Kovalenko wasn't talking, knowing he'd be killed by the end of his first day in prison if he revealed any secrets. And they only had the testimony from the driver, which was unsubstantiated; they still didn't have any real proof of Vasilii and Ivan's involvement. As for Mitkin, he'd lawyered up tight, leaving them with a whole bunch of nothing.
Lou had done what was needed. She'd gone inside, gotten safe, and gotten cleaned up. Then she'd answered questions like it was lunchtime rather than three thirty in the morning. The first freaking day in September. Two more days and all their jobs were meant to kick off. Hell, two more days and Cabe would be on his way to Sierra Leone with half the team.
"I think we need a change of plan," Six whispered, boosting himself up on the bed.
"Yeah, well, we weren't anticipating this kind of job in our first week of operation. Slow start, we said, remember?" Cabe raised an eyebrow at him, and he knew they were going to fight.
"Louisa is paying a shit ton of cash to do this," he hissed, looking over to where she still slept peacefully. The last thing he needed was for her to be privy to Cabe's thoughts. "And what, she nearly gets taken? Again. On our watch."
"Okay. One. It was your watch. And two. If you weren't so wrapped up in her, you'd have recognized this deal for the cash cow it is and kept your dick in your pants."
Six's legs were swinging off the bed before he knew it, gunshot or no gunshot. "Fuck. You," he spat. He and Cabe had had their fallings out in the past, but he had a feeling there'd be no coming back from the one they were about to have. "One. It was our watch. And two. We let her down."
"Well, maybe if you two weren't knocking boots, you would have had any eye on the job instead of her pussy."
At that, Six ripped the drip of antibiotics from his arm, and despite the pain that ripped through his side, he stood. "You want to say that again, asshole?"
Mac marched into the room, his first look over at Louisa and his second between the two of them. "She's our client," he hissed. "Outside, now."
Six marched out the door, not giving a shit if Cabe was behind him or not. In fact, better for him if he wasn't. Because Six was likely to go off any second, and Cabe was going to feel the brunt of it.
"Okay," Mac said once they were in the gym area. "You two are both idiots. Should we ream off the litany of stupid shit you just pulled? Arguing in front of a client, asleep or not? That's got to be the most stupid business decision." He turned to face Cabe. "You-if you can't see that this is different, then you need to go get those eyes of yours tested, because anybody with half a brain can see Six is halfway in love with the girl, even if he doesn't have the balls to admit it yet." Mac then looked straight at Six. "And you. She isn't the kind of client we want. She isn't even the kind of work we really want to do, but we're doing it because you asked us to. And we needed the money. So pull your neck in. It wasn't like the Norths of San Diego couldn't afford it. So why don't we talk about what we are going to do."
"We could always ask Lou for more." Cabe stubbed his toe into the ground. "Think about it. She floats us more cash, we can hire some more guys. Screw starting small and quibbling over which of us gets the day off."
"What if she already has plans for her money?" he said, thinking of the business plan he'd seen scattered all over the desk. True North Industries.
"Then convince her to back us," Cabe said. "You can be persuasive if you tried."
"You know what," Six said, walking a little away from the guys to sit down on the leg raises station. His stitches were at risk of coming open, and he had a mild case of the spins, not that he'd ever admit that to anyone. Losing that much blood had obviously taken its toll, leaving him adrift. "I don't need to be persuasive. I'm sure she'd give me money if I asked her-"
"Perfect," Cabe said, clapping his hands.
The guys walked over to where he was seated.
"Just let me finish, jackass. But I'm not going to ask. She came to me for help, Cabe, and we've found a weakness in our plans. There aren't enough of us to do any kind of meaningful rotation on a full-time basis and do the intel work to figure out who is behind this. So we're going to have to address our growth plans to figure out how we afford that. And by the way … " He looked over to Mac, confident enough to say the words out loud to his friends that he wasn't quite ready to say to Lou. "Yeah. So what if I love her? I get why that seems odd. I met her for the first time three weeks ago. It makes no fucking sense to me either. So can we stop talking about her like she's an item on our to-do list? Because I'm going to lose my shit if you don't."