Jack (Eidolon Black Ops #8) - Maddie Wade Page 0,31
knees, his hands dangling between them in a relaxed pose that belied the threat he was to those that hurt his family, and Smithy considered every person in this room family. “What do they want?”
Astrid faced Smithy with an outward calm, but somehow Jack knew this was hard for her. Without conscious thought, he moved closer to her, causing Lopez’ eyes to widen slightly.
“Me, or rather information they believe I have.”
“Do you?” Decker asked with a tilt of his head.
“No. I wish I did but I don’t.”
“This is very cloak and dagger. I feel like we’re missing something here.” Zin stood and walked to the outside of the room as he spoke.
“That’s enough. You don’t need the details to do your jobs.” Jack’s voice was sharp as he shut the questioning down. He felt a hand on his arm and looked down to see Astrid touching him. He looked into her face that brought out every protective instinct he had—and he had a lot—to see her eyes soften as a smile of reassurance tipped the corners of her lips.
“It’s okay, Jack. They deserve to know.”
He turned as if the eyes of the entire room weren’t on him and spoke low, so only she could hear. “No, they don’t. Not if you don’t want them to. This is yours to decide.”
“I know, and I appreciate your concern, but they need to know what we’re facing.”
He nodded and stepped aside for her to continue.
Her head held high, his firefly faced the men ready to fight to protect and keep innocents safe. “In my past life, I had a sister who was involved with the cartel through her job. My superiors told me that someone killed her. When I went undercover at the cartel, I found evidence that maybe she wasn’t dead and was, instead, in hiding. I started digging and can only assume I left tracks.”
Astrid swallowed, and he knew this was harder than she was letting anyone else believe. “I think they’re after my sister, but I don’t know where she is or if she’s even alive.”
Smithy glanced up. “But you think she is?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then we go with that theory.” Zack glanced at him with a knowing look which he ignored. “This job, was it for who I think it was?”
Astrid nodded.
“Fucking pricks.”
Jack couldn’t disagree, and it was only from a few of the words Astrid had used over the years that he’d realised she was former CIA before she told him. He guessed the same could be said for the rest of the men here.
“Astrid, let me have all the intel you have, and I’ll find out how they found you and see if I can uncover any information relating to your sister.”
Astrid turned back to the screen where Will was speaking. “Thank you.”
The rest of the briefing was short and concise; the main objective was still to protect the Royal family after all, and Jack had no intention of failing. He had a meeting with Fitz next, and wouldn’t have time to walk Astrid back to her room. She was talking to Blake, so he walked that way.
“Tell Pax to send me a picture, immediately.” Astrid was smiling wide as if she hadn’t just borne her soul to a room full of men. Perhaps she didn’t understand what she’d revealed, but every man in here had read the nuance in her wording about her work for the cartel and what she must have gone through. Nobody came out of the CIA unscathed.
Blake chuckled. “I’ll tell her.”
“What’s up?”
“Blake bought Pax a puppy.” The delight on her face was addictive and drew him in like a moth to a damn flame.
Jack looked at Blake with a raised brow. “You got it after?”
“Come on, as if she was going to let me walk out without one after you told her about them.”
Jack smirked. “They needed homes and I wanted them to have good ones.”
“Wait, you know about this?” Astrid pointed between them waving her finger around.
“Sure, he does. He’s the fucker that set me up.”
Jack saw the confusion on Astrid’s face. “My mum breeds Pomeranians and one of her girls had a litter a few weeks ago.”
Astrid’s face froze and she dropped her head on a snort before the rest of the laugh barrelled its way free. Her hand across her middle, she pointed at Blake. “Oh. My. God. I can’t wait to see you walking a handbag dog.”
“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up but wait till you see Jack walking one.