Page 146 of Hate Me

“Jesus Christ, yes.”

He chuckled. “I’m glad, Cas. You needed to take the edge off.”

I frowned. “You’re worried about me?”

“You’re under a shit-ton of pressure. Something’s gotta give. And soon. Once this war is done.”

“I know,” I admitted.

“Yeah? You’re actually going to take a break?”

I reached out and fondled his cheek. “I was actually thinking of a real vacation. All four of us.”

His eyes lit up. “I love it.”

“Good. Then that’s what we’ll do.” I pulled him to me and he wrapped himself around me.

We fell into a comfortable soothing silence for a while.

Until he lifted his head and told me, “Not being there with you during these strikes… it’s not sitting well with me.”

“Everything is planned out, everybody is now in place. There’s literally nothing for you to do.”

“Cas—”

“I need you on the outside of this for a reason.”

He pulled back, eyeing me. “How so?”

“Once you’re back, I need you here. In my place.”

He started shaking his head.

“Listen,” I insisted, holding his face in my hands, so he couldn’t turn away and avoid this. “Listen, lovely. You’re my second. You always have been and everything you’ve learned and bettered about yourself over the last two years has actually made you my partner. We’re on the same level now. As a precaution, I need you to be in position here. Just a precaution, Caleb. I’ve given an order to my people to defer command to you should anything delay my return or compromise my ability to do so myself.”

“Should you fall, you mean?”

Yes. “That’s not what I said.” And I couldn’t say that—not to any of them. But I did need to account for the unexpected, for every eventuality, and of course, this was one. Highly unlikely, given the plan Dante and I had worked out tirelessly, but still a possibility nonetheless. “I need you. I need you to do this for me. For us.”

He squeezed his eyes shut for a few moments.

And then he sucked in a breath and told me, “Of course. I’ve got you. I’ve always got you, Cas. Just don’t… don’t make it a reality, all right? Be fucking careful.”

“I swear it to you. I’d do nothing less in order to make it home to you all.”

My phone buzzed with the notification I’d set up for the briefing.

“It’s time,” I told him, easing back.

He steeled himself. “Let’s do it.”

“I mean, I knew it was gonna be a multi-pronged assault against Bane, but this is another level,” Caleb said, as he stood in front of my desk, looking over all the documentation concerning the tactical strikes Dante and I were about to launch against Bane Industries.

I smiled at Luke who was hunched over my desk beside Caleb, also studying everything, giving everything one more detailed look, like I’d done earlier this morning.

It never hurt to have a second set of eyes, especially those as experienced as his.

With Caleb, I wanted him to be put at ease by seeing the intricate details that had been worked out, that everything was in place to do this right and with very limited damage or collateral damage. Plus, now he’d shown an interest in tactical know-how, it was pertinent for him to be exposed to this sort of thing, and I planned to teach him how to create a strategy this intricate once this war was over and done with and I could finally breathe again.

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