Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68369 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68369 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
I shook my head in amusement and turned back to Bo.
“Can you imagine?”
He chuckled. “Wait till you meet my sister.”
Oh, right! She had five boys!
Jesus Christ.
I was so glad Bo only had Alex. She barely counted anyway. She was cool, like a tiny adult. I actually missed her.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’mma go see how Willow’s doin’.” James grunted as he got off the couch, and I told him the code to unlock my door.
“Yeah, I should check in with my wife too,” Ethan said. “That’s another Quinn enjoying her morning sickness at the moment.”
I smiled. “I may have seen that on your Instagram. Congrats.”
He smiled back and rose to his feet. “Thanks. You’ll have to meet all your cousins soon. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Fuck. My stomach fluttered, and he couldn’t possibly understand what that meant to me.
Family had always been an unobtainable dream to me. In school, I’d go over to a friend’s house for dinner, and I’d be envious at the gathering around the table. Parents, siblings, a grandparent or two sometimes, pets silently begging for scraps…
Now I was running out of fingers to count cousins.
“What’re you doin’?” I heard Darius ask Gray.
I looked over at them, only to see Gray holding up four fingers that became three, two, one… “Counting down till you change the subject to work.”
Bo and Ryan found that funny.
Darius smirked. “Knucklehead, you just changed it for me.”
“Don’t even try—you were changing it anyway,” Gray laughed. “You can take the operator out of Hillcroft, but you can’t take Hillcroft out of the operator.”
Ooh, shots fired.
Darius narrowed his eyes, definitely struck by that insult, but he bravely managed to push forward. “Whatever. The others will be back in a few.” He turned to Bo and gestured at Ryan. “He mentioned you’ve been working a Hahn assignment.”
Bo inclined his head. “That’s right. You and Vince had a few of those back in the day.”
“We sure did.” Darius turned a little grim. “Now, given the praise the media is givin’ the Feds for the bust in Fredericksburg, I can only assume it’s a cover-up and that it went well.”
“As well as it could, I suppose,” Bo replied. “You know how these things go. Someone’s going to fill the vacuum eventually.”
Darius nodded. “That’s what I wanted to get at—but I don’t think you need to worry about Hahn. I’m sure Intel’s already on top of this, but it’s the Iraqi warmonger by Hahn’s side you need to keep an eye on. He’s gone from foot soldier to sharing the top seat in about ten years, and he’s got big plans.”
Bo turned pensive and scratched his jaw. “River did mention Omar’s motives are rooted in ideology.”
That seemed to surprise Darius. “You have River in Intel?”
“For the moment. Shira brought them both in as consultants.”
“Then it’s all good,” Darius said. “He knows this already. But you should be prepared too. The last gig Vince and I took together, we saw firsthand how Omar operates. Hahn wants oil, gas, and mining—Omar wants to destroy every diplomatic relationship we establish in the Middle East, including promoting chaos in the West. In my last year alone, he took down half the allies we had on the Iraqi side, and he started a war between a Texas-based oil company and a Mexican cartel.”
I looked to Bo and felt my stomach twist. Was this not over?
Bo scrubbed a hand over his face. “It suddenly makes more sense that we have four operators full time in Baghdad on a government contract.”
Darius nodded. “We need what little diplomacy we have left.”
That reminded me of something our history professor had said. Creating enemies was as easy as divorce. Maintaining an allyship was as hard as a marriage. It required a lot of work.
He’d added that he’d been divorced three times.
I didn’t know if that’d been a joke or not.
“So, is this Hahn case over or not?” I had to ask.
“One tends to set off another,” Darius replied.
“But they could know who Beckett is,” I said, turning back to Bo. “We have no way of knowing if those fuckers in the bunker sent information to higher-ups.”
“We do, actually,” he corrected patiently. “That’s what Intel is for.”
Oh.
“There’s another problem, though,” he went on. “My brother’s safehouse was an intelligence blind spot for months. If any of the Hahn crews relayed information overseas, it was during that time. We didn’t have anyone tracking their movements.”
So the result was the same. Someone higher up in the Hahn chain of command could have Bo’s picture on a proverbial dart board.
“You should talk to Quinlan,” Ryan said. “This might be one of those instances where my brand of diplomacy is best.”
Darius agreed. “Aye. Get a sanctioned hit. Take out Omar. You might even get the green light from the CIA. He’s undoubtedly on their radar too.”