Rising Storm (Westin Force #2) - Julie Trettel Page 0,42

team. We do thank you for this information though.”

I sat down feeling a little defeated. I was only trying to help. I didn’t even want to be on his stupid team.

“Echo is on probation. A full evaluation of their processes is in the works.”

“What for?” Tarron asked.

“Are you kidding me? This was a set up. That wasn’t their fault,” Baine argued.

Silas held up a hand. “One of our men was shot. He could have just as easily been killed, we all could have. The probation isn’t because they’re in trouble, it’s to give time to work out where the ball was dropped and how we can fix it in the future.”

“Stop letting people in here,” I said. My temper was already flaring. “I may not like that mole, but he’s not wrong. You should never be debriefing or interrogating any outsiders within these walls. I’m just a guest here. I’m here because you guys fear Painter’s aggressive side. I understand that, and I’m not a threat to any of you, but Keeley was. She got the same pass as an innocent victim and used it to manipulate you all. You want to fix your processes, then start right here.”

“She’s not wrong,” Taylor said. “I could have gotten absolutely anything out of Archie. He’s a pushover for the ladies. It’s his weakness. I’m not calling him the weak link. He’s also extremely intelligent and paranoid. I am surprised Keeley was able to get enough out of him to make this surprise attack work as well as it did. We’re in part to blame on this too.”

“T’s right,” Ben jumped in. “We were all cocky. We’ve gotten complacent where the Raglan are concerned. We’ve gotten a few over on them now and we’ve forgotten they are smart and resourceful. They’ve been one step ahead of us most of the way. We dropped the ball on this as much as Echo.”

Silas growled in frustration. “Do you want to put all of us on probation too, huh?”

“I vote yes. My leg hurts. I need the time to heal. It’ll give me a few days home to make sure that happens.”

“Sorry, he’s heavily drugged,” Grant admitted.

“He’s not wrong though. We’ve been running a constant stream of missions, and most of them have either been bogus or simple runs. Vegas was the most action we’d seen in a while and even that was in and out in record time. We have become complacent.”

“Do you even hear yourselves? You’re all practically begging to be benched,” Silas shouted.

“Not really. We’re just pointing out that Echo wasn’t the only one at fault in there. We own our shit,” Baine said. The others around the room all nodded.

“I can see we aren’t going to get anything done here today. Just take the day off. Tomorrow is weapons training, come ready to shoot something.”

“Are we blowing stuff up too? Oh please, say yes,” Baine asked a little too excitedly.

“Yes. We all need to blow off some steam and get our heads out of our asses and back in the game. I don’t know any better way to accomplish that.”

“Yes!” Baine exclaimed in victory.

They all moved to exit the room, not waiting for Silas to change his mind.

“How long’s he out for?” Silas asked as Grant passed him, motioning towards my mate.

“About a week I’m afraid. Pulled it pretty badly. Had to recut, dig out the mess he’d made, and stitch him back up.”

“Can’t he shift and let his gorilla heal him?”

“Micah certainly doesn’t agree with that.”

“I don’t give a shit what Micah thinks about it.”

“Don’t bother,” Grant warned him. “He’s in mating, Silas. He didn’t even last twelve hours in his fur. He needs to just sit back and let things occur naturally.”

“Fine, and thanks for taking care of him.”

Grant chuckled. “Oh, he’s gonna be pissed that everyone knows when he comes down off those meds Micah prescribed him. That shit is no joke.”

I moved Painter towards the door, planning to take him back upstairs to rest. His eyes were having trouble staying open and I knew he needed sleep.

“Emma, can we talk?”

“Uh, sure.”

“I didn’t mean to be so hard on you. We took T onto the team because she was already in the business. A competitor of ours actually and she has skills we desperately needed.”

“But I only have information you temporarily need,” I finished for him.

“You are very observant.”

“I’ll give you everything I know. It’s not much, but if you think it would help, I’m fine with it. And