Intercepted Risk (Aegis Group Task Force #5) - Sidney Bristol Page 0,7
missing kids, most of whom were high runaway risk or in foster care. The kind of kids no one looked too hard to find. It had led her to Abner, a man who wanted to plunge the modern world into a dystopia and repopulate it with those same kids and women he’d kidnapped.
Kelsey had thought she was so smart, that she had a handle on the situation with Abner, but he’d figured her out. She’d been captured and held against her will. When Logan and his guys rescued her, she’d been fueled by rage to the point she hadn’t realized how that experience had changed her.
She’d gone to a bar exactly once on her own, met a guy, but couldn’t bring herself to do more than flirt. Toward the end of the evening, even that had been too much, and she’d gone home alone.
Logan was the last man she needed in her life, but for some damn reason he was the only thing she wanted. Despite his ability to push all her buttons, he made her feel safe. And that was the kicker that got her every time.
The room was almost full, with people milling around trying to find seats where they could. She caught sight of the other girls. Diha even turned her head and met Kelsey’s gaze with a raised eyebrow.
Great.
Now Kelsey would have to fend off questions about why she was sitting with Logan. She hadn’t admitted her crush to anyone. Not one of the girls. They’d have to be blind to not see it. Chances were they were talking behind her back, waiting for her to come clean in her own time.
Thinking about this close circle of girl friends warmed her. She’d never had this before, and she didn’t want to give them up.
She sank down a bit more, willing herself to be invisible.
Logan was forgetting one very important fact.
He had to get the job to go undercover, and she didn’t see him applying for a job well. He was too used to giving orders for that.
Zora breezed into the room. Alone, surprisingly. These days it seemed like Tucker was her constant shadow and no one could tell her why. Felecia had said her husband had told her something about Zora and Tucker having worked together in the past, but there weren’t more details.
“Do you think we’ll hear anything we don’t already know?” Logan asked her, his voice pitched low for her ears alone.
She jumped, startled by the question when she’d been lost in her own thoughts.
“If we’re invited, I can’t see them saying too much.”
Logan grimace and straightened.
It was a point of irritation that after all these months they still didn’t know what the task force was really for. They did these jobs, working toward a goal they couldn’t identify. The fact that Zora was including them meant they wouldn’t be discussing the far-reaching goals of the task force.
“Good morning, let’s get started,” Zora said, addressing the room.
Those gathered hushed immediately.
“On to today’s important business.” Zora gestured at a screen. A dozen faces appeared, some old, some young. Men and women. “We are putting all active investigations on hold and focusing every division of the task force on this one front. Thanks to intel we have decrypted from the hacker Valentino’s servers, we are aware of an impending threat on Congress by these people.”
Kelsey schooled her face into a mask of serenity.
It wasn’t Congress or even the Senate that was under attack. Just one man.
John Dixon.
But this was where their trap for the mole began.
Zora launched into a detailed overview, mainly focused on those coming into the country, what their connections were, and assigning them to different divisions to monitor and hopefully locate the people before an attack happened.
The other differences in Zora’s presentation were minimal. There was nothing about their undercover efforts, but Kelsey expected that. Often the only people who knew what the Aegis boys were up to were those absolutely necessary to the job and no others.
“To reiterate,” Zora said.
Kelsey leaned back in her chair.
Zora had said everything interesting. At this point, she’d repeat herself to save having to answer some questions.
Finally Zora uttered the words, “Thank you all for coming.”
Before Kelsey could leap to her feet, Logan turned toward her again. His dark gaze made her pause in the act of standing.
“Best of luck,” he said.
“Thanks, but I don’t need luck. I’m just good at my job.” She smiled and stood.