Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
I filled a plate with red curry and then made my way to the table I usually sat at with Alex, near the back, where it was a bit more secluded. Not that it was necessary today. I counted four people in the entire cafeteria, none of them recruits.
Tanner was home with his family for the weekend, and most of the others preferred to be elsewhere. Some were locals who could still afford their own place somehow. Some had family nearby.
I sent Aunt Laura a text while I ate, letting her know I’d come by for dinner another Sunday instead.
Beckett showed up a while later, and he grabbed some food first.
When he arrived at my table, I saw he’d opted for both the red curry and the beef stir-fry.
“The red curry’s awesome,” I said.
“It usually is.”
I chewed around a mouthful of chicken and observed him, how he tucked into his meal right away but seemed to be a million miles away. He had that furrow between his brows, and I could tell he ate on autopilot.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He stopped with his fork in midair, glanced at me, as if reminding himself he wasn’t alone at the table. Then he let out a breath and lowered the fork again, and he folded his arms on the table.
“I don’t know. Maybe. The Hahn fuckers are finally on the move again, but I’m not sure I’ll be allowed to do shit about it.”
There it was. The men responsible for his brother’s death had resurfaced.
“Are they coming this way, since you shipped Alex off?” I wondered.
He nodded with a dip of his chin. “We’ve been tracking a small crew since they arrived in Galveston, but after what happened with the shooter in my apartment, we stayed back. In short, we don’t believe they know much—just like the guy who broke in. So, we decided to wait until they started moving. As in, when they’d received new orders. Their destination will tell us more than capturing them for interrogation.”
Made sense, I supposed. But it must’ve been hard to know where they were and do nothing about it. Which…had been Beckett’s reality for weeks now. Hell.
“Anyway.” He cleared his throat and shifted his water on his tray. “One of our operators down there reported movement the other day. He followed them to New Orleans two days ago, and yesterday, they continued to Atlanta. This morning, they were still on track to DC, so I decided to organize a quick trip for my mother and Alex.”
Well, fuck. How long could it take to drive from Atlanta to DC? Nine, ten, eleven, twelve hours? Fuck if I knew, but something like that.
“So, what’s the plan?” I had to ask.
“For now, not a damn thing.” That frustrated him. I could tell. “We have four operators on the case right now, and my orders are to sit tight.” He flicked me a look. “Don’t say a word about this to anyone, no matter how much you trust them.”
“Of course not.” I frowned. “When was the last update? Like, could they walk into the lobby here in the next hour or so, guns out?”
He chuckled quietly. “No. There are two options. Either they have a new plan to execute, or they were ordered to move closer and wait for further instructions. Could also be a combination of those two. Regardless, they won’t do anything when their last position was a shitty motel south of Atlanta. They’ll likely head to a safehouse nearby, and we’ll know more once we get surveillance up and running.”
A spark of anticipation ignited within me, and I leaned a few inches closer. “How many of them are there? How much do they know about Hillcroft? How do you set up surveillance just like that?”
He smirked wryly, no doubt thinking I was such a newbie for asking those questions, but he humored me. “When they arrived in Galveston, there were three of them. We lost track of one, and then someone else showed up last week. Hillcroft is a Google search away—they know we’re a private military agency. How they’ve figured out I work here is still a mystery, so…yeah. As for surveillance, we use drones. Some will pick up conversations if the distance isn’t too great, and some can pick up heat signatures and give an operator a good indication of when it’s safe to enter a place to set up a camera feed.”
I really couldn’t fucking wait to become an operator here. This was the life I wanted.
“What if you have a rat?” I wondered. “Someone who fed them intel about your brother and now you?”
He blew out a breath and smiled faintly. “Anything is technically a possibility, but it’s so unlikely that we barely consider it. Every employee here is vetted properly, whether you’re an operator or not, and we’re all on a need-to-know basis.”