Gabe (In the Company of Snipers, #8)(120)

“Thanks for helping Kelsey these past couple of weeks,” he offered.

“What? She forgive and forget already?”

Mark’s sarcastic question drew Alex’s ire. He raked his fingers over his head. Gabe cringed. Here it comes.

If Mark only knew what had transpired at the hospital between Alex and Kelsey, he wouldn’t bait Alex as he had. The man had a flaming, nasty temper on a good day. It wouldn’t take much to goad him. But Mark knew that.

Again, Alex faced the newly baptized-by-fire owner of the best covert surveillance team on the East Coast. “What do you want me to say?” he asked quietly. “I had no choice in this, Mark. Hell, I didn’t even know I was deep undercover until I woke up the day after my sonofabitchin’ funeral. By then, some joker was in my grave, my wife was devastated and all my protocols had kicked in.”

“Your protocols?” Mark lifted his brow.

“My will—the legal document that turned this place over to you, David, and Harley.” Alex looked around the group. “Where’s—”

“Wisconsin. Safe,” Mark said icily.

“Good. Good. I take it Libby and the girls are there, too?”

Mark nodded.

“And all the other families?”

“Safe,” Mark hissed.

“Harley’s boys were born then. Are they doing okay? Damn, I’m sorry I missed that, but they—”

“Stop bullshitting me, you arrogant sonofabitch!” Mark bellowed. “Where the hell have you been?”


“Working.”

Mark folded his arms across his chest and glared. Gabe had to give it to him, he wasn’t making this easy, but The TEAM’s reaction was just as interesting. All along, they’d argued Alex was alive, but now that he stood in front of them, they were hostile.

It wouldn’t matter in the long run. Alex would only tolerate this standoff for so long. Any second now, he’d tell them to go to hell, march into his office with Kelsey and slam his door until he was ready to talk with them.

“I’d be pissed if I were you. It was a damned dirty trick they played on us.”

Mark grunted. “You mean you played.”

Everyone should’ve been paying better attention. Izza had just arrived with Connor. Apparently, they’d stopped to pick up breakfast on their way to work. She dropped an armful of brightly colored fast food bags on Ember’s counter and headed straight to Alex. “You’d better have a damned good reason for what you did to Kelsey. And us.”

He acknowledged her with a curt, “Izza.”

Wrong move, Boss. Gabe took a full step away from Alex. Izza was mad. Damned mad.

“Hey. I’m talking to you. Did you knock me out?” She took a menacing step closer, her hands clenched into fists and sparks in her eyes. “When Taylor, me, and Steven tailed you? Huh? Did you knock me out and tie me up? Did you put a yellow sticky on my forehead with a stupid smiley face? Did you?”

He smirked. And that was all it took.

She cocked her arm back to deliver a solid punch, but Alex caught her wrist and easily spun her back to his chest. Izza had anticipated the countermove. She turned a full circle, kicked his feet out from under him and tackled him to the floor, business suit and all. Square into the middle of his chest, she let him have it, fists flying.

“You’re an ass! You let us think you were dead, and we buried you, and... and...”

“Izza. Stop.” He grunted under her assault, dodging her fists but not before one connected and she clipped his chin. “I didn’t... ouch... do the smiley face, damn it.”

“I thought you were dead! We all did, damn you! I saw you die. I thought I saw you...” she collapsed, crying unashamedly into his shirt. “God, Alex. You’re Jamie’s godfather. You gave me away at my wedding. You can’t pull this kind of bullshit on people who love you. You just can’t.”

Mark and Connor gave them both a hand up off the floor, but Alex kept an arm around Izza while he rubbed his chin. “Sonofabitch, I’ve missed you guys.”

When Mark clenched Alex’s shoulder, Gabe relaxed.

Rory spoke up next. “I didn’t have the heart to tell Tyler you’d died.”

Ember wrapped her arms around both Alex and Izza. “And Harley named one of his baby boys after you. Did you know that? Alexander Marcus and George Patrick. The Mortimer twins.”

And the showdown was over.

Everyone swarmed Alex. Izza still bawled, and Gabe didn’t mind if he wiped his eyes, either. There was a lot of back thumping and handshaking, not the norm for guys and gals who could eliminate a target at one thousand-plus yards without batting an eye. Even Zack mellowed. He snagged a breakfast biscuit and doctored a cup of coffee from the new coffee maker at Mother’s desk.

“Where’d the FBI take you?” Connor wanted to know. “We know Becker shot you, but the round was some kind of paintball gizmo. The paramedics were phonies, too. What’d they do to you?”

“The Bureau’s got five lower levels I knew nothing about,” Alex explained, “including a complete dispensary. Physicians. Staff. The whole nine yards.”

“They shot you with a muscle relaxant and a mixture of cow’s blood,” David informed him. “Vecuronium bromide, to be precise. That’s what was on your clothes, Gabe.”