Page 43 of Bound By Valor

Logan continued to defend his hair care routine with passion. “That’s because I care about my hair. Do you know what the constant use of balaclavas can do to your hair?”

“Should we start a support group? ‘Balaclavas Anonymous’ for affected hair?” Kabir’s sarcasm met with a glare from Logan.

Dylan jumped in with a grin. “Maybe Logan should launch his own line of ‘Balaclava Safe’ hair products. Could be a hit?”

Logan shot Dylan a look that was part annoyance, part amusement. “Hilarious. Remind me to leave you out of my billion-dollar haircare empire.”

Kabir laughed, patting Logan on the back. “Don’t worry, brother, we’ll just be your before photos.”

Logan rolled his eyes but couldn’t suppress a smile. “Keep it up, and I’ll start hiding your gear in shampoo bottles.”

Dylan smirked, folding his arms across his chest. “Good luck squeezing my rifle into a conditioner bottle.”

“That’s a challenge,” Logan retorted with a playful nod. “But I bet I could fit Kabir’s entire tech setup in my hair mask jar.”

Kabir feigned shock, touching his chest in mock horror. “Not the sacred hair mask jar!”

The laughter grew louder, echoing around the sparsely furnished room, and even Zarek shook his head with a chuckle.

The banter slowly wound down as Zarek and I began to unpack, but the lightness it brought remained.

Zarek and I headed to our bedroom.

Our bedroom.

I hadn’t originally planned to share a space with Zarek, but now that it was a reality, the idea of being apart from him seemed unimaginable.

As we settled into our new temporary room, Zarek produced a phone from his pocket, extending it toward me with a serious look. “This is yours now. It’s secure, but try to keep contact with family and friends to a minimum.”

Grasping the phone eagerly, a surge of relief washed over me—it had been days since I’d felt the comforting weight of a phone in my hand. “I need to check my damn email,” I half-joked, half-serious. “I’m probably fired by now.”

Zarek’s response was a soft, amused smile as he watched me power it on and dive into my inbox. My fingers flew over the screen, logging into my mail app, where a flood of unread messages awaited. But it was one particular email that caught my eye—an email from the day after my birthday.

As I scanned the contents, my eyes widened in disbelief. “Zarek, what did you do?” I looked up athim, baffled.

He just shrugged, an enigmatic smirk playing on his lips. “Nothing too obvious. Just keeping your options open.”

The email revealed that I had been officially recruited by the Toronto Police Department for a ‘special assignment’. Astonishingly, I was still on Detention Center’s payroll, a clever maneuver on his part to give me cover and financial security while I navigated this chaos.

This meant I wasn’t just away; I was still officially employed, tethered to my old life by a thread he had spun silently behind the scenes. Only until I was ready to go back. And I realized that I might not ever be ready to go back.

???

Dinner wrapped up, but our minds were far from at ease, buzzing back into mission mode. The uncertainty about Jerome Tyson and his notorious father, Garret, kept us plotting non-stop, keen on intercepting their Crazon shipments. The stakes were high; in the wrong hands, Crazon could wreak havoc, a risk we couldn’t afford.

As Logan outlined my training schedule post-dinner, debates heated within the squad. “There’s no point,” Kabir was saying, frustration clear as day, “If we can’t fully understand what Crazon is capable of, we’re essentially fighting blind, Zarek. We can’t know everything with the testing we’ve been doing.”

“I’m not saying we abandon the idea of exploring its capabilities,” Zarek said, flipping a Crazon deviceonto the table, watching it spin aimlessly. “Let’s just hold off until we get the green light from above. The intrusive tests are not authorized, yet.”

Amelia shook her head in disagreement, and Dylan, ever the stoic, said nothing. Logan kept out of it, leaving Kabir and Zarek locked in a typical showdown. “And I’m arguing for immediate action. They’ll give us the nod, I’m sure of it,” Kabir countered and Zarek shook his head.

“I think,” I interjected hesitantly. “We can’t afford to wait. What if our delay puts the entire squad at risk? We hardly know anything about it. What if it puts us a step behind?”

Kabir gestured supportively towards me then crossed his arms, a smug look plastered across his face. Zarek’s eyes narrowed, his irritation palpable. “So you think they’re already outmaneuvering us?”

“The longer we wait, the more advantage we give them. If we don’t know what can hurt us, it inevitably will,” I pressed on, my resolve hardening.

“And what? Following protocol is now pointless?” Zarek’s voice was sharp, slicing through the tension.

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