Page 46 of In The Trenches (Owens Protective Services)

“It’s funny, because I thought we were working together,” Thumper answered with a smirk. “But I guess this is one of those situations when government assholes need our help, but won’t give anything in return.”

Not only did my guys have it pegged, they were getting under Rafe’s skin. And I knew the next hit would set him off.

“Why is it that you’re still wearing that mask?” IRIS asked. “Something you’re hiding besides every fucking government secret that would allow us to help in some sort of way instead of sitting here with our thumbs up our asses?”

To his credit, Rafe didn’t flinch like I expected him to. He was somewhat of an enigma. He despised working for the government, but also realized that in order to have the intelligence he needed, sacrifices had to be made. He was Special Ops in the military for years, until he was recruited for special assignment from the higher ups. Somehow, he got dragged into his current position, and I knew it ate at him that he didn’t get out sooner, before they had their claws in him permanently.

“We have a fucking terrorist in your basement, and the man he’s working for is still out there. I don’t give a fuck if you like working with me or not. You don’t like it? There’s the door. Walk out and don’t come back.” He looked around at all of us, but no one moved. “We have bigger problems right now than just this terrorist threat. We need to work with the city to restore power. As of right now, the power failure spreads along the entire west coast. It could take weeks to repair. In the meantime, the city is failing. We were lucky this occurred at night when hardly anyone was on the streets. If this had happened during the day, we would have had massive pile ups on every single road. However, we still have major issues with hospitals working on backup generators. The current standard for backup generators at a hospital is ninety-six hours. That buys us a few days, but we need to figure out a way to buy them more time. Fuel trucks to replenish the supply will be in high demand and—”

“Hold on a minute,” I interrupted. “We have a terrorist in the basement and you want us to focus on the city?”

“This is the current threat. My team will handle Grady—”

“Like hell you will,” I threatened. “If it weren’t for us, you wouldn’t have gotten to him in time. We’re not stepping back. The city needs the fucking National Guard, not a security company.”

“I think you’re misunderstanding,” he said in a low voice. “This isn’t a joint operation. Your job ended the minute you allowed Grady to put that fucking bomb on the plane.”

“Maybe if the government shared intel, we could have prevented it from ever happening,” I snarled.

Rafe scoffed at that. “You know I can’t share intel. It’s classified. And even if I could share it, what would you have done about it? You’re just a security company.”

I stood, shoving my chair back along with every other person on my teams. “Just a security company, highly trained by the very government you work for,” I said through clenched teeth. “Where the fuck has keeping secrets ever gotten us?”

“You want to talk about secrets?” he shot back. “Why don’t we tell everyone in the room how we know each other?”

Silence filled the room as my guys all turned and looked at me, but I was still staring down Rafe. “Everyone get the fuck out, now!”

The room cleared out so fast, it was like no one was ever there. Even his men beat feet to get away from the shitstorm brewing. Rafe walked over to me, his eyes gleaming in the dim light of the room.

“Do you really want to go there? After all we’ve gone through to keep our connection a secret, you want to throw it all away now?”

“I never fucking said that,” I snapped. “You knew this was happening in my city. You could have contacted me.”

“You know I can’t do that!” he shouted. “Fuck, don’t you think I would have if I could?”

“No, I don’t think you would have.”

“You don’t trust me?” he said, flinching back slightly.

“Tell me, when was the last time you gave me a reason to.”

I watched as he tensed, his jaw ticking hard under his mask. Tensions were running so high it was suffocating. But I knew him. He wouldn’t yield. Nothing would stop him from finishing a job, not even me. It didn’t matter what my team could offer. Right now, we were shoved into the back seat, left to only help clean up the mess.

“I’ll get in contact with the mayor’s office and fill them in on what’s happening. I’m going to request they work with your office in making sure the city is secure. I don’t have the time or manpower to take over operational control.”

“And Grady?” I snarled.

“I’m taking him with me. Don’t fucking try to stop me, Cash. It won’t end well for you.”

He stomped past me out of the room. I knew I had lost that round. It didn’t matter what my team did to stop the threat, the repercussions of not succeeding just slapped us in the face.

* * *

I watchedas Rafe and his team frogmarched Grady out of our facility. Anger welled up inside me, but there was nothing I could do. If the government came in and took over, you were basically fucked. I could go through old contacts and try to worm my way back in, but in the end, Rafe would shut me down, just like he always did.

“Boss, are we really letting this happen?” Scottie asked.

“We don’t have a choice.”

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