Chapter 5 – Evelyn
EVELYN
Isighed, leaning back in my chair. My brain was still spinning from the meeting with the FIA agents earlier, and the pounding in my head had only gotten worse.
I rubbed my temples, trying to will the pain away, but no luck.
I leaned forward, finishing a report for Izzy and Grace.
Sebastian had worked with Liam to set up the Archers secure messaging app on my computer, so I could more easily communicate with my team while I was at work.
No more ducking into hallways or bathrooms when I needed to check in with my team.
It was strange to be doing this type of work at my desk out in the open, but I was grateful to Sebastian for setting it up.
I hit send, sighing as I rubbed my temples.
Izzy and Grace were probably right. I needed to limit my involvement in the Archers while the feds were in town.
Or at least my physical involvement in the missions.
Agent Dominic Hayes seemed like the type to leave no stone unturned, or at least that was my read on his past case files that Liam had found.
I was likely going to be under some kind of surveillance, and I couldn’t afford to draw any more attention to the Archers.
Especially not while we were still trying to clean up the Citadel mess and figure out all this Kingfisher business.
Marcus walked up. He looked nervous, rubbing the back of his neck, and I frowned. Had something else happened already?
“What is it? What’s wrong?” I asked him.
He hesitated for a moment. “The feds aren’t going to let this go. They’re going to place you under some sort of surveillance.”
I nodded, shrugging. “I figured as much. I’ll pull back from the Archers.”
He nodded. “That’s the right move. But I was actually thinking about the manor. If you don’t want them figuring out where the manor house is, you can’t stay there anymore.”
I sat back in my chair heavily. To be honest, I hadn’t even thought about that. The last several weeks with the guys staying there, I had stopped thinking of it as a safehouse and more like a home. Which I had always intended it to be but had never gotten around to it.
“Fuck, you’re right.” I groaned, rubbing my temples. “I’ll call Danny and see if he can bring my stuff to my apartment.”
Marcus’s lips tightened. I knew he hated my apartment and the area of the city it was in, but it was safe enough for now. Finally, he nodded. “I’ll drive you home. Want to leave in an hour?”
“Sure,” I said, looking at the pile of paperwork on my desk. I would like more than an hour, but maybe I could sort through the stack and make a plan of action for tomorrow.
He smiled, the expression making him infinitely more attractive. Not that the dark, broody look he usually had going for him didn’t make him attractive, but his smile was equally devastating. “Okay. See you in an hour.” He walked away on his phone, fingers flying across the screen.
I pulled out my own phone and hit Danny’s number.
“What’s up?” he greeted. “I’m reading over your report on the feds now.”
“Reading over my shoulder, he means.” Grace’s faint voice came through on the phone, and I grinned.
“It’s about that. They’re likely going to have me under surveillance for at least the next few weeks, so tell Grace she’ll have to pull me off of missions for the time being.”
“You’re on speaker now, so she heard you,” Danny said.
“Got it, boss,” Grace said. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll handle it. We’re going to ground anyway, so we’ll only have emergency cases.”
I bit my lip. The problem with our kind of work was that they were usually all emergency cases. How many people were going to suffer because we had to go to ground?
“Marcus brought up a good point, too, that I can’t stay at Miracle like I have been,” I said, referencing the code name we had for my manor house.
“Oh, he did, did he?” Danny’s voice was playful.
I groaned. Danny had been very firmly ‘team guys’ from the beginning. Truthfully, I figured he was glad for the extra eyes on me. He had taken what happened to me in high school hard and had been my constant protector since. He was probably grateful to know they were looking out for me.
“Yes, he did. So I was hoping you or someone could go to Miracle and pack up some of my stuff and bring it over to my apartment. Enough stuff for the next few weeks, at least, and my tablet and laptop and all my files on the dining room table.”
“Yep, I’ll head there now,” Danny said, and I could hear rustling over the phone, then the jangle of keys.
“Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“Of course. Talk to you later.”
I hung up and turned my focus to the pile of files on my desk.
Losing myself in my work, I quickly sorted the files in order of priority.
Small-time jobs like installing a basic security system were sorted into one pile, while others that would require more extensive consultations were sorted into another pile.
Citadel’s clients were jumping to us left and right.
There were some client names that I shoved to the end of the pile, familiar with them from an Archer mission.
Those clients I wanted to vet a bit more before we accepted them to SDS.
I didn’t want their rot to taint SDS or the guys.
Maybe it was overprotective, but they had already gone above and beyond for me, so I could spend a few extra hours vetting if that was what it took to keep them unscathed from this whole thing.
“Hey, sorry, I got caught up on some calls and didn’t realize how late it had gotten.”
My head shot up. Marcus stood at my desk. I had been so immersed in my work I hadn’t heard his door open. Sebastian’s and Alexander’s doors were shut, and their lights were turned off. When had they left? How had I not seen them?
“It’s okay,” I said, rubbing my burning eyes. “I also got caught up.” I looked at my watch. It was closer to 7 p.m. now.
“Ready to go?”
“Let me just grab my bag.” I placed the last few files in their appropriate piles and then grabbed my bag.
Marcus placed a hand on my back, guiding me to the elevator.
I soaked in the warmth of his hand. We were still on shaky ground.
I liked Marcus, but he had been a dick when he’d first found out about my betrayal.
Okay, he was justified in being a dick, but he had taken his sweet time in pulling the stick out of his ass. So I was making him work for it a bit.
As we rode the elevator down, he kept his hand on my back, rubbing it in soft circles. “So, how was your day?” he asked, a small smirk on his face.
I laughed. “Insane. But I guess I didn’t expect anything different.”
“It’ll slow down in a few weeks,” he said. “Although, then something new will probably pop up.”
“Shhh, don’t jinx us,” I said, patting his arm. “I, personally, am looking forward to taking a vacation.”
“I don’t think you’ve taken a vacation once in the six years you’ve worked here.”
I groaned. “No, and I need one.”
“Once we deal with all of this, we’ll take you away. The four of us haven’t been on a vacation in too long either.”
“You visited your parents in Italy a few years ago, right?”
The three brothers’ parents had retired to Italy and were world travelers now. The brothers had flown to Italy a few Christmases ago to spend a week with their parents.
“We did. It was nice. You would love it. We’ll take you soon.”
My eyebrows shot up. Introducing me to their parents? “That is very ‘some day’ talk,” I teased him.
He just smiled at me, squeezing my hip. “Yes, it is.”
He guided me to his car and opened the door for me, helping me settle in before going around to the driver’s seat.
All the guys were gentlemen about that kind of stuff.
It used to bother me when I was younger when guys would do that.
It felt like they were putting up this nice guy approach and then would turn around and say, “gotcha!” But these men had proven to me over and over again they were good men, not simply “nice guys.” I felt treasured and taken care of when they did these things for me now.
I gave him the address to my apartment, smiling when he grumbled.
He started driving, and I pulled out my phone, scrolling through the schedule for tomorrow and arranging meetings for the guys as well as delegating some of the smaller clients to the other executives.
The other executives had really stepped up while we were gone, and I made an item on my to-do list to make notes in all of their performance review files.
SDS employed good people. That reminded me.
I needed to reach out to Lacey, our HR director, and let her know we may be having former Citadel employees applying to SDS, and we’d need to background check them thoroughly.
I was sure there were good people who worked for Citadel; I just wasn’t sure how many there were.
I didn’t look up until we pulled into a parking garage. I frowned. This wasn’t my apartment building. The garage was familiar, though, and when I saw Alexander’s Mercedes parked in a reserved spot, I recognized it as the garage for the building the brothers and Adrian lived in.
“Did you need to grab something?” I asked as Marcus parked in his own reserved spot.
“Nope,” he said, looking at the wall instead of at me. I knew he’d caved too easily about taking me back to my shitty apartment.
“Okay…” I said slowly, hiding my grin. “Then what are we doing here?”
The man literally squirmed in his seat as he tried to come up with an answer.
“Okay, we are picking up something.”
“What are we picking up?”
“The key to your new apartment.”
My jaw dropped. Um, what? My car door opened, and Sebastian crouched by my door, a wide grin on his face.
“Hey, new neighbor!”