23. Jack
23
JACK
O ne taste of Sloane is not enough. Yet, it feels like everything. I shadow her, unable or unwilling to take my eyes off her.
Sloane's dogged determination is enchanting and distracting. I can see it in Hastings and Cole, too. They stare after her the same way I do, and I can only imagine my face softening the same way as I track her movements down an aisle of inventory or directing deliveries.
She’s less friendly to Kingswell today, but I told her it’s better not to give anything away yet. I mark her performance as polite exhaustion. Certainly, she’s tired after the night she had. More so given her week.
But Kingswell doesn’t need to know that her apartment was broken into. That we’ve moved her and her daughter. That we’re all equally obsessed with her. I will personally put a bullet through anyone who threatens her.
This punk included. Because he certainly is acting like a punk, finding ways to disappear during the day as she processes everything. Given he’s working for whoever wants their hands on Sloane and the conspiracy she’s uncovering…
I don’t peg him as a direct threat. He’s acting more like a put out teen than someone who’s putting in the time planning. A yes man, he does as he’s told. And he doesn’t seem to be trusted with much.
I can see why. He’s left a messy trail, but he’s smart enough to play it off as incompetence. We’ve agreed not to leave her alone with him. With anyone.
Best job I’ve ever had, watching Sloane bend over a crate and how her ass wiggles when she digs through things. I should help, but I can’t watch her as well when I help. I can’t watch anything else when she’s here.
After lunch, Cole goes after Reese, leaving Hastings and me to keep tabs. It’s Hastings’ turn to hover, so I’m at her desk searching for trails from the collection of mishandled inventory. We haven’t found a hard line on who Kingswell is hiding behind, who Caspian Vorn is smuggling for, where they’re taking the mishandled inventory.
Dead ends, all of it.
But my gut is churning. Hard.
The kinds of illegal arms Vorn is usually associated with would not get the kind of inventory they usually push through a warehouse like this. Not in the kinds of numbers they run. Not in the kinds of specialty weapons they prefer.
But those precision barrels and scopes…
They can easily upgrade with those parts.
Another dead end has me standing, seeking out Sloane to soothe the bruising soreness of beating my head against a wall.
She’s halfway to me when I catch her, bright eyed and electric.
Sloane has found something. Finally.
“Come on.” Grabbing my hand, she practically tugs me toward a wide crate marked as mock weapons.
Hastings takes out a Mauser Gewehr 98, a bolt-action rifle. These certainly aren’t the mock weapons they were marked as. Sloane has a good eye.
“How’d you know at first glance?” I ask.
Hastings smiles like he already knows the answer, already asked the same questions I’m about to. He pulls out the bolt and looks inside the chamber before he slides it back in.
“I didn’t, but I know better than to assume. The barrels have wear.” Her clipboard rests on her hip bones. If not for the excitement in her gaze, the small curve of her lip might read as smug. The more I watch her, test her, unravel what she’s thinking, the more I realize she’s so good at hiding.
But now, she’s giving me more glimpses of the real her. The one not just covered up and consumed by anger.
Although much of the anger is misplaced fear.
I hate that I’ve barely gotten a peek at the life she had with her ex, and it’s awful. No wonder she’s been fighting as hard as she has.
The pride in her gaze now eases some of the cold that comes with thinking of the stories Reese told me, all simple and easy to read into from an adult perspective. Even a six-year-old knew what Alistair was doing to Sloane wasn’t right.
“They do,” Hastings says, taking up another 98 to check it over.
“Good catch.” I lean in close to her, grinning at her ear.
God, this woman is smart. And it’s sexy as hell.
She turns her face to blink up at me. “We should be able to track it, right?”
I brush the loose strands of hair from her face. “It might take a little while, but yes, we can track it.”
Her wide smile stuns me. Hastings puts the 98 back, coming around the crate to stand in front of her.
My mouth dips back to her ear. “Your brain is by far the sexiest thing about you. You know that?”
That loosens her posture so that when my hands surround her hips, I’m able to easily pull her back against me. The suppressed giggle only makes me respond to her faster, and I’m sure she can feel it against her ass.
Hastings closes in, tipping her chin up with a finger and bending to rub his nose over hers with the promise of a kiss. Oh, how easily we can cause a scene, right here, in the middle of the warehouse, and that’s not something Sloane is going to appreciate.
It doesn’t make either of us back off.
My hand circles her waist, mouth dropping the ghost of a kiss along the back of her neck.
Hastings draws his hands down both of her arms, lifting her hands to his shoulders. Tension coils around her, drawing us in like gravity.
Fuck, I can’t stop touching her, whispering to her how brilliant she is.
When we get her home… I meet Hastings’ gaze, and my own thoughts reflect back at me.
There’s no denying this anymore.
It’s time to play our hand with Sloane.
I nip at the shell of her ear, reveling in her whimper.
“Mommy!” Reese’s voice cuts through the hangar, jolting through Sloane and forcing her to take a step out from between us before she greets her daughter.
Cole’s gaze says we’ve been caught.
Funny thing is, I don’t feel the least bit sheepish about it.