Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mason
Looking at his phone one last time, Mason shoved it back into his pocket as Lincoln and David entered the meeting room. No texts from Audrey this morning. Which was a good thing because that meant she hadn’t found any new notes. He shouldn’t be disappointed.
He didn’t want her to have any problems.
And of course, she wouldn’t reach out just to say hi.
He definitely shouldn’t be thinking any of these thoughts with her brother right there.
“Morning,” David said, sliding a large pink and cream striped box onto the table in front of him, along with a small stack of paper plates and napkins. He’d obviously stopped by the bakery on his way in to pick something up for the meeting.
Dammit.
Mason should have thought of that.
“Morning.” Leaning forward, he opened the box and smiled at the assortment of pastries inside. “Wow. These all look amazing.”
“The muffins are blueberry, orange and cranberry, and banana walnut. That’s coffee cake.
And, obviously, these are cinnamon rolls.
” David pointed as he spoke. Mason went for a cinnamon roll, while Lincoln took a piece of coffee cake—probably to go with the coffee he’d brought in with him.
David picked up one of the blueberry muffins and sat down at Lincoln’s right hand.
It was a heck of a spread. Something Audrey should be proud of. They all looked and smelled incredible, and Mason knew they would taste that way, too. The cinnamon roll was still warm. And sweet. Just like her.
For fuck’s sake, get over yourself.
A moment later, Zeus came in to hook up the projector and was given the same offer. He grabbed one of the orange and cranberry muffins and set it off to the side while he did the hook-ups.
As he was in the middle of that, and the rest of them were unusually quiet because they were eating, Drew came striding in like a man on a mission, drawing everyone’s eyes to him.
He ground to a quick halt when he saw Zeus, his expression darkening, and lifted the laptop he had tucked under his arm.
“I need you to hook this up.” The stilted way he said it was almost antagonistic, and Mason frowned at him as Zeus raised one eyebrow.
“That’s what I’m here for,” the bald man said, nodding his head at the table. “You can put it in the center there.”
Drew scowled and put it down, seating himself next to Mason with a small huff. They were there to talk about Devlin with the whole team. Drew had been on surveillance this weekend. The fact that he was now behaving in a hostile manner toward Zeus… suspicion rose up in the back of Mason’s mind.
He didn’t want to not trust Zeus, but…
If Lincoln was worried, it didn’t show in his expression, which remained bland as he glanced at his watch.
“Two minutes ‘til the meeting starts, which means—” He cut off as Claudia came in, coolly regal, and holding a coffee in one hand with a file tucked under her opposite arm. “Good morning, Claudia.”
“Morning.” She took the seat between Lincoln and Mason, so he was now between her and Drew. Drew was still glaring balefully at Zeus, who was ignoring him as he finished hooking up the laptop.
“Muffin?” David asked, nodding his head at the box next to the laptop.
Claudia considered the offerings for a long moment before taking a cinnamon roll instead.
“Thanks.”
She was a woman of few words this early in the morning.
“Everything ready?” Lincoln asked Zeus, who nodded before taking his seat next to David. Drew leaned forward to pull the laptop near him, opening it so he could get it started and find the files he wanted.
“Wait for me! I’m here!” Jensen came skidding into the conference room, just barely making it on time as usual.
He grinned at everyone. He’d been grinning ever since Friday when he’d taken Jennifer to the soft opening of the bakery, so Mason took that to mean their date had gone well.
Jensen quickly rounded the table to take a seat on the other side of Zeus, looking pleased with himself.
“Great. Everyone’s here, so we can get started.” Lincoln folded his hands on the table. “Drew, you told me yesterday that you have something big to report, so we’ll let you start.”
“Oh, I definitely have something big to report. As you all know, I was doing surveillance on Devlin this weekend, and he was on the move quite a bit.” Drew glanced up at the screen on the wall, where he’d pulled up some photos of Devlin with MacLeod, which wasn’t surprising.
He flipped through several photos of them together at different events.
Devlin was being a lot more hands-on with MacLeod than he’d ever wanted to be at Black Fox, when he’d left most of the actual security work to Lincoln and Harris.
Previously, he’d been content to be the behind-the-scenes guy, probably because it had given him more opportunities to embezzle. Apparently not anymore.
“It wasn’t until last night when he was done with his official duties for MacLeod that I hit paydirt, though.”
The picture on the screen changed to one of Devlin embracing a woman with long blonde hair, though her face was hidden. Then it changed again, as she stepped back away from him, beaming up at him with an expression of intimate enjoyment.
“Holy shit!” Jensen’s expletive expressed what they were all thinking. “Isn’t that—” He cut off, and they all looked at Zeus, who was still staring up at the screen where his current girlfriend was embracing his ex-boss.
If someone hadn’t been paying attention to Zeus before, they might not realize that he’d gone tense all over. A muscle in his jaw ticked. Otherwise, his reaction was pure stoicism—that is to say, no reaction at all.
“Shit,” David muttered.
Drew clicked through to the next picture. Devlin and Noelle kissing.
Next picture. Next picture. Next picture.
It was a slide-by-slide account of them kissing, then going into a motel room.
The meeting room was entirely silent. Mason had stopped watching the slideshow and started watching Zeus. He wasn’t the only one. Drew was as well, with suspicious hostility still emanating from him. It wasn’t like him to ambush someone the way he just had Zeus, even someone he didn’t like.
Something was going on with Drew, and Mason had a feeling there was a lot more to it than the issues he and Naomi were having at home.
On the other hand, something at work would likely give Drew a focus outside of where he felt like he was failing his wife with their infertility struggles.
And something to focus on other than feeling like he’d failed David and Cassidy—Mason knew that Drew blamed himself for David being shot by Cassidy’s ex.
They were going to need to have a session soon, no matter how Drew kept trying to avoid him.
Zeus was incredibly hard to read, which wasn’t helping his case with the rest of the team.
Or with Mason, if Mason was being completely honest. He didn’t like being able to read one of the tea members.
Zeus didn’t appear distressed, angry, or hurt.
Just… neutral. Blank. Tense. But he could be tense because his connection to Devlin had just been discovered.
Or he could be tense because he’d just found out in a meeting of his co-workers that his girlfriend was cheating on him with their enemy. Really, it could go either way.
“So, Zeus. I suppose you didn’t know about this?
” Drew asked when he reached the end, a picture of Noelle and Devlin leaving the hotel room, their hair mussed, Devlin now missing his tie and clearly freshly fucked.
The smug smile on Devlin’s lips was impossible to miss.
Drew, on the other hand, stared suspiciously at Zeus, as though he was trying to read his mind.
Good luck to him. Mason sure as hell couldn’t figure out what the man was thinking or feeling.
Zeus was still staring at the screen. Slowly, he turned his head—just his head—to look at Drew, his expression implacable.
He raised one eyebrow and said absolutely nothing.
“Dude… he just found out his girlfriend was cheating on him, what’s he supposed to say?” Jensen asked, swiveling around in his chair to face the table rather than the screen.
“Did he? Or is Noelle the conduit you use to pass information about Black Fox on to Devlin?” Drew continued scowling at Zeus, leaning forward with his arms braced against the desk. He was clearly ready for a fight.
And it looked bad.
It really, really did.
Jensen had jumped straight to the conclusion that Zeus was innocent, that he hadn’t known about Devlin and Noelle, but Drew made a good point.
No one would expect that Zeus would use his girlfriend to stay connected to Devlin.
If he was still in contact, if they were working together, it would be a brilliant ploy.
Maybe she wasn’t even Zeus’ girlfriend. Maybe she was Marshall’s, and that’s why there had been tension between them. Maybe that’s why they’d never scened publicly at the club.
Zeus turned his head again, away from Drew, his gaze drawn back to the screen where the picture of post-coital Devlin and Noelle was still up. The muscle in his jaw jumped again.
Because he was upset at his girlfriend? Or because he was upset he’d been found out?
Mason glanced at Lincoln, who was sitting back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest, his gaze darting back and forth between Drew and Zeus. He appeared torn. Beside him, David was also frowning, though he couldn’t see Zeus’ face because Zeus was facing directly away from him.
Not that the man’s expression was giving anything away.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” Drew demanded, leaning forward, one hand curling into a fist, resting on the table.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Something. Anything. Aren’t you going to defend yourself?” Not just angry, Drew was confused. He’d done the shock and awe tactic to elicit a reaction—often a good way to go—but Zeus was giving them nothing.
Beside Zeus, Jensen looked uncertain.