Page 75 of Bound By Valor

Leaning towards Leora, I whispered, “I’ll be right back, okay?”

I followed Sebastian out the door and when he saw me behind him, he signaled me into his office. I sat across from him, a massive wooden desk between us.

“You think we will succeed?” I asked.

“I think we have a very good chance of getting Jerome…alive.”

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the desk, “I think we should focus on getting the team back…alive.”

“You’re in love,” he nodded speculatively, “Don’t let that blur your vision, Ghost.”

“I love my squad too, as I’m sure you do too, your team. We have bigger fish to fry and I don’t want us to make mistakes.”

He leaned back in his chair, his head thrown back, and stared at the ceiling, “I think we’re missing something. I’m not saying this is all too easy. But I feel like there’s something we’re overlooking,” he abruptly straightened himself and narrowed his gaze, “Did anything unusual or unexplainable happen since you started this assignment?”

I processed back to the time I was shot behind the second safehouse.

“We had a lone visitor at one of the safehouses,” I frowned, “He had a sniper gun and didn’t approach the safehouse. Logan said he was a hired gun. Logan, Leora and I had been out at that time. Any one of us could have been the target.”

“You think it was Casteel targeting Leora again?”

I shook my head because I didn’t really believe it. Casteel’s aim was to eliminate the squad using Leora. He wouldn’t gain anything from having Leora shot. Plus he liked to do his dirty work himself.

“No. That’s not it.”

Sebastian nodded slowly and I continued, “Well, we had the mercenary questioned. He mentioned a target. Didn’t say who it was. At the time I thought it was Leora. But, now I think it wasn’t.”

Sebastian sighed, “Anything else happen?”

I shook my head, “We can look into this after the mission. We haven’t had any problems since then,” I said.

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you at lunch,” I got up.

“You won’t. I have a meeting with the NYPD.”

“Later, then,” I said as I stalked off and joined the rest of the team in the conference room.

THIRTY-TWO

Leora

“Before,” I said.

“After,” Logan rolled his eyes.

I flicked him hard on his head. He hissed and scrunched his brows.

“I said, after, Leo. You can’t have the mock mission before the damn mission. You might be out of action for a while after the mock,” Logan said sincerely.

I contemplated what he was saying. We were working together to load our gears with maximum effectiveness in the armory. We had plans to figure out how to arm our forces with the best, yet, lightest weapons and keep the team quick on their feet.

“Fine,” I sighed, “I’ll just do the mock in a month, then. If I’m doing it after Operation Icarus, I’d rather do it with the most preparation.”

He nodded as he smiled victoriously, “Good, I’llwhip up your training schedule for after the mission. Be careful though, it’ll be super tough with vigorous training and long hours.”

I curtsied, “Bring it on, Master Lo.”

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