Chapter 32
32
ETHAN
I’d just turned into the parking garage at Elite when I saw her walking toward the door. I’d been away from her for less than twenty-four hours, and I missed her. She looked up from her phone when she heard my truck, stopped, and smiled. Knowing she was waiting for me, I parked and tried to ignore my excitement from just seeing her. We were in a weird place. We hadn’t spoken since we got off the plane. She’d ridden home with Striker since they lived in the same building, and I’d driven home alone, which was exactly what I wanted. I needed time to myself to think, and I couldn’t do that with Mila sitting in the car beside me. I’d walked into my apartment and went straight to the shower before eventually crawling into bed. I slept better than I had in weeks, and after a cup of coffee this morning, I finally started to feel like myself.
I felt like my life was back to normal.
Until my eyes landed on Mila.
Pushing open the door, I grabbed my coffee mug, filled my second cup of the day, and locked my truck before walking toward her.
“Morning.” She smiled.
“Morning,” I replied.
“How’d you sleep?” she asked when I fell into step beside her.
I grinned, appreciating the small talk. I think we both felt a little awkward. We played a couple for so long, and now we were expected to return to being coworkers. “Better than I have in a long time. You?”
She shrugged when I pulled open the door and stepped aside so she could walk through. “I don’t know. I kind of got used to sleeping with someone. It felt a little strange.”
She winked before heading for the stairs, and I followed. I didn’t have a comeback for that. I was struggling with how to handle all of this now that we were home. It was easy to pretend to be a couple. It wasn’t going to be as easy to pretend we never were, especially in front of the people we work with.
“Welcome back,” Leah called out just as we pushed through the door.
“Thanks, Leah,” I said but kept walking when Mila slowed to talk to her. I thought they were becoming friends before we left, which made sense, considering they were the only two females employed by Elite.
Walking into the conference room felt like coming home. I jerked up my chin at Brody and Jax, who were already seated at the table, along with Striker and Kyle.
Sitting down, I looked up when Kyle spoke. “Happy to be back?”
“You have no idea, man,” I answered honestly. “Just us today?”
“And Mila,” Jax answered.
Kyle smirked. “Thought she’d be with you.”
My eyes shifted to Brody, who watched me closely, but I quickly looked back at Kyle. “Met her in the parking garage. She’s talking to Leah.”
“Right. Met her in the parking garage,” he teased, but I didn’t take the bait.
“Just waiting for Director Reed,” Jax said, probably in an effort to sidetrack Kyle.
“Where’s the rest of the team?” I asked.
“On assignments,” Jax replied. “They’ve been carrying the bulk of the load over the past two weeks. They’ll be happy to have everyone back.”
“What about Nick?” I asked, assuming he’d want to be here for the updates.
Jax grinned. “Maddie needed him for a few hours this morning to do some wedding shit.”
I laughed. “He was probably the only person who wanted to be out of town this past weekend working this case.”
Jax snorted. “Probably.”
“Look who I found,” Mila announced while walking through the door with Director Reed right behind her.
Jax stood and shook his hand, as did Brody, before pointing at the chair next to him. “Have a seat.”
Mila circled the table until she got to the chair beside me and sat down. That wasn’t unusual, considering it was where she usually sat, but it still felt like all eyes were on us.
Director Reed gestured toward us. “There’s my dream team.”
My eyebrows pulled together. “Dream team? What does that mean?”
“That means you found a way to access an organization we’ve been investigating for years. If I could think of a way to lure you into the FBI, I would’ve already made that proposal.”
Mila put her elbows on the table, completely ignoring that comment, leaned forward, and got right down to business. “I’m surprised to hear Samson was part of a bigger organization.”
“Honestly, me too,” Jax admitted.
“I don’t think it was by choice,” Director Reed explained. “Daniel Sullivan’s business had a lot of moving parts. He was in bed with some powerful men whose stipulations were that nothing could be tied to them. As the organization grew, Sullivan learned that if he had people working for him and with them scattered all over the US, it would be much harder for the FBI to tie it all together. Separately, all of the players seemed to be involved in petty crimes, at best, nothing that would be on the FBI’s radar, but collectively…”
“They were running one of the biggest crime rings the US has seen,” Jax concluded.
He pointed at Jax. “Exactly, and in order for Samson to keep Sullivan’s affiliations after he died, Samson had to play ball. From what we’ve seen, though, he was beginning to cut out some of the major players, which would’ve eventually meant more money in his pocket.”
“How do you know that?” Mila asked.
He grinned. “We have some disgruntled people talking.”
My eyes widened. “Clients?”
“Clients and partners,” Director Reed admitted.
“Just since yesterday?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“We’ve been quietly investigating this organization since Daniel Sullivan was killed. They seemed to disband for a while, and then suddenly, we started hearing chatter again. We had information on enough people to start asking questions but not enough to make any charges stick. And to be honest, we wanted the top dog. We knew that had been Sullivan, but someone replaced him, and we couldn’t find out who.” He gestured toward Mila and me. “Until Elite and you two, essentially, became involved. We wouldn’t have gotten to Samson if you hadn’t breached the club. He was never on our radar. Yesterday, we brought in people from our list who had been on our radar, questioned them, and they shared a lot after they knew we had Samson in custody.”
Mila studied Director Reed. “Like what?”
“According to them, Daniel Sullivan was a man of threats. If they crossed him, he cut them out and threatened to expose them if they talked. Samson, on the other hand, was a man of action. He put out hits, and he did that after strike one. He wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty, and he wasn’t afraid to eliminate people. He was by far more dangerous than his half brother.”
“Why are his associates talking?” I asked. “Wouldn’t they want to protect themselves?”
“They are.” Director Reed shrugged. “They were offered a deal in exchange for their information.”
“What deal?”
He shook his head. “Can’t tell you that, and I can already tell that pisses you off, but we need to take this down from the top. Samson’s at the top. We get him, we shut this down.”
“What about the girls who were sold?” Mila asked.
“We already have a task force assigned to locate them.”
Mila dropped her hands to her lap, and we looked toward the head of the table when Jax spoke. “You have enough on Samson?”
Director Reed smiled. “More than enough to prosecute, but we’re not done interviewing yet. We’ll get him on everything we can to be sure he stays put away for the rest of his life.”
“Something still doesn’t make sense to me.” Mila glanced between Jax and the Director. “Why did he give up on Beth so easily? I understand that his goal was to have Max Skinner kill her and then he would have exactly what he wanted but that failed. Why not come after her while we were distracted? He had so much to gain.”
“He would’ve eventually circled back to Beth.” Director Reed glanced at Striker while he spoke. “He was letting the situation here cool off, and then I believe he planned to strike when everyone stopped being so diligent with her security.”
“Jesus.” I ran my hand through my hair. “What keeps someone from picking up where he left off?”
“It’ll be difficult. When Daniel Sullivan was killed, we searched his house from top to bottom but found nothing to indicate what type of business he was running or who he was working with. Even if he hadn’t been killed, we didn’t have much to get him on. Some drug charges and prostitution, but it would’ve been hard to make that stick. Plus, he had loyalty from his team. No one was talking. They respected him and the way he ran his business, as crazy as that sounds. Kevin Samson doesn’t have that same loyalty, but even more than that, he didn’t hide his business shit where it couldn’t be found. Once we could pull a warrant, we found the smoking gun in his house. We have a list that includes every past and present associate. We have dates and times of transactions. We have buyers’ names. We have everything we would’ve needed to put Sullivan away for life but couldn’t find, which means no one can pick up where he left off right now because we have them on our watch list. And they know that. We’ve made it clear that the FBI is in possession of the list.”
“How big was this?” My head snapped toward Striker again.
Director Reed shifted until he could see Striker. “Massive. Bigger than I’ve seen in my career, and from what I’ve heard, one of the biggest the FBI has had in a very long time.”
“It’s over now,” Jax concluded, and all attention shifted to him. “Finally.”
Director Reed nodded. “We owe you and your team.”
“You can repay us by getting the charges to stick.”
“And finding the girls,” Mila added.
“That we can promise.” Director Reed stood, along with Jax and Brody. “I need to get back to DC. We have a lot of work ahead of us.”
Jax and Brody walked out with him, and for a moment, the room was silent until Mila spoke to Kyle. “I can’t believe how quiet you were during that.”
Striker snorted out a laugh, and Kyle grinned. “Had to be. He had information I wanted.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Are you saying Jax doesn’t? You interrupt him constantly.”
“I just like to piss him off.” Kyle wiggled his eyebrows. “Keeps shit interesting.”
Mila shifted her attention to Striker. “Heard Beth’s coming back to work here.”
Striker nodded. “Starting tomorrow.”
“That’s what Leah said.” She grinned and sat back in her seat. “You gonna be able to handle working with your fiancée?”
Striker shrugged, but a grin played around his lips. “Guess we’ll find out.”
“Absolutely not.” Kyle laughed.
Mila laughed with him but moved on. “How’s your sister?”
“Yeah.” Kyle leaned his chair back on two legs. “How’s Bridget?”
Striker rolled his eyes toward Kyle. “Leave her alone.”
There was no way Kyle was listening to that warning. “Heard you two have been getting together weekly.”
“I’m not joking.” Striker raised his eyebrow. “Leave her alone.”
I shared a look with Mila and knew she was wondering the same as me. Those two always went back and forth, but they were really good friends. This seemed like something that was straining their relationship. I hoped Kyle was just being himself and trying to get a rise out of Striker.
“Alright.” Jax started talking just as he and Brody came back into the room. “That’s it. That’s the update I was hoping we’d get.” He pointed at me and Ethan. “You two are off for the rest of the week.”
“Why?” Mila asked.
“You just had a monthlong assignment. Take some downtime,” Brody instructed and then looked at me. “Your sister’s been in town the whole month, and you haven’t spent any time with her.”
“She works every day.” I shrugged. “Probably wouldn’t see her until evening anyway.”
Brody studied us and then frowned. “It’s up to you. If you want some time to clear your heads, take it. If not, there’s a stack of assignments on my desk, and I could use help with installs.”
“You have to take today at least.” Jax cut in. “Let the information you just got settle, make sure you don’t need a few days to clear your heads. You saw and experienced a lot, and we all know how that can creep up over time. We need to be confident you’re good.”
“Okay,” I agreed.
“Sure,” Mila added while we all stood.
Everyone filed out of the room, and I followed Mila through the lobby to the stairs leading outside. We were just outside the building when Mila laid her hand on my arm. “Wanna grab something to eat?”
I shook my head. “Think I’m just gonna go home. Maybe take Jax’s advice.”
She studied me, almost as if she was looking for something before she continued. “I think we need to talk, don’t you?”
I stared into her green eyes and felt a heavy weight settle over my chest. I couldn’t do it. I’d thought about it the whole way home on the plane and wondered if I could play along for a while until shit settled down and give us time to figure it out, but when I saw her today, I realized I couldn’t. Actually, if I was being honest with myself, I knew when I forced my way into the room where Samson was holding Mila, saw the other man’s hands on her, and lost my fucking mind. I would’ve killed Samson if she hadn’t kept talking to me, and then I would’ve moved on to the man trying to buy her. After that, I knew we were either together or we weren’t, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I could pretend anymore.
I considered being honest and telling her I loved her, but I had a feeling this was only a casual thing in her mind, and I didn’t want to hear her give me those words. “I think we just need to take a step back. We’re not gonna agree on how to move forward, so maybe we should just end it now.”
She shook her head. “Just like that? After all we’ve gone through, it’s just over? Can’t we at least talk about it? You said you would think about doing what I proposed. Maybe we can work out something that we both can agree on.”
“Would that include telling the team we’re in a relationship?”
“I…” She searched for the right words, but it was obvious when she couldn’t find them. “No, I just can’t do that right now.”
“And I can’t pretend we’re not, Mila.” I glanced toward the door, knowing we were on borrowed time. I was surprised no one had come down yet. “I’m not willing to hide something this important or lie to the entire team. That’s not who I am.”
She ran her hand through her hair. “And I’ve proven that’s exactly who I am, right?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to, Ethan.” She tilted her head. “You know people have relationships all the time and don’t share them with their coworkers.”
“We don’t have normal jobs,” I argued. “That kind of secret could blow up in our faces.” I took a step toward her. “It could affect the whole team. I have too much at stake to risk everything by hiding something I don’t think should be hidden. And I know that’s not what you want.”
“You don’t know what I want,” she replied dismissively.
“Maybe you’re right.” I shrugged. “But I do know what I want. And I know prolonging the inevitable isn’t something I want to do.”
I wasn’t willing to compromise, and neither was she. If I didn’t agree to her plan, I'd already accepted that everything we’d started in Devil’s Lake would end, but that had to be less painful than what she proposed.
She studied me for a minute, but then she squared her shoulders and nodded slowly. “Then I guess there’s nothing left to say.”
I dropped my head as she walked away. When I heard her car door slam shut, I let the finality wash over me.
It was over.
How could something that never had a chance hurt so fucking bad when it ended?