Page 9 of Not Taken

I snapped my lighter shut, a ping ringing between us. “Excuse me?” I replied, my voice dripping with contempt.

“Captain wants another check-in.” Jones shrugged casually, the heavy chains around his neck clinking as he moved. “He's worried about the lack of reports. So we’re only sharing once you give us the intel we requested on the Marshall deal.”

My brows hitched as I took him in. The Marshall deal wasn’t even important, it was just a purchase of illegal diamonds that barely reached $100,000.

A year out of the academy and no field experience, and he was acting as if he was the captain.

“Are you a fucking child?” I asked, genuinely curious. “This isn’t like we’re sharing each other’s crushes on the playground. Please tell me that after a year you at least know what I’m trying to do here? Or are you really that dumb?”

Chalmers at least had the decency to appear embarrassed. Jones was just pissed.

I’d chosen Chalmers to run background operations because of her experience, and Jones came recommended by the captain. I suspected he was the son of someone important, especially because he was staring at me as if I was the one acting out of line.

“I send reports as often as I can. And the Marshall deal was two weeks ago. It’s already done,” I said bluntly. And I couldn’t be sure the Donelli's weren’t tracking my emails whenever I did send reports. My laptop was heavily encrypted, but no system was impenetrable.

Jones scoffed. “Yeah, but see, those reports don't mean shit when you don't actually give us information. It’s all bullshit figures and arrival and departure times of trucks. What the fuck are we meant to do with that?” Jones replied, glaring at me.

I schooled my expression, giving away none of my irritation, though I did fling a look at Chalmers, who stared at me pointedly. I guess she was on the kids’ side this time.

“We do need more detailed reports,” she said. “They aren’t satisfied with the success of the operation.”

“I’m the one who’s out there risking his neck.” I clicked my tongue against my teeth, trying not to get angry at how fucking immature this was. “If the Captain wants more reports he can come down here and get them himself.”

Jones shook his head, leaning back against the red plastic seat of the booth. “It's not good enough. We didn't train you this long for you to fuck about.”

My nostrils flared and I forced myself to take a deep breath. The last time I felt like this was four days ago when I duct-taped Carlos to a chair.

I had a pistol on my hip. We might be in public and we might be federal agents but if Jones pushed me any harder I’d take the risk of dragging him around the back of the diner and shooting him in the fucking head.

He was younger than Caleb, yet he was talking to me like a superior. Like he was directly involved in everything I had done to get this far. All the pain, all the training, all the years to even be having this conversation with them. He really had no idea what it meant to me, or even what it meant to be an agent.

“And I didn't train for this long to fuck it up just because you want quick results,” I growled.

It had taken months of putting everything in place to kill Wyatt, another seven months before I could get to Bruno. I had the patience to plan my attacks. Jones had no clue about the long game.

“We expected more from you than information on where certain goods are stored and family dynamics,” Chalmers said. “Don’t you have anything about the actual goods they are running? If we could do more than stop and search their trucks then we could make a dent, at least.”

I grit my jaw, a slow breath through my nose to keep myself calm and enjoy the bite of pain left from Caleb's kisses that kept me from laying into both of them. It was the same every time.

No matter how much I stressed that the best approach was patience; their captain, and the major, and everyone above them wanted to report to the next that the operation was doing well. For them, it wasn't about addressing the actual damage and terror caused by the Donelli family. It was all about scoring points with the higher-ups.

I was the one that first proposed the operation. Even though it had only been a year since they killed Martha, the payoff had the higher-ups salivating enough to approve it, even considering my history with them. The Donelli’s had been operating for three generations, with only minor arrests and charges. They were a high priority case and they were always searching for agents to go in, but they didn’t have the balls to take responsibility for going against the Donelli’s themselves. Which was why they were happy to ‘delegate’ the task to me and my team, even ignoring Harley’s recommendation for them to carry out a psychological evaluation. I promised the higher-ups long-term results, and now I had to deal with this shit.

I leaned forward, elbows on the table, scowling at them both. The longer the seconds stretched by, the darker Chalmer’s expression grew, while Jones’ grin widened. There were times I was tempted to push a knife into his stomach to make it clear this wasn’t a fucking joke. We weren’t playing games here, and a stab wound would be kind compared to what else Sam Donelli might do to us.

“You give us what we want. We give you what you want,” Chalmers said, staring me down.

“This isn’t a negotiation. You’re here to do a job,” I replied to both of them, and Jones’ bright eyes glinted at the challenge. Except it wasn’t about getting one up on each other. We were meant to be working together.

I cocked a brow, shaking my head. “I’m not budging here.”

There was a pause between us before Jones swung his gaze to Chalmers. She gave him a quick nod, and he reached inside his jacket pocket, picking out a thin brown envelope the size of a postcard.

“Two pictures of Lacey,” she said, as Jones waved it in front of me like a treat for a dog. “One last month during your mother’s birthday party. Another from a week ago. Your father bought her a new dress.”

The lighter froze in my hand as I eyed up the envelope, my breath stolen, vanished amongst the tension flaring up in my body. I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth to stop myself from leaping for the envelope. There were two things that truly meant anything to me apart from my revenge: my daughter, and Caleb.

And they were the only things that could make me snap.

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