Page 71 of Unraveled Love

“Thank God.” I exhaled. At least that was one club down who couldn’t abuse those girls. “Any news on Daniel?”

Jaxon shook his head, and all that fury on his face wiped away to something akin to compassion as I leaned into the computer’s camera so he could see me. “Unfortunately not much. But we’re unravelling his net, so that’ll make him desperate. We know he was with Landon at some point, but it’ll take some time to figure out where they could have gone, and Roger swore he didn’t know. Considering his pants were wet with piss when he told me all the other bullshit, I tend to believe him.”

“Gross,” I said, making a face that had Mason chuckling. Talk about TMI.

“We’ll find him,” Jaxon stated. “And we’ll end this. We’re close.”

“Okay.”

I stepped back while Briggs and Charlie spent some time talking about technology way above my paygrade and Shawn went to the couch. He returned with a blanket and draped it over my shoulders.

“You’re shivering,” he said.

I was. I hadn’t realized it, but as soon as he mentioned it, I noticed my fingers and toes were ice cold and my body was a quivering mess. How much of it was due to the cold from the Jeep ride and how much due to all this news, I couldn’t tell, but either way, I hugged the blanket around me and thanked him.

“Addi and Shawn found a tracker in one of her shoes,” Briggs said, recapturing my attention. “So, knowing this information about Landon, I’m guessing that’s how he—or someone, rather—got past the security at your townhome, Shawn, and that’s how they found you both times in the first place, but that’s speculation. I’ll know more once I can figure out the mechanics of it.”

Jaxon and Charlie both flashed surprised, wide eyes that Jaxon quickly wiped away.

“You need more men?” Jaxon asked.

“Don’t know yet,” Cort said. “We just got our hands on it a few minutes before we called you. We’ll look into it and let you know.”

“Good. That’s all for me. I’ll keep you updated on this upcoming warrant and fill you in. Let me know what you find out about the tracker. Anything else?”

I wobbled on unsteady feet. All of this was too much, way too fast. But mostly, all I was thinking of was when was it going to be over? Everything kept getting uglier and nastier. How much nastier and uglier was it going to get?

* * *

I was leaningagainst the wall next to Shawn, wishing I could have a glass of wine but knowing I needed to keep my head clear and thus drinking water.

Not at all the same thing.

I was enthralled watching Briggs work. He jumped from keyboard to keyboard, eyes and focus jumping all over the place. He typed so fast smoke should have flown from his fingers, and the entire time, his tongue peeked out of the right corner of his mouth.

I rested my head against Shawn’s shoulder and asked, “Before Briggs came to work for Jaxon, what’d he do?”

“Special ops military, hacking enemy country satellites, shit I don’t want to know about because other than that, I know he speaks fourteen languages, and half of those are languages from countries who are not our allies.”

He spoke quietly, and I glanced away from the muscled and tattoo man who currently appeared more computer nerd than special op killer and hacker. “What’s his first name?”

“No idea. Not yet anyway. He was introduced to me as Briggs, and that’s all anyone calls him.”

I bumped into his shoulder. “You know, I think some of what you guys can do might be kind of scary.”

“If scary means protecting good people, I’ll take scary. But, before you and your excitement landed in our lap, I was doing a lot of watching spouses cheat on each other or watching spouses whose partnerbelievedthey were cheating on them even if they weren’t.”

“That sounds utterly dreadful,” I deadpanned. “So glad I could make your life more exciting.”

“You do.” He slid his arm over my shoulders and pulled me against him. “You make my life exciting in all the best ways, and when this is done, we’ll have more of that.”

I hummed and sipped my water. When Shawn was sweet like that, my body reacted.

Getting wet and turned on in a room full of men trying to figure out if Daniel was already here or on his way to either kill me or take me and screw me and sell me was the absolute worst timing.

Although the reminder killed the arousal Shawn spiked.

Ireallyhated Daniel.

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