“Lucian, is your relationship with the client going to be a problem if you are on the go team?” Gage demanded.

“It will not. Rainey and I haven’t even seen each other for years and years. To be honest, I had forgotten about her until today.”

Those words shot about a thousand poisoned bullets straight into my heart. I thought about him and missed him every day, and he had forgotten about me? I wanted to go back in there and slam his face into the wall.

After we find Simone,I promised myself.

I hurried away from the door as I heard them shuffling the papers, and Gage suddenly opened the conference room door. Gage looked at me knowingly. He knew that I was listening in on their conversation. I wasn’t about to apologize, though.

“You may as well come back in,” Gage said. He gestured towards one of the gentlemen sitting at the table, “Andrew is our cyber expert. He and Alex will make sure we get to where we need to be. They think we’ll need an hour to make sure that Simone and the others were taken to New York.”

I nodded, grateful they were going to help.

With a voice as steady as I could make it, I said, “If they find out that I’m Simone’s aunt and in law enforcement, they will kill Simone.”

Lucian said, “We thought of that. We know that time is of the essence. We just have to make sure we know where we are going. It wouldn’t do for us to head off to New York if they are taking her to Los Angeles.”

“We actually already had these guys in our sights,” Damian said. “We were planning on heading out to New York next week because we had a lead that the head guy was coming into the ports then. We’ll just go a little early.”

“Jared, you’d better call Elise. Tell her you’ll be back in time for the wedding on Saturday, most likely.”

A tall man with silvery blond hair groaned, “She’s gonna kill me.” Then, he excused himself and left the room.

Lucian laughed. “He’ll face an entire army by himself, but he is scared to death of a woman,” he said. “She has helped him get his life together.”

I just made a rude noise and walked away from him. That incredible urge to punch him in the nose was almost overwhelming.

Gage said, “I need to call Luka. She’s not going to be too happy with me leaving so soon after we just got back.”

Damian asked if I needed to get anything.

I smiled and said, “I’m an FBI agent. I travel with a go-bag. No worries.”

He nodded, then said, “I need to explain the nature of the people who work here. First, you know we were all special forces in the Army, Marines, Navy, or Air Force, right?”

“I figured as much,” I said. Then, I added. “Seeing the name of your organization, I would also guess that you are all shifters.” I loved the look of astonishment on his face.

“You know about shifters?” he asked, incredulously.

“Lucian and I,” I swallowed a hiccup that formed in my throat, “were friends and grew up together. I know that he is a shifter. Are you guys all dragon shifters, as well?”

Damian was stunned for a second and couldn’t speak. Finally, he found his voice again.

“No. I’m a tiger shifter. Gage is a bear shifter, and Jared is a wolf shifter.”

“Awesome. I always envied Lucian. I had wished I could shift as well.”

“Oh yeah, what would you shift into?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe a fly so I could overhear conversations. That would be helpful in my line of work.” Then, I spotted Lucian walking back toward us. “Or perhaps a flea so I could torture people who annoy me.”

Damian laughed. “I know what you mean.”

Lucian looked at me and then at Damian with a frown on his face.

“Andrew figured out where they are. We’re headed to New York.”

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