Hell on Wheels (Black Knights Inc. #1)(22)
And now, on top of all that, she was stuck in a room with Grigg’s closest friends and they seemed more intent on one-upping each other than helping her figure out just what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks was going on.
And crap!
She was on the verge of tears again.
“We are a very small shop of government defense contractors,” Frank said evenly, ignoring Dan and Ozzie’s continued bickering.
Say what, now? The threatening tears dried up like a desert mirage as she turned to gape at Frank.
Well…that’d been…remarkably easy.
The slightly amused tilt to Frank’s storm-cloud gray eyes assured her he’d had every intention of giving her the answers to her questions from the very beginning.
Okay, so double crap. She’d indulged in a petulant outburst for no apparent reason, which was perfect. As if watching two men rifle through her underwear and being forced to hand over her dirty panties wasn’t humiliation enough for one day.
“All right…” she reached behind her for the chair, mentally shifting gears and shakily retaking her seat. The rush of adrenaline drained from her body, and she suddenly felt like a wet rag, limp and lifeless. So this was it. Finally…the truth—at least more of it than Grigg had been willing to share. Oh, triple crap! Now she really felt like crying. “You guys are like…what?” she sniffed and refused to give in to the need for a good ol’ fashioned bawl-a-thon. “The Expendables?”
Ozzie barked with laughter, concluding his verbal sparring with Dan and rejoining the conversation. “I’m in love with you, woman. I swear I’ll make you the best husband ever. And yeah, we’re the Expendables. Just younger, better looking, with cooler bikes and real bullets.”
All righty then. So comparisons with The Expendables were not appreciated. Message received. Loud and clear.
“I’m out of the loop again,” Dan groused.
“Dude, of course you are,” Ozzie said. “The movie is less than twenty years old—”
“So then you’re…spies?” she interrupted Ozzie before he and Dan could start going at it again.
Dan rolled his eyes and blew out a disgusted breath. “What is everyone’s fascination with spies? Of all our assignments, those including espionage are usually eye-crossingly dull. Lots of sitting around waiting for that perfect piece of information to land in your lap. No, thank you. Give me a rescue mission or target demolition any day.”
Sheesh, she obviously wasn’t making any friends by trying to categorize them. Thankfully, Frank came to her rescue.
“On occasion we do infiltrations to gather information—what you’d consider your typical espionage. Mostly, however, what we do is the stuff the U.S. government needs done but can’t afford to overtly do itself.”
So okay, he didn’t need to spell it out for her. She’d lived with Grigg working for the Marine Corps long enough to read between the not-so-subtle lines.
“O-kay,” she murmured, lifting her Coke toward her mouth, only to stop halfway and set it back down. “Okay,” she said again, a little louder, still having trouble grasping the fact that she’d been given the answer so easily. After years of speculation and waiting for Grigg to come clean, suddenly here she was, with the truth tossed out so matter-of-factly.
Why hadn’t Grigg just told her? Why hadn’t he trusted her to—
No.
Those types of questions weren’t going to get her anywhere. Particularly since the only person who could answer them was gone forever. She swallowed past the hurt and asked a question that did matter. “So what sort of assignments was Grigg working on? And what does it have to do with me?”
“Anyone?” Frank looked around the table.
“We disrupted that arms deal out of Brazil right before Grigg and Nate were slated to go to Syria,” Dan offered.
“Yeah,” Ozzie said, while back to rapidly typing on his keyboard, “but that was a clean job. No way anybody could’ve found out who was involved. It’s gotta be something else.”
“Ghost?” Frank asked. “Any way Grigg might’ve given up information that…I don’t know…that could’ve in some way given someone the idea Ali might be in possession of something of value?”
Ali watched Nate’s face harden until it was a wonder it didn’t just split right open.
“Never,” he ground out.
“Yeah,” Dan huffed, “but you weren’t actually in the room with him and, from your report, it must’ve been pretty f*cking sick—”
Dan abruptly stopped talking, glancing up at her with a face that’d turned slightly green.
Ali was no dummy.
“What? What room weren’t you in with him?” She swung her attention to Nate. Now he was the one who looked ready to cry and, oh God, she was really getting scared.
“Nate?” her voice broke. “Dear God, what happened?”
He flicked a cold glance toward Dan, clearly telegraphing his intention to rip off the guy’s head.
This was bad. This was very, very—
Frank called her name, his deep voice firm.
Hesitating, searching Nate’s hard, impassive face, she finally dragged her eyes to the man at the head of the table.
“I’m the one who should answer that,” he informed her. “And it goes without saying, what I’m about to tell you can never go beyond this room. Never. Do you understand what that means?” His eyes were frighteningly intense.