Chapter 33
C allie sat curled in the chair, sipping tea, when he walked out of the shower. A little something he didn’t want to name eased in his chest. One glance at her face told him that whatever anxiety had gripped her when they’d returned from the climb had eased its hold on her.
She raised a brow at him when he paused. He grinned.
“You can bring clothes into the bathroom with you to put on after you shower,” she pointed out.
He put his hands on his hips, his pinkies brushing against the terry cloth of the towel wrapped around his waist. “I forgot,” he replied as, once again, her gaze slid leisurely over his body.
“On purpose,” she said, meeting his eyes. The light in hers made him smile. “You forgot on purpose.”
He inclined his head. “You seemed to enjoy when I forgot for real yesterday. And since I enjoyed seeing you enjoy it, it made sense to forget on purpose today.”
She laughed, then grabbed one of the eighteen thousand throw pillows and hucked it at him. “Go get some clothes on, exhibitionist. I’m going to shower, then I want to run something by you about the Thai deal Joe mentioned today.”
He chuckled but did as asked. By the time he had his boxers on, she’d gathered the little bundle of clothes he’d seen at the end of the bed and started her shower.
As he dressed, he filtered through his stories—those appropriate for bedtime—weighing which one might be a good one to tell Callie tonight.
Last night, he’d told her another. He hadn’t pulled her against his body the way he’d wanted to, but they’d lain in bed, facing each other, close enough to feel each other’s heat, but not touching.
And he’d told her about the time Juan almost shot a captain in the ass when the woman walked into an experiment Viper had dared Juan to run.
Thankfully, the captain was a science junkie herself, so instead of reprimanding them, she’d joined in.
Together, they’d proved, to the extent they could without real equipment or a way to control variables, that a bullet fired horizontally from a gun hit the ground at the same time a bullet dropped from the same height did.
Maybe he’d tell her about Dulcie and the goats tonight.
As he slid on his jeans, then tugged a shirt over his head, a pang of homesickness hit him.
Which made no sense. He’d only been away from the Falcons for three days.
He pondered that thought, poking at the feeling, as he poured a glass of bougie flavored water.
He took a long pull, then topped it off again before walking to the sliding door and staring out at the view.
He let his mind flit from one thought to the next, bouncing from images of Callie curled up on the chair, to the views they’d seen that day, to a hike he liked to take in Mystery Lake, to wondering what Sabina and Leo would share with them when they called.
Several minutes passed when he realized it wasn’t homesickness he felt, but gratitude. For his family.
Not a new feeling, but being with Callie, experiencing her anxiety with her, shed a new light on his family and everything they’d done for him.
That they’d done for one another. Each and every Falcon had his own baggage.
All of them came from home lives that left a lot to be desired.
Then they’d gone straight from that life into the military, which had its own challenges and rewards.
But they’d found one another. And through those bonds and that support, the men who’d become his family had each found his value, had each worked through the hells of his childhood and the insidious traumas to understand he had value .
It wasn’t always smooth sailing. The life they’d each had while growing up didn’t just get erased from their psyches. But they’d built enough of a support system around them that they each had a safe space to work it out.
Callie had had none of that.
With the exception of Daphne, and, for a short time, perhaps Liza, she’d been isolated.
She’d done what she needed to cope and survive.
And in doing so, she excelled at her job, reinforcing everything she’d been taught as a child, that her external achievements defined her value.
Not that she was intrinsically valuable herself—flaws and all.
The door opened, and a soft scent filled the room.
Maybe her lotion or perhaps her hair product.
He turned as she walked out, dressed again in her fitted jeans, but this time in a deep green V-neck top.
With her hair pulled into a high ponytail, the combination emphasized her elegant neck and delicate features.
“You look beautiful,” he blurted out. Startled eyes met his, then a slow smile spread across her face and she murmured a “thank you” before disappearing into the closet with her bundle of dirty clothes. Two seconds later, the lid of the laundry basket opened and closed.
“Shall we call Sabina and Leo?” she asked, reentering the room. He nodded and moved to the bed, taking a seat with enough room for her to sit beside him.
“First things first,” Sabina said once they greeted each other.
“Thanks for putting us in touch with your contact in Canada, Callie. We’ve initiated information sharing and she’s working on getting a formal case opened.
We’re also working with our contacts on the separatist group—we think we can get someone on the inside. We’ll know more in a couple of days.”
“The chatter is more than chatter?” Callie asked.
“It’s far enough along that the Canadian government is not happy they didn’t pick up on it themselves,” Leo answered.
“Well, if nothing else, maybe we’ll have a hand in stopping a terrorist attack,” Callie muttered.
“That’s no small feat, especially to the families of those who would be caught in it—may they never know how close they came,” Sabina said.
“Hear hear,” Philly said. He’d seen enough violence in his life, if he could help stop it, he’d call that a win in his books.
“And Brazil?” Callie asked.
“We’re working on that still,” Leo answered. “The sheer number of high-end brothels that cater to Aiden’s apparent taste makes it hard to pinpoint his activities, but we’ll get there.”
“What about Thailand?” Sabina asked.
Philly filled them in on the conversation, and when he finished, all four were silent for a few seconds before Callie spoke.
“The thing I keep coming back to is what would make Aiden pull out of a deal? And not just any deal, but one as prestigious as supplying a country’s military. Can you see if they already supplied other countries at the time the Thai deal went south?”
“Or if they were using it as an entry into the region and were willing to take a loss on it?” Sabina asked.
“Exactly.”
“Why would that matter?” Philly asked.
Callie shrugged. “One reason to pull out of a deal is if it doesn’t make financial sense. But if they are trying to get a toehold into the region, maybe finances weren’t the primary consideration.”
“So if the Thai business was the first in the region, they’d be more willing to take a loss, which would make it less likely that finances were the reason they pulled out of the deal.
Which then means Aiden had another reason,” he clarified.
Callie nodded. “Okay,” he said, seeing her point but also glad it was her mind that worked that way and not his. “What else?”
Callie wrinkled her nose. “This is a bit of a stretch, but if we accept that Aiden isn’t above paying a bribe, then the request for a bribe wouldn’t stop him from doing business, as Joe told us.
” She paused, and he nodded in encouragement.
She didn’t need his support, but he wanted her to know she had it.
“Corruption in Thailand isn’t uncommon. Lately, they’ve been making moves to combat it, but six years ago, I doubt they were doing much.
Or doing anything meaningful. In light of that, this theory could sound crazy. ”
“I love crazy theories,” Sabina said.
“She really does,” Leo agreed.
Callie smiled, some of the tension leaving her shoulders.
“Well, hear me out then. What if there was a bribe, but it was part of a sting operation or something like that? Whether the Thai government would want to catch him and make an example of him or whether they wanted to catch him and use it against him, maybe as blackmail, I don’t know.
But if Aiden sensed the bribe was a trap rather than genuine corruption… ”
“He’d back out because he’d never win in that scenario,” Philly finished.
“Exactly,” Callie agreed. “But like I said, Thailand doesn’t have the strongest enforcement agencies, and I don’t know if, six years ago, they would have had the interest or sophistication to set something like that up.”
“But worth looking into,” Leo said.
“I agree,” Sabina chimed in. “If we find that to be true, it would explain the anomaly we sensed.”
“And support the profile we’re working on for him,” Leo added.
“You’re doing a profile?” Callie asked, drawing back in surprise.
“An informal one,” Sabina replied. “We have a psychologist we work with. She used to be with the FBI, too, before going into private practice. Her profiles often help give us direction or understand nuances that then lead to certain lines of investigation. So yes, we’re pulling one together, but not like the ones the FBI does. ”
As Callie considered this, Philly asked, “Are we settled on Aiden being the primary target? What about the iPad and Liza’s informant?”
“We’re settled on Aiden,” Sabina said.
That snapped Callie out of whatever she’d been thinking. “We are?”
“We are,” Sabina replied. “We received an interesting piece of mail today. It was addressed to the Falcons and mailed to the club’s PO. Mantis brought it over this afternoon. It’s from Rian.”
“What did it say?” Philly prompted. He had the utmost respect for Sabina, but she did like a dramatic pause.