Page 95 of Unmade

He furrowed his brow and glanced at me. “No? She’s just good at her job. She doesn’t leave much of an impression, she’s not overly nice?—”

I snorted. “She’s flirted with Beckett.”

I remembered that from orientation day.

Coach blew out a breath and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Jesus Christ. Can you at least try to be subtle?”

Huh?

He stared at me. “How long have you and Beckett been fucking?”

Whoa! I-I…I… What did I say? How did he know? How had I not been subtle? I hadn’t said anything! Oh fuck, could this get Beckett into trouble? The fraternization policy at Hillcroft was so vague. Intimate relationships weren’t forbidden between operators and other employees, but HR needed to be involved at some point, and then there were special rules for recruits, and maybe I had skimmed that section.

“We will discuss this later,” Coach told me.

I swallowed and shifted in my seat.

Wonderful.

Next, he held up a finger and adjusted his earbud. “Yeah, speak.”

I looked over at the immigrants and mustered a polite smile. Hopefully, they found it reassuring. We weren’t going to turn them over to the authorities or anything. But I wanted to make sure they ended up in a better place than with the German fuckers who were exploiting them.

“I didn’t know he was on the East Coast,” Coach was saying. “In that case, can we put Squeezy on this? She’ll talk to him.”

Well, this was an interesting change of plans for my day. Safe to say, I wasn’t bored or dreading the rest of the week. This was actually fun. To be part of the action, to do something that mattered.

“Me no habla Español, sorry,” I said apologetically. “But we will help you, okay? We will help.”

They exchanged a couple glances in amusement and confusion, though they stayed on edge for the most part. Coach, on the other hand, gave me a look that said I was an idiot.

“Sorry,” I mouthed.

There was something wrong with me.

It was just…for the first time, nothing hurt. Maybe I should be more worried? A lot was going on, especially if Coach knew about Beckett and me, but I had faith that things would work out.

It was the strangest fucking feeling.

I brushed my hands together and eyed the cuts and scrapes I had—from when the explosion had catapulted me backward. They didn’t hurt either.

With a slight turn, I understood we were taking an exit somewhere, and I looked around to see if I could find anything useful. Coach wrapped up his conversation and spoke to the workers in Spanish, and he gestured to the floor.

Then he patted them down, maybe looking for guns…?

Wait, why wasn’t there anything useful in the van? No tools, no cleaning supplies, no gardening stuff, no nothing. It was empty. Yet, the workers were so clearly dressed to blend in with blue-collar people. Cleaners, maintenance, handymen, gardeners, plumbers…

I’d cleaned offices before, and we didn’t arrive empty-handed. The company car my coworker and I had had access to had been filled with shit.

“What are you telling them?” I asked.

Coach eyed me briefly. “To get down on the floor as soon as we stop.”

Okay, good to know. “Can you ask them what they do for a living? Because, look around. There’s nothing here. Shouldn’t they have, like, hoses and rakes or mops and cleaning supplies?”

He frowned and directed his flashlight into the darkest nooks and crannies. Then he faced the workers once more and asked a question in a more demanding voice.

Some of them showed their palms and shook their heads, claiming innocence or that they didn’t know anything, but one lone man had another response. He spoke to Coach and slowly retrieved something from a chest pocket in his coveralls, and my eyebrows flew up.

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