Page 30 of King

“You’re fucking kidding me,” my friend growled. “Explains how they’ve been burning people on the sly.”

“Justice says they know who it is, but they haven’t let him know they’re on to him yet.”

“He’d call off the trade.”

“Here we go,” I muttered.

Joseph and I were officially on our own. Luckily, we were both damn good at our jobs because the next several hours were a clusterfuck that ended up with only one of us shot and the traitors taken care of.

“Stella is going to kick my ass,” I grumbled as I worked on the bullet wound in Joseph’s thigh.

“It’s a fucking flesh wound.” He tossed out the movie quote to lighten the mood, but he couldn’t hold back his grunt of pain as I extracted the bullet from inside his leg.

“Yeah, that won’t stop her from blaming me for letting you get shot.”

Joseph chuckled. “Stella my bella has the big, bad biker shaking in his boots? That’s my girl. Bet she was a handful to protect. I owe you, Connor.”

I stayed silent, figuring it wasn’t the right time to tell him that she was more to me than the daughter of a friend who I’d sworn to protect.

Hopefully, our extraction would be there any minute, avoiding further conversation on the topic of Stella and me. I finished patching up the hole in his leg just as we heard thewhomp whomp whompof helicopter propellers.

We weren’t in danger from the co-conspirators anymore. In fact, Gail and the bank clerk were dead, and Müller was beingtransported to a CIA black site for interrogation. But it would take time to have the burn notices on Joseph and me retracted. Which meant every intelligence, military, and police force in the world had us on their “no-fly” list…for lack of a better term. So I was relieved as fuck when I spotted the chopper approaching with a familiar face in the pilot’s seat.

Weston landed the bird, and I helped Joseph across the field and up into the back.

“It’s done?” I yelled as I climbed into the co-pilot seat.

Weston nodded and handed me a pair of headphones.

“Justice shut it down, and the motherfuckers are in custody.” He glanced at my empty hands and raised an eyebrow. “Where is it?”

I took off my boot and showed him the bottom, where remnants of an electronic item had clearly been smashed to bits.

“There’s gonna be hell to pay for not bringing it back with you,” Weston said, grinning.

“What are they gonna do? Fire me?”

I’d just saved their asses by making a loud mess so that the CIA could claim that the conspiracy went no further than the assets in Switzerland. Plus, Joseph and I had planted evidence and shit that made it appear as if the NOC list had been a fabrication and the shit show had been all about money.

Weston laughed as he took the chopper up into the air. “Maybe you’ll get another nonexistent commendation.”

Awards given to employees of the CIA were celebrated in a small ceremony, then the certificate or pin or whatever was kept in a vault on-site and there was only an internal record of the award.

“Don’t give a fuck what The Company does as long as the burn notice disappears. I’m going back to my girl and leaving all this shit behind for good.” I wasn’t opposed to using thesituation to my advantage, though. “Instead, you can make sure her job offer is rescinded.”

“Consider it done.”

Joseph had put on a pair of headphones as well, and I heard his low chuckle. “King got himself a woman? Never thought I’d see the day when you dropped your guard enough to find someone who’d put up with your grumpy-as-fuck ass.”

Weston shot me an amused glance, and I glared at him, daring him to say anything.

“Never thought I’d see the day when you got your ass chewed out by a little thing like Stella.”

Joseph laughed. “Now that you’ve met her, you understand.”

“I do,” I murmured. “I can’t wait to see what happens when you tell her about your next assignment.”

“Nope,” Joseph sighed. “I’m done.” Then he pointed at me and glared. “And Stella is never to know about me getting shot.”

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