She shook her head. “No. The world isn’t big enough anymore for me and him to both exist in it. And I don’t think he’ll ever leave us alone, even if we leave him alone. We can’t do that, Zander.”
“I know. I just wanted to make sure. You can’t deny this mission sucks.” Zander shrugged, letting his wayward idea fall again. This wasn’t the first time someone had brought that consideration up. Legally, the WMC owed her a pardon in a set time period, regardless of anything else. She wouldn’t be able to take it in good conscience if Axel was still out there.
“Why don’t you kids talk about something lighter? I know a bunch of you are planning on leaving the IMPO. What’s next? Where you going to go?” Charlie leaned back in his seat, throwing his hands up. “Wait for after dinner to get back to work, seriously. You all never stop, I think.”
“Well, I’m coming to work for you,” Zander reminded him. “Remember?”
“Really?” Sawyer’s head snapped up. “Really?”
“Yeah, I’m going to hire him to help me train some damned IMPO agents for Thompson.”
“You’re letting him into our gym permanently?” She faked a face of dismay, but really, she thought it was a good fit for Zander. He would enjoy it and it would give him the physical activity he always craved. And a little bit of power and responsibility he normally didn’t have on the team.
“My gym, yes.” Charlie grinned at her. “Jealous? You can come too. I think I’m going to have you up my ass until the day I die.”
“You think correctly.” She grinned. “That’s good, though. I like that. It means there’s going to be one more person I trust there. Help with the kids too,” she ordered her redhead.
“Of course! So what about everyone else? Jasper, have you put any thought into it?”
“Not really? I mean, I could go back to college.”
“For what? The only things you�
�re missing at this point are a law degree and a medical license,” Elijah teased.
“Well…” Jasper shrugged. “I was thinking law. Becoming a lawyer, you know. At least then I’ll actually have the law on my side. I can help people that way and change things.” She watched the blush begin on his cheeks. “It’s a really small idea. Seriously.”
“You can be the good guy,” she said. “You can be change.”
“Yeah…” Jasper nodded. “It’s not-”
“Do it,” Vincent cut in. “I think if anyone can handle the nuance of law and not become soulless in the process, it’s you.”
“Well, Magi law is even more difficult than non-Magi. And we don’t give a lot of rights to people, which means most of the time, we’re dishing out punishment and putting people into bad positions like…like what the WMC has done to you, Sawyer.”
“This is the best I was ever going to get,” she reminded him softly. “We all know that.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s good enough. Yeah, so I think I’m going to go into Magi law and become a lawyer the WMC hates. Fuck them. I’m going to bring change. Leaving the IMPO is the first step, but that’s step two. Fixing the problem.”
“Amen,” Elijah declared, lifting his glass. “Yeah, I like that.”
“And what about you?” Jasper asked quickly. “What are you thinking?”
“I love blacksmithing and Magi still use weapons. Probably something with that, something I can do from home. I’m tired of all the travel, really. I like the idea of settling.”
“What about your art?” Quinn asked. “You could do that.”
Elijah began to cough, shaking his head, refusing to say anything else as they all prodded him. She would love to see him expand his artwork, but when this case was over, they would have decades to keep trying. It didn’t all need to happen right now.
She was excited for it.
“Fine, Quinn, what about you?” Elijah demanded, glaring at the feral Magi.
“I’ll take care of home, no matter what,” he answered, shrugging. “This is going to be our place. I’ll protect it and find something to pass the time with.”
“I think that’s the best we can expect from him,” Vincent added, directing it to the cowboy.
“Yeah, probably,” Elijah muttered. She could see he was trying to hide a grin.
“See, look at these lives you’ve all got ahead of you. You’re all too damned young to be where you are in the world. This is good.” Charlie nodded around at them. “And what about the last of you two? Vincent? Sawyer?”
“I don’t know yet,” Vincent admitted. “I never thought past the IMPO. I might stay in for life, I think. If I don’t have the team, I can take a different role within the organization. It won’t be a problem. Maybe I can work with Thompson or something.”
Sawyer didn’t answer until they were all staring at her. “I don’t think that far ahead. We’ll get to it when it comes to it.” None of them accepted that, still staring at her, now with some displeasure. “Guys, I’ve never considered anything more than what I have. When I got out of Axel’s rule the first time, I stumbled on Charlie. I got lucky. Then I spent four years living in a holding pattern, grateful for what I had and never asking for more. Then you all happened. I just don’t know. I never had a dream job. I never thought about what I really wanted to go to college for.” She brought up the final problem. “And who would hire me in some off-the-wall, strange profession? Every Magi knows who I am and any non-Magi that doesn’t would find out quickly enough. Any job I get will be headline news.”
“Fair points,” Vincent conceded. “You can stay in the IMPO with me.”
“It’s an idea,” she said noncommittally. She didn’t really care for that idea either, but it was the most valid option, and the IMPO knew how to use a woman of her specific skill set.
“We’ll figure it out,” Zander promised, whispering it to Charlie. “Don’t worry.”
“You can come back to the gym, full time,” the older man offered her.
“No…” She sighed, shaking her head. “I think the time when I haunted that building every day is over. People like Liam need to take it over, Charlie. He’s one of them, and I’m fine leaving it with him and just visiting on occasion. Because once I go back to that gym, I go back to prowling for strays and that led to me getting back into some very illegal things.”
“True.” Charlie patted her hand resting on the table. “Well, you always have a place, anyway. Visit often.”
“Always,” she promised. “Enough about the future, though, please. I think I really do want to get back to work.” Work was safe ground. The future was full of unknowns. She would have her guys in it, that was certain, but nothing else was. She just had no idea what she was doing.
They finished eating and Charlie wandered off to watch TV in their new living room. The team didn’t move, though, setting up work right in the dining room. Headsets were plugged into computers and boxes, communications issues being worked out before it all started.
She stayed out of the way, watching it all unfold. She didn’t play with the electronics.
They all settled back into their spots, Zander throwing a ton of snacks on the table. Sawyer was given a phone and frowned.
“What am I doing?” she asked politely, looking up to Vincent.
“Keeping a line open to Thompson. You like him, right? That shouldn’t be so bad.”
She spun the cellphone on the table and nodded. She called him without complaining, and waited only one ring before he answered.
“Director Thompson speaking.”
“Hey.”
“Oh. Well, that’s tonight. I’m set up, so-”
“Vincent asked me to keep a line open,” she explained. “So, what’s going on with you? Have we been causing you enough mayhem?”
“I have several city-based IMPO agents calling me every day, demanding we take some of the riff-raff off their hands. I’ve got high priority targets in hiding, so we can try them once you catch Axel. You know, so they don’t get murdered before the end of the case. Three more raids tonight, which means more of this, or just a lot of paperwork. Yeah, you know, I think you’ve been causing me enough mayhem. No wonder James looked like he never fucking slept.”
Everyone in the dining room began to laugh.
“And you have me on speaker phone. Of course. I also got an incredibly angry phone call from the prison today. Don’t worry, no one is going to get in trouble for that incident. Everything okay with you guys? You don’t call me and you’ve been bouncing around the world, it seems. To think, it hasn’t even been a week since Missy flipped sides, and I feel like I’m a decade older.”
“We’re all fine. Zander’s recovering exceptionally well. It’s like the idiot was never shot to begin with. Bad guys should work harder, I think.” She teasingly grinned Zander’s way, who glared at her.
“I’ll get you for that later.”
“Try me,” she mouthed, then continued to talk to the Director. “All in all, we’re figuring it out. We’ve had some rough patches, but I think we could all expect those.”
“Just let me know if you need anything. Now, let’s go dark if everything is ready. I’ve got three green lights in front of me. They’re ready to go.”
“I’m seeing the same,” Vincent called. “Send them in.”
“Mission go,” Thompson said, sounding distant on the other end.
Then things went silent. Sawyer shifted in her chair. This could take hours. They were in for the long haul as the teams moved in and went after the last of the targets Missy had given them.
She knew there would be nothing and no one to catch, but they still had to try. Maybe they could get their hands on documents that would help them in the future. Maybe some lower-ranking guy forgot something or was left behind to deal with a problem.
She just had to wait.
Sawyer could be patient.
With the team around her, she could be patient and
comfortable. She knew whatever was found, they would make it work together.
26
Jasper
Jasper waited along with the rest of the team, just hoping they got anything from this last night of raiding on Axel’s Ghosts.
He also tried not to think about the massive blunder he’d made at dinner. He shouldn’t have said anything. It was such a tiny idea that he hadn’t truly even considered it. When Elijah mentioned law school, it was the first thing he could think to say when he knew he needed to give them a better explanation, something to shake them.
But really, he had no idea what he wanted to do with his life other than get the fuck out of the IMPO. Get away from the WMC, at least for a few years, to get his mind right again. He was really glad the team was okay with that and he was even more glad that most of them were going to do the same.
He just didn’t really have an idea or a real plan. He just threw that out like an idiot and now he knew they would all wait and watch him. He couldn’t go back to college unless it was for that, something Elijah had gotten right. He couldn’t just keep collecting degrees until he was old, and scientific research wasn’t his thing. Getting a job in education, tenure? Not something that appealed him. It was too inactive, too withdrawn from the world.
A lawyer would be active, at least. Sort of. Not physically active like he was used to, but at least a missing leg wouldn’t be held against him in that profession.
As they waited for any sort of status update, his mind continued down this path. Considering his options, finding reasons to toss them aside. Medicine wasn’t his thing, but it would put him in college for several years. Then he would need to see patients, though, and he would be constantly listening to Zander explain things he honestly didn’t enjoy. The human body did somewhat gross him out in a way that it didn’t for Zander. It was probably Zander’s healing.
He wasn’t interested in work concerning dream-walking, and his other abilities didn’t lend themselves to any prospective jobs, not ones that suited him.
He just had no idea what he was going to do.
The Redemption Saga Box Set Page 158