42. Lennie
FORTY-TWO
LENNIE
My phone pinged with another text that I wouldn’t answer.
DANTE:
I signed Georgy up for puppy daycare. Had no idea they had such a thing. He misses you.
I stared at the message for longer than I cared to admit. It had been two weeks since I’d spoken to Dante. Not for lack of him trying, though. He texted me regularly, but I never responded, even when he sent me pictures of Georgy.
I was pissed at him for lying to me, but I was mostly hurt that he didn’t think he could come to me with his secret.
I would have listened and not judged. I would have done anything to help him; I had the resources to do so.
He worked on a team that specialized in taking down Ricci’s empire, for fuck’s sake.
On the other hand, I understood why he’d fear losing his friends. I’d been left before. But I had a sneaking suspicion that Dante hadn’t had a lot of experience with people leaving. Dying, yes, but leaving, no.
Despite my understanding, and despite how sorry he was, I wasn’t about to forgive him. He’d hurt me, and I wasn’t going to stand for it.
I spent my time working with the Elite Squad on their next mission of taking Sarah out.
I wasn’t for killing people; however, after all the hurt and pain Ricci and his daughter had caused, I wanted to bring justice by any means necessary.
Based on the condition she was in after the warehouse explosion, this mission would most likely be a walk in the park; but we needed to plan for all sides of it.
At this point, both teams knew about Dante and his involvement with Ricci and Sarah, and everyone seemed to be on edge.
I found his team was more pissed about Dante lying to them than they were about his relation to Ricci, though.
Badger had divulged to me that she didn’t blame Dante about Lily, but also wished he had let her in after he confirmed that Sarah had her, to ease some of the tumultuous thoughts that she had.
Buddha was still seething, and seemed to take the news the hardest, after me, anyway.
He still thought Dante had something to do with Arrow’s death, and I could see why, even though no one else was coming to that conclusion.
Buddha also seemed really on edge every time both teams were together.
He kept giving Ollie longing glances, but I couldn’t read into that too much right now.
I took on a more hands-on approach with the teams, giving my input and working with Evelyn on erasing Sarah from the digital world.
As I typed on my computer, Ollie sat on the corner of my desk with a worried expression on her face. I stopped what I was doing and gazed up at her.
“What’s up?” I asked, a little annoyed that she was distracting me from my work.
She bit her lower lip. “Are you okay?”
The question caught me off guard, and I could see that Jax and Gwen were also looking my way to hear my answer. I gave her a smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes.
“I’m great. Just focused.”
Ollie gave me a “Don’t lie to me, bitch,” expression before putting her hand on top of mine. “I know that this has been hard for you, especially because of your involvement with Zombie.”
I hated hearing his code name. I wanted to shove it where the sun didn’t shine and never hear it again.
When I didn’t respond, she continued. “I’m here if you need to talk.” She glanced over at Gwen and Jax before turning back to me. “We all are. When you are hurting, we all hurt.”
I gave Ollie a kind smile. “Thank you. I just need this all to be over so that I can move on.”
She nodded in understanding and gave my hand a little squeeze. “Then let’s take this bitch down.”