31
EMERSYN
I fiddled with a bullet as I sat in the war room and watched Lev hook up the fifth and final monitor.
The last seven days were a blur. Turns out, Sacha had left everything to me—officially.
Apparently, Sacha had asked Riggs to put him in touch with a lawyer and had documents written up, and a will drafted a few years after Sacha found me.
He’d left all the details with Riggs, who after hearing my name, deduced I was likely the beneficiary.
Sure enough, the paperwork was solid and after I’d gotten over the shock of how much money it was, I had Lev help me get a handle on it and started putting it to good use.
Five days later, we were packed up and headed on the road toward our first safe house outside the city limits at a country estate.
The monitor flickered to life and Lev pulled up the security feeds.
“Looks like they’re here,” he said.
I frowned at the screen. Four men were unpacking gear from various vehicles.
Riggs had taken over putting the team together with a bunch of his ex-military buddies.
He’d consulted me exactly zero times and hadn’t asked for my opinion at all.
I was worried it would become a trend and I’d be bulldozed into going along with whatever he decided.
The only thing that held me back from protesting was that he was right—he did have more experience than I did.
Who was I to be the leader of men who’d seen shit out in the field that I’d only trained at?
I heard the front door open, followed by murmurs and the occasional burst of banter as the men filtered into the foyer.
The first one sauntered into the room and came around the table.
He looked straight out of an old-time cowboy film, dusty, scuffed hat included.
He pulled out the chair next to me and tipped his hat with a flick of a finger.
Assessing blue eyes sparkled with mischief from under the brim.
“Is this seat taken, darlin’?”
I twisted the bullet a few more times against the tabletop and slowly took in his worn flannel and Levis before I looked away with a shrug.
“Whatever.”
He pulled the chair out and turned it so he faced me more than the table and crossed his ankle over his knee. I could feel his attention drilling into the side of my face.
“Quit bothering her, Hangman.” A large man stalked into the room and sat down heavily in a chair across from me. “Don’t mind him. He’ll flirt with a fence post.”
“Shut up, Mouse—I would not,” Hangman said good-naturedly.
“Quit lying, I’ve seen you do it,” Mouse insisted.
He winked one large brown eye, but I was still hung up on his name. His ears did kind of stick out, and the way he had his hair buzzed short made the look even more prominent, like he was playing into the name.
“Mouse?” I echoed.
“It’s only cause of the ears,” Mouse said. “I’m not small anywhere else—”
“Now who’s flirting!” Hangman interrupted with a grin.
A surly man with shaggy black hair snuck in and leaned up against the wall behind Mouse. He crossed his arms and glared at me with one dark eye—the other was covered by an eyepatch.
“Didn’t know there’d be a girl here.”
“Maybe Riggs got tired of staring at your ugly mug, Jackal.” The fourth man came in and set his stuff down, then came around to Hangman who stood up and embraced him fondly.
“Son of a bitch, look who it is,” Hangman slapped him on the back. “Jamal, my man—it’s been awhile—”
“Sit down, Jackal.” Riggs stormed into the room and interrupted the reunion. He scowled at the man with the eyepatch. “You creep me out lurking in the corners.”
Jackal glared at Riggs with a sour look, but moved to a seat next to Mouse. Jamal sat down next to Hangman with a last friendly clasp of his shoulder.
Riggs stood at the head of the table and gestured behind him.
“That’s Lev—” Lev turned from his bank of monitors and gave a little mock salute.
“Known him for a few years after the Warwick contract—he’s going to be our tech ops for this little escapade.
Rex will be here tomorrow—” There was a collective groan.
“You invited him?” Mouse protested. “He nearly blew us all up last time!”
“He’s the best explosive expert I know—unless you have someone else, Mouse, shut the fuck up,” Riggs growled. Mouse frowned, but held up his hands and sat back in surrender. “Now, we’re planning on hitting—”
Hangman cleared his throat loudly. At the interruption, Riggs glared at Hangman who jerked his head toward me with a curious look.
“You gonna tell us who this pretty little thing is, boss?”
Riggs’ lips pressed into a line. “That’s Syn—”
“Well, yeah I can see that—” Hangman joked.
Riggs slammed his hand down on the table. “That’s her name, asshole. She’s one of Sacha’s.”
That seemed to shut everyone up. I didn’t understand what that meant, but even Hangman stiffened in his seat and didn’t make another joke.
“Like I was saying,” Riggs continued. “Our objective is to dismantle the foundations of a large black market conglomerate run by three brothers: Albatron, Octavius and Basilion. We will specifically be targeting Octavius because we believe he is the most accessible at the moment. The eventual goal is to destroy his supporting organizations until he’s forced out into the open and we can take him down. ”
Hangman whistled low. “Go big or go home, huh?”
Jamal chuckled. “Nothing new there.”
Riggs glared at them both. “We’ll be starting small—”
Riggs went on to explain how we would start with surveillance to get the lay of the land and move on from there.
No one asked why we were doing this, but Riggs had told me he didn’t expect that question.
The men were being compensated generously to be here and that’s all they cared about.
A job was a job and as long as there was danger and money, they were happy.
After the brief, everyone dispersed to get settled into the house. I stayed where I was and waited until Riggs was done chatting with Mouse, who was the last to leave.
“What did you mean earlier?” I asked.
Riggs glanced up briefly. “About what?”
“The Sacha comment. You’ve said it twice now.”
Riggs dropped the tablet next to Lev.
“You should tell her,” Lev said quietly. “Or, one of the others will.”
Riggs looked like he’d rather do anything else, but he didn’t protest.
“Sacha was a Russian spy,” Riggs said. “He defected and the CIA recruited him to train special ops teams.” He sighed. “It’s a long story, but his past came back and he had to go into protective custody. Except that wasn’t safe either—”
“His daughter…” I muttered.
Riggs pursed his lips.
“Yeah. He went deeper underground after that,” Riggs paused until Lev cleared his throat, subtly encouraging him to continue. “Anyway, he trained all of us.”
Well, that wasn’t what I’d been expecting. My eyebrows shot up.
“We were one of his last teams before he had to go into hiding.”
I scowled and crossed my arms. “Then, you know exactly what I’m capable of, don’t you?”
Riggs sneered. “You obviously weren’t good enough to stop him from getting killed.”
The words were like a knife through my chest. The magnitude of guilt I felt at not being there to help Sacha was something I’d been continually battling with since that day.
“You weren’t there,” I gasped, hating that my voice wavered.
“You’re right,” Riggs snapped. “I know Sacha probably took down most of them. All he needed was one more gun.” At the look on my face, he laughed darkly. “Yeah—that’s what I thought—you’re either a coward, or dead weight.”
I surged to my feet. “Fuck you,” I exclaimed. “Why are you even helping me then?”
“Better tell her that too,” Lev said.
Riggs looked positively lethal. Red crawled up his neck as he stepped toward me.
“That word you used—sanctuary—it wasn’t just a code word,” he snarled, fighting to get the words out. “It was Sacha calling in the favor I owed.”
“You could have just driven me to where I wanted to go—”
“Unfortunately, it’s a pretty big favor,” Riggs interrupted. “And, once I heard who you were going after, I knew Sacha had put you in my path for a reason.”
He took another step as rage ignited his eyes. “But make no mistake—none of this is for you. It will always be for him.”
Riggs’ lip curled in contempt as he watched the emotions cross my face. I couldn’t speak. My throat closed, thick with emotion. I rushed from the room and Riggs’ harsh scoff of contempt followed after me. I barely managed to make it into the privacy of my room before I broke down.
Sacha had used his last favor on me? The guilt was immense.
I knew I wasn’t a coward, but the dead weight comment struck something deep.
The part of me that had always felt not good enough.
The part of me that had been abandoned over and over and over again.
Would Riggs and Lev abandon me eventually too?
Only time would tell, but I vowed to work my ass off and prove to them I was worth their time.