Page 128 of Hate Me

The one I’d assembled while I’d been away, the very one that I’d led into battle on behalf of Asher to take down those awful dollhouses his father and his empire had operated.

My team had begun as security for my facilities, but ended up becoming more than that when I’d extended my role to actually extracting victims of that sort of abuse and brutality too. Instead of waiting for them to come to my facilities for help, it had become a much more proactive setup. I even had members of my team doing recon on a potential human trafficking ring that we’d heard rumors about right now. I was doing my own reconnaissance the way I did best, via what Bastian termed my hacking. We were getting closer and it would require me leaving for a couple of days, something I hadn’t run by Cas yet, because things were going so well between us, between all four of us right now, and I knew me leaving in any way and just for a while was a sore spot for him, to put it mildly.

But I was running out of time, I’d have to do it soon.

After this operation.

Yeah, after this was done, and spirits were high from taking down Jett Bane at last, I’d do it.

“Caspian tells me you can spare six of your team members for this job?” Dante asked me.

“That’s right. I’ll have them deploy directly to the site.”

“You’re not a tactician, though. So your team leader is?”

“Sven, yeah. He’s actually ex-military too.”

“You’re more of a strategist than you give yourself credit for,” Caspian told me. “Everything you’ve put in place with your facilities, even assembling your own team of this nature.”

“Even so, I’m not at the level I need to be in order to risk people’s lives off my own calls.”

“Those dollhouse takedowns and the auction a few months back were masterminded by Asher Monroe entirely then?” Dante asked me.

I winced as he brought him up.

Caspian started tapping his fingers on the desk top, trying to contain his reaction.

“Yes,” I answered Dante.

“What about extracting him from that hellhole? Who masterminded that?”

“Aaron Wakefield. Better known as your spy.”

“I see,” he said, not reacting to or even seeming to register that last part at all. Instead, he stayed on task, and started laying out the tactical plan with Cas.

“Reinforced steel doors with keypad locking mechanisms,” Cas spoke.

“Blowing them will draw too much attention before Caleb and his team even make it inside,” Dante pointed out.

“So would cutting the power to bypass the locks.”

“Sky and I will take the apartment,” I said. “I’ll back her up as she goes for Jett. I’ll have my team blow the doors to create an intentional distraction that will keep them rooted to the fight club floor while we deal with Jett.”

The two of them stared out at me.

“What?” I asked.

The corner of Caspian’s mouth turned up. “Who says you’re not a tactician?”

“The greatest obstacle to you becoming such is your fear of losing those you care about from a decision you’ve made. You need there to be a buffer so you don’t bear the responsibility.”

“Are you gonna stand there wasting time psychoanalyzing me, or are we gonna finalize all these details so we can do this thing?” I snapped.

Dante stared at me, saying nothing, those odd pale blue eyes of his looking like they were trying to search within me.

Good luck with that.

“Let’s do this,” Cas said, noticeably annoyed at my attitude. “Focus up,” he said to me alone, then gave Dante an apologetic look.

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