Shades of Grey(95)
Then he looked back to Steele and sobered. “How is this going to go down with Sam? I know we fucked up. I’ll take full responsibility.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Steele said rudely. “I’ll take care of Sam.”
Cole grinned and relaxed. Steele was a complete hardass but Cole wouldn’t work for anyone else in the world. The day Steele no longer led a KGI team was the day Cole hung up his gun and became an average Joe with a nine-to-five job.
“Get some rest,” Steele said. “We don’t land for several more hours and you’re going straight to the base hospital.”
Cole groaned. “I swear, they need to just reserve a room with my name on it as many damn times as I’ve been in there.”
“Between you and P.J., they’re going to need to name an entire wing for you,” Steele said dryly.
CHAPTER 39
P.J. was technically released from the hospital before Cole, but she’d insisted on staying by his bedside until the army doctor thought he was well enough to be discharged.
Steele arrived on the day Cole was being released. In terse tones, he told them that Sam wanted the team at the KGI compound. He wouldn’t say anything more when pressed, and that worried P.J.
It was the day of reckoning. A day she’d known would come. She just wished Cole and the rest of her team wasn’t involved.
The ride from Fort Campbell to the KGI compound was tense and silent. Cole’s hand crept over P.J.’s and he squeezed as if to say it would be all right. But neither spoke, and she knew that the impending confrontation weighed heavily on Cole’s mind every bit as much as it did on hers.
Even Dolphin, who typically had something to say for every occasion, was as silent as the rest of the team.
Steele drove while P.J. and Cole sat in the middle seat with Renshaw and Baker in the back. Dolphin rode shotgun, and it was the longest P.J. could ever remember no words being exchanged between the teammates.
Were they angry with her? Resentful? Pissed because she’d dragged them into her own personal vendetta?
She was torturing herself with all the possibilities.
By the time they pulled into the compound, P.J. was a wreck.
They parked outside the war room and got out, Dolphin and Steele helping P.J. and Cole. But she was determined to walk into this meeting with no vulnerability. She didn’t want it said she played on anyone’s sympathies, so she shook off Dolphin’s supportive arm and strode toward the entrance, ignoring the protests of her leg.
Her face was a mess, bruised and still swollen from her fight with Brumley. The X-rays had shown no fracture of her jaw, though Cathy had sworn it was broken when P.J. had been brought in.
Chewing would be tough for a while, but she could deal.
She punched in the security code to gain access into the war room and she walked—or rather strode stiffly in her attempt not to limp—into the room where the Kelly brothers were gathered.
She frowned as she glanced around. It was just the Kellys; well, not even all of them. Nathan and Joe weren’t present.
Hell, not even Ethan was there, which meant that this was going to be a come-to-Jesus moment between the three men who officially ran KGI and the team that was in the proverbial dog house.
“P.J.,” Donovan said in greeting. “I’d say you’re looking good, but even I can’t pull off that kind of lie with a straight face.”
She relaxed at the teasing and grinned crookedly at him. Damn, but it even hurt to smile.
The rest of her team filed in behind her, and an awkward silence fell over the room.
Cole came up behind her and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her in close to him. It was obvious he was sending a message to everyone. He was with her. He had her back, and whatever affected her, affected him.
Sam cleared his throat and leaned against the edge of the large planning table in the middle of the room. Donovan and Garrett flanked him, and all of their expressions were serious.
“We have a serious problem here,” Sam began. “KGI as an organization can’t be associated with vigilantism. The Austrian government is screaming. The U.S. government is screaming. Resnick is screaming. And I’m stuck playing dumb about it all. While the respective governments may swallow my cock-and-bull story, Resnick’s not going to bite. He knows better.”
“Fuck him,” Cole said rudely.
Donovan coughed and covered his mouth. P.J. could swear he was holding back laughter, but then his expression reverted back to that pinched tight-ass look his brothers were wearing.
Sam held up a hand. “Resnick is mollified by the information we were able to provide him. Of course we wouldn’t explain how we came by it, but he’s about to cream himself because he has the leverage to bring down a lot of the big players in child trafficking, which in turn gives him more power, which in turn gives him more protection. He’s skated a pretty thin line with the shit that went down with Shea and Grace, and he’s spent plenty of time wondering when he was going to be taken out. This gives him plenty of insurance, so to speak. Before long, the damn president’s going to fear Resnick. If he doesn’t already.”