Rising Storm (Westin Force #2) - Julie Trettel Page 0,25
He looked at it and then groaned.
“I have a debrief in twenty minutes. Need to get moving.”
I grunted and shook my head. I’d noticed that I’d taken to nodding and shaking my head in response to things more often than using traditional gorilla signals. It made it easier to communicate with him but also signaled how much closer I was coming to my humanity.
“It’s okay. They’d give me a pass, but I really need to hear what’s happening. I’m afraid I won’t be very good company until I have that info.”
I jumped down from the chair and knocked on the floor as I shook my head harder.
He got out of bed and patted the top of my head.
“I’m fine, Emma.”
But he wasn’t fine. He was grimacing as he walked to the bathroom. I was so distraught I didn’t even notice he was fully naked walking across the room.
He came back fully dressed. “I shouldn’t be too long.”
I shook my head and grunted. I’d already made up my mind and he wasn’t leaving my side again today. When he moved to leave, so did I.
He stopped at the door and turned to look at me with a slightly amused twinkle in his eyes.
“Fine, you can come, but the others might not be happy about it.”
I didn’t care about the others. I only cared about him and I was far too unsettled to have him out of my sight.
Happy he conceded, we headed down. Archie wasn’t happy to see me. I glared back at him as we walked by. At least Keeley wasn’t around this time. I couldn’t be held responsible for my actions if she had been.
We went back to the same conference room we’d been in the last time and I took the same corner I’d sat in then. I didn’t want to get in the way, but I didn’t want Painter out of my sight.
Tarron was sitting in the seat Painter had been sitting in. He took one look at me and got up and moved. My mate had been worried about them being unhappy to see me, but I actually got the exact opposite feeling. Grant and Ben both smiled and nodded my way. I acknowledge them in the same manner.
Silas did huff when he walked in and saw me. Kyle and Patrick were back again, neither said a word though.
They sat down and got started as if I wasn’t even in the room.
All I had known was that they had been attacked. What they were describing was a calculated ambush. They’d walked into a trap.
They went through the scenario. There was a tunnel underground that allowed them to come and go undetected by surveillance. The shifters had probably never even been housed there. They’d laid the trap and waited. Bravo team had walked right into it.
“What we don’t know is how they knew. That tracker Silas used is virtually undetectable. They shouldn’t have known we were watching them. We’ve been battling the Raglan for quite sometime and this is not their typical MO. We fear we have a breech. That, of course, stays in this room, but we’ll be re-vetting every person associated with this project.”
I was mad, like reaching a boiling point. If they’ve never had issues like this before then I’d bet money it was Keeley. I’d seen her sniffing around Archie. She was very manipulative and could twist anyone’s arm, to fall for her innocent act.
“We really can’t rule out anyone, so I’m going to ask each of you to turn over your phones right now,” Patrick said. “You’ll stay here while we run checks on each of you first. All of you will assist with clearing the remainder as discreetly as possible.”
Without question each of them pulled out their phones and tossed them into the middle of the table. For some reason that was my break point. I knew he wasn’t actually accusing them of anything, and as ridiculous as it sounded to me, I trusted every man in the room. Well, I trusted the Bravo team members at least. I’d seen them work together and support each other I didn’t believe for a second any of them would have done this.
My anger got the best of me and I shifted and stood to walk over and slam my fist on the table. The others averted their eyes out of respect before Painter could even react. His jaw dropped and he quickly took off his shirt to cover me. For once in my