Page 6 of Mistletoe in the Mafia

“Uh-huh. You were just talking about the Torres case and the footage we were able to capture a month ago,” I reply easily.

Sure, I hadn’t been actively listening. But I can multi-task like a pro.

Joshua smirks. “The footage should have already gotten us a lead by now if somebody could just speed things up.”

“Easy, boss. I’m an intelligence analyst, not a superhero.”

A couple of my teammates snicker. Joshua sighs. “Alright, let’s hope Ms. Flores will eventually get us some more information on Torres’s location.”

I offer him a thumbs up in reply. To be honest, I’m actually working as hard as I can to trace the location of the bastard. Torres is an elusive criminal mastermind we’ve been chasing for months. Every agent on our team has a personal vendetta against him, and we’ve been working ourselves to the bone trying to track him down. His empire runs on fear, and his hands are stained with enough blood to make even the toughest agents uneasy. But he’s always one step ahead, always disappearing before we can get too close.

A couple months ago, he baited us into a warehouse and tried to take out four of our agents. Luckily, they all survived, but one of them did end up in the hospital. What pisses us off the most about Torres is his constant need to play games with us. We’re ajoke to him. I’m almost sure he’s not working alone at this point. I’m pretty sure he’s backed by the mafia, but every time I bring up the possibility, it’s shut down.

We recently came across footage of him in a parking garage, negotiating some sort of deal. I’ve been trying to track him down with that, but my efforts aren’t panning out.

Joshua moves on to some other case about a group of teenagers who pulled off a big scam. We already have them in custody so it’s not really important. I tune him out once again until someone taps my arm. I look beside me at Kenny, one of the senior agents.

He has a wide grin, but there’s an edge of stress in his blue eyes. He’s a couple years older than me, and he and I share the same brand of crazy. We’re friends. Plus, Kenny looks like a model, with his defined cheekbones and shaggy blonde hair.

“Hey, did you hear about the team-building exercise they’re planning for the Christmas party?” he asks, his Southern accent peeking through. “Apparently, it involves us going through an obstacle course dressed as reindeer.”

And just like that, I’m successfully distracted. My eyebrows rise. “Please tell me you signed us up for that.”

He chuckles, clearly feeling the same level of excitement. Like me, Kenny loves Christmas. He’s the only one that ever puts an effort into Christmas activities around here. Everyone else just patronizes me.

“Definitely. Although I’m not too sure about the reindeer part.”

“I think you’ll look cute with antlers and a red nose.”

“As long as you think I’m cute.” He grins. “Maybe after the games and the party, you and I could go out?”

I force a smile at that. Kenny’s been subtly hitting on me for years. And I’ve been subtly turning him down every time. I just don’t date, and I especially don’t date at my workplace.

If we didn’t work together, I would consider hooking up with him. But we do, and if we did hook up, it could turn messy and awkward. I like our nice, easy relationship. There’s no need to ruin that.

“Okay, I think we’re done,” Joshua announces, saving me from having to reply to Kenny. At least for now. “Everyone have anything to say?”

My hand shoots up before he’s even finished the sentence.

“As we all know, Christmas is only a few weeks away,” I begin. There’s some groans, a few chuckles, but for the most part, everyone’s used to this. “I’ll put out a list of the pre-Christmas activities we’ll all take part in. Apart from the games and the party, I’m thinking of spicing things up this year with an ugly sweater day?—”

Joshua cuts me off. “What would that even entail?”

“It’s pretty obvious, boss. Everyone wears their ugliest, most festive sweaters in to work. It’ll be fun,” I announce excitedly.

“Right…” Joshua trails off.

“There will, of course, also be a Secret Santa draw next week, so let’s all come prepared for that,” I state, and there are a few murmurs of agreement before I finish. “That’ll be all.”

Joshua arches an eyebrow. “You sure you don’t have another crazy holiday event to add?”

“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” I answer cheerfully.

He roll his eyes dramatically. “Meeting adjourned.”

I go straight for the donuts. I sigh softly as I bite into a chocolate one—no cinnamon, unfortunately. I’m in the middle of eating it when one of my co-workers informs me that the boss is requesting my presence.

Well, that can’t be good.

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