Vincent nodded slowly, his expression thoughtful. “Thank you for dealing with that. Seeing her, and handling what we know until…”
“Yeah, it’s fine. Plus, this should be done quickly and…” She had a small thought. One she wasn’t sure would even work.
“And?”
“An idea, but one I can do without you. Keep focusing on this. It’s nothing.” She kissed his cheek.
He looked distant for a second, his eyes unfocused. When they found her face again, she knew he was back. “I told the guys to come back down. By now, they should know what they want and where. We can do major renovating later on, but we need to move in quickly.”
“Where are we meeting them?” she asked as he wrapped an arm over her shoulders.
“Outside. Let’s get back to the condo. You and Jasper can work on the Dark Web stuff like you promised me.”
“Yeah, we really need to get that moving,” she agreed. “And what will you do?”
“Keep reading my favorites. It’s taking my mind off it for a moment.”
It was better than nothing.
They loaded back into their rides and Sawyer felt like they were a little lighter as she drove away from the house. It wouldn’t last, but it was something.
7
Zander
Zander settled in behind the desk with Jasper, looking at what Sawyer wanted from them. She left them a list of more than a dozen secret addresses, all hidden from general searches on the web. These were places where someone had to tell you they existed. You needed a backdoor to get into them. They were exclusive.
And they were the places where criminals talked online. Where gossip spread and bounced around. They had caught her in one or two of them during her time with the team.
“This should be interesting,” Jasper mumbled, opening his laptop.
Zander could only nod, opening his own. He wished for a minute he was the meathead he let everyone think he was, so that he wouldn’t need to help with this tedious shit. He and Jasper were the best two with computers on the entire team. Together, they could get something working for this case.
“Axel,” he sighed out. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
This time, Jasper could only nod. They had a program based on the same principles of the IMPO’s facial recognition software they used on Sawyer. It had a search parameter, like names and locations, and would ping and collect all of those references, wherever they were made. It was a ghost program. Nearly undetectable, since it wasn’t actively infecting places. It just monitored from the outside, waiting for things to pop up.
He frowned. “Are we running the facial recognition software at headquarters with Axel’s picture? Or Felix, that one Sawyer let walk since she had bigger shit to deal with?”
“Felix, yes. Not for Axel. It wouldn’t recognize him based on photos of him without scars and he is definitely scarred, but we don’t know how bad. The program likes exact matches and we wouldn’t be able to get that. We’d have to loosen up the parameters.”
“And then we would end up with ten thousand false ones.” Zander saw the issue.
He tried not to be angry about what had happened. He remembered his blow up in the Council Chamber. He’d nearly jumped the Councilman that passed the order to Sawyer. He’d wanted to explode. He’d wanted to hurt people for it.
How could they do this to her? How could they do this to the team? It was their fault he was out and yet, she was being punished. They kept finding ways to punish her.
Even over a week later, he was dealing with the anger and the grief. James, Axel, Sawyer, Vincent. Their lives were a mess. He felt like a child for breaking down the way he did after the funeral. He’d never thought he was weak.
“Zander, get started,” Jasper ordered. Zander blinked and saw that Jasper had already begun on his laptop.
“Sorry, was thinking.” About how weak he’d been. He needed to be strong for Vincent and Sawyer. He hated Axel, but they were his victims. They were the people nearly broken by the man. He couldn’t let this all destroy him when he needed to help them.
“About? We’ll talk while we work.”
“I need to be strong for Sawyer and Vincent. I can’t lose my temper like I did with the WMC or break down like I did after the funeral. They don’t need to deal with that. They don’t need me weak and childish. They need me to buck up and deal with shit.”
Jasper sighed and kept typing. Zander started on his half of the list, hoping to fill the silence he received from Jasper.
They were nearly halfway done when Jasper looked at him again.
“Me too.”
“What?” Zander frowned deeper.
“I want to be able to help them. Everyone on this team needs help and to help each other. But just because you want to help them doesn’t mean you don’t also deserve help.” Jasper elbowed him. “I lost my patience after the funeral, and for that, I’m sorry. You should have been able to talk to me. Sawyer shouldn’t have needed to come in and deal with me, or you, or anyone else. She deserves her chance to get her head around this too.”
“I think her head is around it,” he mumbled, typing in the next address. “She’s so…focused, Jasper.”
“I’ve noticed.”
They all had. The night before, they had all noticed that she locked herself away in that office and never came out. He was glad to hear her well past midnight with Quinn and Elijah, since that at least meant someone had the balls to convince her to sleep. Like how she’d stepped in and forced Vincent to stop and rest.
It all made what he was doing more important. This was them trying to focus on the case without letting it consume them and stop them from having real lives. It could be years before they caught Axel again. They couldn’t let it paralyze them. It never had before. They had worked on it between cases, any time he was seen moving, shaking hands, or anything like that.
This was just another case. This was what they always did.
And Sawyer knew all of that, she had to. She knew how to make sure to have a life while doing all of these things. She knew how to hunt and to live. She knew how to balance everything.
“She’s a great agent.” Zander said it randomly as he finished.
“She’s a great assassin. Being an agent is probably easier,” his best friend corrected softly.
“No, I meant agent,” he snapped back. It made his friend pause. When Jasper’s stormy eyes looked back at him, he explained. “She’s treating this like a job. Not a vendetta. She’s making sure that we remember that we’re still homeless agents. We need a base of operations…”
Now he saw his friend’s point.
“The two worlds aren’t so different,” Jasper reminded him. “Agent, assassin, good guy, bad. The only difference is the line and even then, there’s a thousand shades of grey.” He snorted. “We all just have people telling us to be their dogs, be their weapons, and enforcers. Just depends on who, doesn’t it?”
Zander’s eyes went wide. A year ago - no, just six months ago, it would have been Vincent saying that. Jasper had never seen the law in greys. He’d believed the worlds couldn’t be more different.
Until her.
“And all of that is okay, as long as we do all of this for the right reason,” Jasper finished, something wild in his eyes. Something that had never been there before. “But you know, they might think they’re justified and right too. Crazy, right?”
“You want out, don’t you?” Zander asked softly, noticing how pained Jasper looked.
“I do. I don’t want to do this anymore. No matter when it ends, when Sawyer is pardoned, I’m getting out. I can’t…be someone else’s bulldog. Not after the shit we’ve been through thanks to the people we’re supposed to look up to. I just can’t anymore. I can’t just be the other side of the coin. I thought I was upholding the idea of a better world, better for all Magi, but…”
He reached out and hugged Jasper with one arm. “I’ll support you with anything you decide
to do,” he promised his oldest male friend. “Anything. I swear it right here, right now.”
“I’m not going to ask you to leave with me. That’s my promise to you. You do what makes you happy, too, Zander.”
He thought about it. The IMPO, after this? He could totally see Jasper’s point. They had only joined the IMAS for the money and work, to make a better future. They had jumped into the IMPO because Vincent, James, and Elijah had given them something that seemed better for them. Then they stuck around since it gave them the resources to find Sawyer.
But the IMPO wasn’t his dream job. He didn’t have one. Hell, even as he thought about it, he considered what he did on the team. He helped with martial arts and self defense. Maybe he could take a page out of Sawyer’s book and become a teacher.
Then he immediately scoffed at the idea. He didn’t have the temperament for that. He’d hurt all his students.
They didn’t say anything else, though. Zander kept his thoughts about it to himself. He didn’t have anything to ease how Jasper felt about the IMPO and, in turn, the WMC. He couldn’t wipe away their problems from when they were with the IMAS. None of these organizations had been good to them, even when they had been at their best.
He let Jasper leave to go get Sawyer without following . When she walked in, she didn’t say anything either. Zander had a feeling Jasper didn’t tell her anything except that they were done. Now wasn’t the time to think so far into the future.
Sure, it came from her being a great assassin, but her focus and determination were some of her strongest traits. She couldn’t be distracted by the existential crisis they were going through.
“It’s all ready. You don’t need to do anything. Just leave the program running and it’ll tell you when something comes up.” He waved at the screen in front of him.
“I know, thank you. You can go hang out with the guys. I’ll be in here, reviewing and organizing this mess so it’s easier to work with.” She ran a hand over his shoulder and he grabbed it, giving a small squeeze in appreciation and love. As he stood up, he made sure to wrap an arm around her waist and hold her for a moment.
“I heard you last night. Have a good time?” He was genuinely curious if she did what he figured she did. It gave him ideas.
“I did.” With a knowing smile, she didn’t confirm or deny what he was really asking.
“I bet they did too,” he murmured, kissing her lips, nipping the scar.
“You’ll need to ask them.”
He chuckled as she pulled away and motioned for the door. He took the hint. He couldn’t stay if he wanted to tease and talk about sex. He knew Jasper would never be into that, but he was curious. Curious how it would be with another guy helping him blow her mind. Seemed like just another team assignment, in a perverse way.
He winked as he closed the door, making her laugh. He found Elijah in the living room, and motioned for the big cowboy to stand up.
“Time for your physical therapy.”
Elijah groaned, but got up without any further complaint. It was a simple regimen of stretching, and muscle-strengthening exercises.
And it continued to push Zander closer to the edge of leaving the IMPO. No, the idea was never going to leave. As a healer, Zander had to step back and look at what their jobs had done to their bodies. Magic could only go so far. Their luck was going to run out, and one day, no one would be there in time to save someone.
Like James.
It could have been any of them, if they had thought to leave someone else with the Councilwoman. D’Angelo had sent them gifts and notes, hoping to apologize for everything. They just put it all to the side. For once, Zander couldn’t even blame her. Shit happened, and they just needed to clean up the mess and get on with the next mission.
So he thought about Elijah’s accident. Quinn being torn up in the jungle and Sawyer going missing out there as well. Jasper losing a leg.
They had been broken by the IMPO and the WMC. By their own people, by friends and enemies.
It wasn’t healthy. At the rate they were going, none of them would make it to forty. It was a chilling realization. Zander was reckless, and he knew that. He made decisions based on how to help someone else, forgoing his own safety, but he didn’t want to die young and still lose everyone anyway.
And here he was, doing physical therapy with Elijah, who was as put together as magic could make him. Now they just needed to rebuild his muscles. He was lucky.
Many knew about the badly-broken back, but Zander didn’t even tell Elijah what his insides had looked like. Or his head and the nasty, awful crack it had. They had put the man back together. They had held him in the world of the living and forced his body to fix itself as they tried to gather pieces and hold them in place so that they weren’t regrowing half a kidney, or lung, which had been shredded and torn up by broken ribs.
It had been a rough time.
They had been so lucky.
Zander knew the luck would run out. The luck always ran out.
8
Sawyer
Two weeks flew by Sawyer, and she didn’t know where they went. She stood looking at the new big house, the guys all heading inside with the animals, but she couldn’t pick up her feet.
“You know,” Thompson said mildly. “I always disliked this house for some reason.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about it yet,” she said softly. “But we’ll be close to New York, I guess. That helps with the case. We’ll be able to come in and get things done at headquarters if it’s needed. Since James isn’t here to do that stuff for us anymore.”
“Of course. I’m there, but you don’t want me doing much of his old work. I don’t know the first thing about it except he made my life a pain in the ass for you all. Just let me know when I can throw my position behind something you need.”
“Thanks,” she sighed, nodding.
“How’s it coming?” he asked, obviously interested, but trying not to act like it.
She growled. It wasn’t. Nothing was moving. The mentions she got about anything to do with Axel were just references to him, but nothing that led to a lead. Nothing that helped her. And once the move-in was finished, she had to bring the guys back into the fold on the case. Sadly, there was barely any case. They were quickly approaching January and she had nothing.
“Take until New Year’s Day off and settle in. The case will still be there in January.”
She narrowed her eyes on the Director. It was like he read her mind. She didn’t know his abilities, but she hoped that wasn’t one of them.
She didn’t have a way to argue either. Continue monitoring, continue going over old locations. She had already contacted him to have that done. Without telling teams why, other agents all over the world were sent to see and secure a building, a warehouse, or a condo. A farm here and there. Anything she knew from before. Anything Vincent had already known about Axel’s organization.
None of them had given her any leads, but they told Axel she was coming. They were at least a warning.
“Fine,” she muttered. “The added buildings are still being done, right?”
“Yeah. Elijah’s workshop. The garage is finished being expanded as much as we could as well. We also upgraded the old outdoor shooting range.”
“Amazing.” It was like this was home.
“Go. I need to get back to New York.”
“Have a safe drive, Thompson,” she called as he got in his car. She waved politely as he drove away, then walked into the house. She tugged on her bond with Sombra and discovered the cat was in her room. She went up, knowing the first thing she needed to do was get used to her space.
Her new, big space, where a woman once lived with a man who had tried to play games with her and Axel. The thought refused to leave, but she ignored it as she stepped into the room. It looked completely different than the one she had seen only a couple of weeks before.
As she sat on the edge of her king, she realized it was barely her room. Sure, it
was deep blue tones with greys like her attic room in Georgia, but it didn’t feel like her.
That would just take time.
All in all, she did like the look of the room. She felt like she could be comfortable in it. It was spacious and bright, with two large windows that looked over the backyard. Her private bathroom matched the room.
If she could design a room for herself, it would have been this. Zander had done well, if he was the one who did it. She even had a giant walk-in closet where a massive safe sat in the back. She reminded herself that she still needed to secure her weapons and got to it. She couldn’t leave them in a bag forever.
She wasn’t paying attention, so when someone cleared his throat, she nearly jumped. Spinning, she saw Vincent standing in the closet doorway.
“When do we get to work?” he asked.
“Whenever you want,” she said carefully. The fact that he didn’t walk out and start immediately shocked her.
“I’ve been thinking about who Missy could possibly be from my past, but I’m not drawing any conclusions. There were always a few people who preferred Axel to me and vice versa. We didn’t have a rivalry back then, but people tried to play us against each other, especially when I came into my powers first, the younger son.” He leaned on the frame. “She could have literally been anyone, right?”
“Yeah.” Sawyer didn’t know how to help him. It was something they had worked on since Missy had said that to her. “Thompson told me we should take until New Year’s Day off and then jump back into it.”
Vincent was quiet, looking at her hanging clothes, until he sighed heavily. “I’m inclined to agree with him. We missed Christmas.” There was something guilty about the words.
“It’s okay,” she said softly.
“No. We promised you that we would do something. How are you? None of us…ask enough.”
The Redemption Saga Box Set Page 139
