With a fist full of Delilah’s hair and the brush in my other hand I asked, “Does the name Garrett ring a bell?”
“Yeah. He sent me an email. Is that his real name?”
“It is. He’s our intel guy.” I ran the bristles through her hair and when she didn’t make a sound or move, I continued to brush and answered her earlier question. “When Evette came to us asking for protection, your name came up immediately and Garrett started digging. I have a complete file on your life. Education, employment history, credit report, current and previous addresses starting from childhood, your family, your friends, anything he could find. And you should know, Garrett’s thorough.”
I missed it at first, the stillness in the air, the lull in her breathing—it wasn’t a tranquil calm, it was turbulent. But then it would be, I’d just admitted Garrett had combed over her personal life. She’d have no way of knowing how deep he dug but I warned her he was thorough.
Delilah didn’t have any ghosts in her closet but her family was fucked. Especially her mother—that bitch had bones rattling bones. The woman was a man-eater and that was putting it nicely.
“Thank you for being honest with me.”
Her whispered gratitude felt like a dagger to the gut. I should’ve let the topic end there but she’d thanked me for being honest so I had to come clean about everything.
“Before you sent the information on the guy who’d been attempting to end Evette and we figured out you were in California we went to your mother’s house and had a chat with her.”
“Where’s she living now?” Delilah asked with a hint of sadness in her tone.
She didn’t want to care but she did.
“North Carolina.”
“So not too far from where I live…or, lived. I don’t think I actually have a home anymore.”
I had no idea what became of her apartment. When my teammate Kevin and I went to Delilah’s apartment in Virginia it had been ransacked and there wasn’t much left that was salvageable but I still made a mental note to ask Zane what her landlord did with her belongings.
“She said she hadn’t seen or heard from you in a few years.”
“Sure, if a “few” means five. Did she tell you why?”
“No, Delilah, and we didn’t ask. Garrett ran her financials and he didn’t find any large sums of cash being taken out of her accounts or her husband’s and nothing on their credit cards to suggest they were helping you so we left it at that.”
“You keep saying we. You weren’t alone?”
“No. I had Kevin with me, he’s a member of my team. Good friend, too. He was with me until two weeks ago. Actually, once we had confirmation Tamir had you, Zane sent the Red Team and Garrett for backup.”
“Red Team?”
I continued to brush. The bottom three or four inches were tangle-free but just below where her bra strap would be, there was heavy matting. Big clumps of hair were knotted tightly and I was having to carefully pick it apart.
“Z Corps is structured into Teams. Red, Gold, Blue. Each team has a specific skill set.”
“What team are you on?”
“Blue.”
I snagged a few strands of hair in the brush bristles and Delilah jerked her head to the side.
“Shit, sorry,” I murmured.
“How bad is it?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer. This felt like one of those trick questions where a woman asked if her ass looked big in a pair of jeans and no matter the man’s answer he was fucked.
I felt compelled to lie.
I didn’t, I evaded.
“I’m getting the tangles out.”
She fell silent for a few moments and I worked on her hair, marveling at the thickness. And the longer the silence stretched the more my mind wandered until all I could think about was how much I wished my hands were fisting her hair for other reasons. Pleasurable reasons.
“Tell me about your team.”
Thankful for the distraction, I launched in.
“Owen, Gabe, Kevin, and Cooper. Before Owen came to work for Zane he was in the Navy. Good guy, solid. He’s engaged to Natalie. The woman is crazy-brave. She grew up a Mob Princess, hated the life, wanted no part of it, and when her uncle got jittery she was gonna go to the feds he sold her into a human trafficking ring. We found her while we were on an op. She had no place to go so Owen took her in and they’ve been together since. Kevin was in the Navy, too. So was Gabe, actually. Kevin’s the funniest out of all of us, but only after you get to know him and his sense of humor. The guy’s got no filter so either you get him and you think he’s hilarious or you hate him. Like him or hate him he’d never turn his back on anyone. The guy is giving to a fault. Cooper is the newest member of the team and his brother Jaxon is on the Red Team. Coop used to live in California. He was LAPD SWAT. I’m not sure exactly what happened, just that a takedown went bad and he quit.”
“And Gabe?”
Of course she’d pick up on me purposefully leaving him out.
“Gabe’s complicated. Or I should say his history is complicated. He and his mom were homeless for a time. He had a lot of issues surrounding that to work out. For a long time, I didn’t think he’d ever move past them. Thankfully he has. If Kevin’s the most giving of his time, Gabe’s secretly the most giving with his money. He gives a shit ton to homeless shelters and various programs for men and women trying to get on their feet, and food pantries. He thinks we don’t know and we let him have that because none of us want him to be uncomfortable about it. He also thinks we don’t know he volunteers at shelters.”
“What about you?”
Normally I wasn’t a fan of talking about myself but I’d tell her anything she wanted to know if that meant I didn’t have to answer anything else about Gabe.
“I grew up in Colorado. Joined the Army straight out of high school. Did my time and when it was time to get out I went to work for Zane.”
“Why was it time to get out?”
Fuck.
My gaze dropped to my arm and my eyes roamed over my tattoo there. The reminder that was inked into my flesh to never forget. And not a day went by where I didn’t remember my fuck-up and the man who lost his life because of it. Bad intel had started the clusterfuck of a mission but it was me who missed the warnings.
“I became ineffective.”
“I don’t believe you but I can hear it in your voice that you don’t want to talk about it so we won’t. Is Owen the only one who’s in a relationship?”
Jesus.
I considered telling her about Jeremy and why I left the Army. That story would gut me. But there was no telling how she’d react when I told her about Gabe and Evette. Or more to the point what had happened to them when Abrams’s competitor, BZ System, caught up with them and tortured Gabe in front of Evette to get information on Delilah’s whereabouts. That was ultimately the conversation I did not want to have with her.
“Gabe is with Evette London.”
“He is?” she breathed.
So far, so good.
“They got together shortly after she arrived in Maryland, and by that I mean they were giving each other lovey-eyes before Kevin and I left to find you. Which was about fifteen minutes after she gave us the information she had on Abrams. I haven’t been back to Maryland since so I can’t say I know Evette, but from what I hear Gabe’s madly in love. Which is good seeing as he’s asked her to marry him.”