Page 63 of East (The Moral Compass 3)

I bloody hope she did some real damage. At least enough to stop the fucker from breeding.

Matias is one hell of a conundrum, though. Everything I think he’s going to do, he does the opposite which has thrown me off for the past two weeks. I have given him far more credit than I should have. It’s perfectly clear now that the guy is a novice. I don’t know how he’s got himself mixed up in all of this, but I’ll be the one to ask him when I get my hands around his throat.

We have had him under surveillance the whole time, and his crew is minimal. It should make me feel confident, but no one is that stupid. No one puts a threat on our heads and doesn’t have the manpower to back it up. Do they?

North’s job is to watch the cameras and find out about Matias’s people.

I’ve tried so hard not to think about East. I want to ring her and video call her like the others are doing, but it will only make the inevitable harder.

She was crystal clear that she didn’t think us being together was a good idea. I was also fairly sure that my plan of being single all my life was what I truly wanted until now.

We have emailed and texted back and forth with information. She is good. I meanreallygood. If I think of anything that might help, she finds me the data or the answer.

She’s not being all clingy, asking what I’m doing and when I’m going to be back, and as far as I know, she hasn’t asked the lads either. She gets it. She gets me.

In every way, shape and form, she is perfect.

I still haven’t made up my mind about what I’m doing when all this is over. Drake will be free as the threats have been coming from Matias. Mexico will be back under Stargazer control, and that will give me some free time. Something I never have.

Part of me thinks about doing a bit of travelling, but then I know I’d run into trouble. Part of me thinks about going and volunteering in a poverty-stricken country, but the biggest part of me wants to go back to London. I want to see if things could possibly work out with East. After all, we are still married. Maybe we should give it a shot before we file for divorce. I just need one sign. Just one that she would be the slightest bit interested. Maybe I should just ask her. Look at how much time North and Kara wasted dancing around each other. Hmm, something to think about.

“Okay, gather around, everyone I have the plan!” West calls from the other side of the room.

Oh, here we go. General Boss Man is in the house. I roll my eyes but wander over to the big oval table where all the plans are laid out and a huge screen is lit up on the wall.

West talks us through the footage we have, and he shows us all the entrances and exits of the property that Matias is hiding in. Yes, the fucker is hiding. He knows we are here, and he is bricking it. We know because one of our guys is now on the inside. The stupid fucker didn’t even notice we’d planted one of our own men right in the middle of his operation.

Then, West talks through the plan of attack. It is fairly straightforward: three men go in from the front, three from the back, and three from the air. No problem.

West goes through who will go where: He will lead at the front with Adam and Paul. South is going in the rear with Jamie and Alex, and he goes on. I can see North watching intently, wondering where he is going to be placed, and West finishes with, “So, that leaves Zed, Mac, and North coming from the air.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” North yells, his arms waving in the air. I try so hard not to laugh, but the smile just won’t be tamed.

“I am not jumping from a fucking plane. I can fly the fucker, but I am not jumping out of it.”

“Yes, you are. You’ve done it loads of times,” West replies.

“Yeah, but not when people are shooting fucking bullets at me.”

“Jesus, North, nobody is going to shoot you again. I’ve put you in the air for that reason. We need you up there getting as much information as you can on your way down. I can’t risk you getting shot and passing out.” You can see West is trying not to laugh and failing miserably.

North has a blood phobia and passes out at the slightest sight of blood. That’s why I sent him off to refuel the plane when we got East back. She had blood all over her beautiful face, and that big lunk collapsing wasn’t high on my list of priorities.

“Oh, right, so… Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Just don’t tell Kara.” He points at West and then South.

“Yeah, and don’t tell Sutton that I’m going in the front.” He, too, points at his brothers.

Normally, I would call them soft twats or pussies, but now it makes me feel like the odd one out. I wouldn’t keep anything from East, but not having someone tonottell stuff to, well… It seems kind of significant.

“Who’s watching the screens?”

West looks at me straight on. “East.”

Fuck.

I nod in acceptance. Okay, so I don’t have a problem with her watching the screens. Like I said, she’s damn good at her job. I just have to make sure I don’t get killed. I don’t want the last time she sees me to be when I’m bleeding to death and North’s passed out next to me.

The next two hours are as they normally would be. We run through the plan, the contingency plan, and then the “oh shit, we’re fucked” plan. In all the time I have worked with West, we have only had to enact the last one once. That was one fucking mare of a day. We were in Iraq and walked right into an ambush. We were fighting our way out only to walk right into another that we were not even remotely expecting. That’s when he took a bullet for me. He’s taken two for me over the years, and I’ve repaid the favour in equal measure. We’re even, and we have pledged we’re keeping it that way.

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