Page 53 of Beyond the Badge: Nox

“Keep your mouths shut, fuckers. Talk to you all later.” And with that, Fletch and Wilder were gone.

“I guess we’re done,” Crew announced, then added, “For now. I’ll keep you all apprised of any updates from Pam.”

Nox assumed, like Fletch, the rest of the task force members on the line had all hung up, too.

He liked meetings that were short and to the point.

Chairs scraped the floor and groans and sighs could be heard as everyone got up from the conference table and either headed to a computer or a wiretap station or to grab more coffee. Or even leave.

Cabrera was the first out the door to head home to catch some shut eye since she had been working undercover almost every night at the Hawg Wild Saloon.

Nox did not miss Crew tracking her as she left.

Oh yeah.They were fucking.

Crew’s dick now had a collar around it and Cabrera held the leash.

That almost made Nox want to smile.

He also wanted to bust on the professional ball-buster about it, too. But Nox didn’t want to out their relationship to the rest of the team. Not because of Crew, but because of Cabrera.

Nox went shoulder to shoulder with Crew and elbowed the man in the ribs. That was enough to pull Crew’s gaze from the now closed door to him.

“What’s up?” Crew asked him.

Nox raised his eyebrows and jerked his chin toward the door. “You tell me.”

“Nothing to tell.” Crew’s masked expression didn’t even slip an inch. He managed to keep it securely in place.

Crew knew better than to show any sign of weakness in the sea of circling sharks that included both the task force and the BAMC. Falling for a woman, especially one Crew wasn’t happy about joining the team and one much younger than him, would be a weakness.

“All right, well… put me on the list for the round-up. I want in.”

Crew pursed his lips as he considered Nox. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

The task force leader sucked in an audible breath. “Nox…”

“Make sure I’m on it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when we get to that point.”

“Do that.” With that, he headed over to his computer station since today he planned on watching some of the camera feeds, both live and recorded.

ChapterTwelve

Nox glancedover his shoulder for the fiftieth time to make sure no one was paying attention to his computer monitor.

Or to what he was doing.

Because what he was doing, he shouldn’t be. He shouldn’t be running anyone’s information through the law enforcement databases unless he had a valid reason to do so.

He wasn’t digging deeper into Aaliyah James, successful business owner and single mother, for Shadow Valley PD or for the federal task force, he was selfishly doing it for himself.

He first pulled up her PennDOT info, including her driver’s information. While he had that up on the screen, he snapped a quick photo of her address with his cell phone, but not before once again making sure no one was watching. He purposely sat at the desk on the end to keep his records search under the radar.

Already this morning he experienced shit handed to him simply by a name written in black marker on the bottom of a fucking container. If any of the team saw him running a records search on a woman that had zero to do with the investigation?

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