Page 106 of Redemption

Sugar narrowed her eyes and bit her lip. “I suppose not.” She turned to the rest of the room. “All right… You’re Marco’s ATF newbie, and you are the agent in charge of training the newbie.” She pointed to the other guys. “FBI. Lord knows the field office out there wouldn’t let anything happen without knowing what was going on.” She centered her gaze back on Deacon, apprehension suddenly tickling the back of her mind as to how this was about to get far more complicated. “Which makes you…”

Deacon’s challenging smile said that she was correct about the FBI agents. “There are only two things you should care about when it comes to me.”

“And they are?”Damn mind games…Sugar steeled herself for whatever was coming. Deacon had just dropped a level of cool in her opinion.

“First, when you have Nunez and myself in a room, I win,” Deacon said, and Marco didn’t disagree. “Always.”

“Always, huh?”Well then, he just bumped himself back up a level of cool.“Always promising.”

“And second, I go way back with your boy Jax.”

Jax. Titan’s newest recruit. What did she know about him? Not as much as she wanted to. “You were a military man, Deacon?”

“Do I look like I was in the military?”

“You look like you could do whatever you wanted to, my friend,” she played along, assessing. But where did Jax come into play? He was a SEAL. Sugar scrambled to place the clues in the right order and figure this guy out—and thatwasher clue. He was a spook.Everything was always a mind game.“So you’re with the CIA.”

“We like to keep ourselves involved when we see peace-keeping opportunities.”

“Is that what we’re calling it these days when Langley plays God?” Sugar snorted. “Now that that’s out of the bag, let’s hear who Uncle Sam has decided to let live and die today.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

“You’re not going to ask about Jax?” Deacon dropped his chair onto all four legs.

Sugar leaned her elbows on the table, pushing her ass up. Did she look that simple?

“Jax…” She pursed brightly lined lips together and was aware that one of the ATF agents was intently watching those more than her face in general. “Is a dickhead.”

With the exception of Deacon, the table’s worth of men leaned forward, waiting on her answer. Collectively, they fell back, surprised she didn’t fall for the CIA’s gossipy bait, and they each tried to play it down.

“I want to know all about Vashchenko and Massey.” She straightened. “If we could put all the bullshit CIA games to the side, that’d work for me.”

“Fair enough,” Deacon agreed.

The lip-starer failed to hide his smile, and Sugar got the impression that he hated Marco as well.

“I’m here to ensure the status quo,” Deacon offered.

“Which you aren’t ensuring,” one of the FBI agents added. “Tommy Mondello,” he added, giving her his name.

“Why is that, Tommy?”

“We are.” Deacon’s voice dropped. “Distribution and product levels haven’t increased.”

“But payment’s changed.” Sugar casually let her fingernails tap on the table, one after another, as every head in the room shot to her.

“What the hell do you know?” Deacon snapped.

“The reasonwhyVictoria Massey is missing.” She tapped her fingernails again, letting the pace pick up.

“It’s getting out of control,” Tommy snapped,

“You think pulling the strings and calling the shots means the Russians won’t change the plays?” Marco laughed. “You boys gotta get out of Langley more often.”

“If Titan Group didn’t throw off the peaceful world order, we wouldn’t have a payment issue right now.” Deacon’s friendliness was gone.

“Sorry that us saving pussy from plunder and pillage made your office gig a little harder.” She rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you stick to living in the drama and the politics of the drugs, guns, and trafficking, and tell me what I need to know to help rescue my girl.”

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