Page 39 of Protecting Jess

Was his buddy missing Sylvia? Was he having second thoughts about the breakup? Or was it something else?

Finn hadn’t missed the dark look Kaley sent in Oak’s direction before she’d gotten up from where she’d been sitting. “You good, man?” he asked under his breath.

Oak looked up. “Yeah, fine. Why?”

“Having grown up with a little sister, I know that saying fine means you’re anything but that. Not to mention, you’re staring at your beer, as if it was watered down so badly, it tastes like piss.”

“Tasted piss, have you?” Oak smirked.

“Remember that bar in Papua New Guinea and the beer they served us there? The only reason we all drank it down like it was an elixir is because we hadn’t had anything decent to drink in days.”

His teammate chuckled. “Yeah, that was pretty bad, wasn’t it?”

While Oak was laughing, he didn’t look completely happy, and their location, in the middle of the bar and surrounded by their teammates, wasn’t the ideal place for a deep and meaningful conversation.

“If you want to talk, I’m here, okay?” Finn said.

Oak nodded. “I know.”

Movement at the door had them all looking toward the entrance. Habit of the job—always on alert and, even though they were in a bar where most of the patrons were military, it didn’t mean that shit couldn’t happen.

He lifted a hand when Safe and Smiley came in, along with the rest of their team and Remi, Kevlar’s partner.

“Mind if we join you?” Kevlar asked, keeping a firm arm around Remi’s shoulder. Their team had been through a lot recently with Remi being kidnapped.

In the end, everything had turned out well, mainly thanks to another SEAL, Blink, who’d been recovering from a past traumatic event.

“The more the merrier,” House said.

Tables and chairs were added, and their group now took up a large portion of the area, not an unusual event in Aces. Teams often got together and took up a lot of the space. Jessyka didn’t mind. In fact, she encouraged it.

“That was messed up,” Oak said, as they all sat again. “What happened with Remi.”

“Yeah,” Finn agreed. “It’s no fun being taken, let alone by someone you thought you could trust. When my mom and I were kidnapped, we were taken by someone we didn’t know. She didn’t think twice about her life. Her only concern was keeping me safe.”

Oak reared back, arching an eyebrow. “You were kidnapped as a kid?”

Finn nodded. “Long story, and now isn’t the place to talk about it.” Plus, he didn’t want Jess to recall the trauma she and Aunt Poppy had gone through.

“I was, too,” Jess piped up, and Finn pulled her close to him.

“What?” his buddy asked.

“My mom and I were kidnapped by the brother of the person who took Finn and his mom.”

Oak’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “Shit, that’s some fucked-up stuff. The fact it happened to the two of you.” He shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it. “That’s just wild.”

Their jobs took them all over the world in an attempt to take out sick fuckers and, yet, there were so many simply walking suburban streets—people who didn’t look like they would harm a fly, but there was a part of their soul that turned them into monsters.

“The world is a fucked-up place,” Finn said.

“You got that right. It’s always the ones you least expect to cause problems that do,” Jess said. “I speak from experience.”

He flexed his fingers around her shoulders. “We’ll get to the bottom of what happened in your hotel room. We’ll find out who’s doing this and why,” he whispered in her ear before brushing his lips across her cheek.

“Everything good, Hive?” Kevlar asked, his focus on him and Jess.

It didn’t surprise Finn that Kevlar had picked up on what was going on with the two of them. It was what made him a fantastic team leader. They’d done some missions with the guy’s team, and Kevlar was very thorough in ensuring they had all the intel and plans in place before they went into the fray.

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