Page 68 of Clear Blue Sky

Nelson stood in his office, staring out the window overlooking the bar area. The first part of the plan had been put into play.

Now it was a waiting game.

He’d learned that patience was his friend when he’d been in the field, but waiting had never been easy.

It got worse now that the woman he loved could end up being put in danger. He pressed his hand against the center of his chest. He’d served in battles with every member of his family and the fear of losing his parents or his brothers wasn’t something foreign to him, but this feeling was something entirely new.

He wasn’t sure how to deal with it other than he knew without a shadow of a doubt if he ever lost Brandi, a big piece of him would die, and he’d never heal from that.

The door to the office opened and Maverick stepped inside. “Ethan was picked up by the FBI,” he said. “He hasn’t rolled over yet, but it’s going to be hard for him to deny what he’s done.”

Nelson turned. “Any news on Marcus and his crew?”

“It doesn’t appear that Ethan or anyone from his company sent Marcus a message,” Maverick said. “The Grants’ charter plane landed in NYC and Mom’s at their offices. Last I heard, Ethan was about to enter the building. Brandi’s father is at The Heritage Inn talking with Leslie as we speak, making a stink about something happening with the computer system and how Brandi left to fix it.”

“I don’t like that I’m stuck up here, and she’s at Foster’s rental house.” Nelson rubbed the back of his neck. He’d snuck into his restaurant before opening and had been hiding in his tiny office ever since. No one knew he was there, except Veronica and the three JSOC team members who were pretending to be new hires for the movie premiere. He had to do whatever was necessary to keep his staff safe, which meant keeping them in the dark.

Maverick leaned against the wall and folded his arms. “We need your eyes here when mine and Phoenix’s security alarms go off, and we have to leave to pretend to deal with that. We have to let all this play out.”

Nelson didn’t need his brother to go over the plan and all the whys with him, but he did appreciate Maverick trying to calm his nerves.

“Once we see what Roxy does on the inside, we’ll have more to take to Mom’s team,” Phoenix added.

“We still need Marcus and the rest of his cronies.” It killed Nelson on how Marcus kept one step on the fringe, using his sister to do some of the dirty work. “If only we knew more about Tony and Joe.”

“We do,” Maverick said. “One of Dad’s buddies is talking with them right now.”

“Nothing like burying the lead, little brother.”

Maverick shrugged. “They might not know anything of relevance. They were only on Marcus’ team for six months and their after-action report of the mission didn’t have any revealing information other than their request to transfer came before the mission in question and that Marcus and three other team members had been MIA for a few hours.” Maverick held up his hand. “It was explained later the team had been out for drinks at a local bar.”

“In a hostile country?” Nelson had heard this part of the story months after his release from the hospital in Germany and it always struck him as odd. Not that it couldn’t have happened since he and his team had often dealt with downtime by blowing off steam much in the same way. Not to mention that Marcus wasn’t there on a rescue mission. He’d been in the area for something entirely different.

“Yeah, that’s another thing that Dad learned that we didn’t know until this morning.”

Nelson cocked his head. “What’s that?”

“Marcus volunteered his team—actually, begged—to go to that location for a recon mission. He and his team had been there months before and they felt they had a good handle on whatever situation they had been assessing.”

“That didn’t have to do with Seth’s team?”

“Nope, but Marcus must have known where Seth’s deployment was and did his best to get close to the region,” Maverick said. “Anyway, it’s highly suspect that Tony and Joe weren’t included in the outing, which tells us they probably didn’t know what was going on.” Maverick pulled his cell phone out. “It’s Dad.”

“Put it on speaker.”

“Hey, Dad. You’re on speaker with Nelson.”

“Ethan just rolled. He’s singing like a canary,” their father said. “We have Tyler and Marcus on corporate sabotage. So, we have two choices. We can have the FBI pick them up now or continue with the plan.”

Nelson rubbed the back of his neck. “How ironclad are the charges?”

“There is always the chance they walk,” his father said. “We keep going, and we might we get them on treason and that would be the better outcome. Either way, we’ve at least got this to fall back on and the FBI is letting Mom make the call, so in reality, Nelson, this is your decision.”

“Hang on. Let me text Brandi.” He pulled out his phone.

“Is that really necessary?” his father asked. “I know you’re in love with her, and we adore her, but—”

“This affects her just as much as it does me.” Quickly, he sent a text to Brandi, giving her a succinct update.

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