Page 9 of Betrayed Auctioned Mate

Keira nods. She doesn’t look at me, not once, just glances between Aris and her notepad with trained precision.

“Unless there’s a raid already planned for their base across the water, I’d suggest we start with identification efforts, then,” she says.

Aris nods thoughtfully. “It’s a good plan. Does that line up with where you were at, Ado?”

“Yes.” It comes out raspy. I clear my throat. “Yes. We’ve got a lot on file already to go through.”

“We can hack local security and police files for larger downs south of here, search for likely suspects who might match what you’ve got,” Byron offers easily, seeming not to have picked up on the tension in the least. I’ve never seen him so happy as he’s been for the last few months. Great for him, but it does make him just a bit insufferable.

“Might be worth running another recon on their next visit to Attlefolk, too,” Bigby puts in. “Set up camp before they arrive; get some of their faces on camera. Makes your job easier, doesn’t it?”

I nod. I can’t stop looking at Keira. I watch her chew the end of her pen, eyes flicking around the table at everyone but me.

“They can’t know we’re on the case yet,” she warns. “Not until the last possible second. They’ll just find a new place to dock on the other side of the river, out of the waterways and on the main drag, if they suspect there’s eyes on them.”

“Not a peep,” Bigby promises.

Keira smiles at him, and a hot flash of irrational anger leaps inside me. I have to force it down. We’re all teammates here. What am I doing?

“We also know of two suspected collaborators based in a warehouse not far downriver,” Byron chips in. “We’ve been on standby to raid for a few weeks now, since we know they’d suspect any activity on our part to be that of a business rival or another gang from one of the cities. It would maintain our cover.”

Keira scribbles that down. “Let’s get it in the diary,” she says. “For the furthest point from an Attlefolk landing, if we can, so five days out from an upcoming date—so we can keep it clean and quiet.”

That’ll happen in the next few weeks. I’ll have to up the intensity of the training I’m running for those who currently need it. And maybe…

With everyone’s roles assigned, Aris closes the meeting. I watch him leave to return to Linnea and the baby. Others drift, too, back to their rooms and houses or sit on the couches across the room instead of here, chattering about the mission. I see Olivia facilitate Keira’s reunion with Byron. They smile at one another. Clearly, there’s no baggage there. Her problem is with me.

Zane leans across the now-empty seat between the two of us. I had forgotten he was here.

“New girl?” he asks.

I make a noncommittal motion with my head, somewhere between a nod and a shrug. I don’t want to talk to him about this, not when he’s still barely Pack.

“Be like that,” Zane mutters, not really seeming to care. I watch his eyes follow Maisie on the other side of the room.

Across from us, Byron is quizzing Keira on what she’s been up to all this time. Clearly, he has skirted past how things ended when she left.

“It’s nice,” I hear Keira say. “I mean, New York is expensive, but I like the work, and I get to help people. I never thought you would all leave the military. It’s like you’re basically old men now.”

Byron makes a face so affronted that both women laugh. I feel sick. I want to leave this room, this building.

But I think of that last mission, the chokehold, the red moonlight, and I know there’s something I need to do.

I catch Keira just as she’s detaching herself from the others, presumably heading back to her seat and looking through the files we passed onto her. I almost reach out for her arm but hold myself back.

“Keira.” After all this time, the feeling of her name on my lips is the same.

She flinches, though I’m sure she knew on some level that I was beside her. Her bright, intelligent eyes crisscross me as if not certain where to land.

“Ado,” she says. “Whatever it is, I don’t—"

“Your field experience.” I don’t know why I cut her off. It’s as if I couldn’t stop myself. “You haven’t been on the frontlines of an op for years, have you?”

She bristles. She meets my gaze wholly then, looking me dead in the eyes.

“If that’s supposed to mean something, I don’t—"

I interrupt again. Whatever Keira did to my mouth when she came here and turned the world upside down, I want her to undo it. “You need to redo basic training. You’ve been out of combat for too long.”

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