The way they’d gotten together was utterly ridiculous, but the connection between them was as strong as anything I’d ever seen—way stronger than anything I’d personally experienced—and even my cynical ass knew it was real and permanent.
“I know, but everything went shockingly smoothly for once, and the board meeting ended early.” Carter bit his lip against an excited smile. “The first mobile cath lab sponsored by the Rogers Family Foundation is set to roll into Gelada tomorrow, which is record timing, and Luz is going to be their first patient. Marisol is over the moon.” He gazed at me across the table. “Thank you, Champ. I know you pulled strings to help get us the security we needed.”
“Nah.” I waved a hand. “I made a phone call to someone I trust. You’re the one footing the bill.”
“Still,” Carter began, and then his gaze caught on someone over my shoulder. “Oh, hey! Tucker and Dunn are leaving. I’m gonna go tell Tuck the good news before he goes.”
“I’ll come.” Riggs slid his chair back and jumped up, ready to follow Carter anywhere—to the other side of the room, on another medical aid mission, probably even down the aisle one of these days, since Riggsy didn’t do things half-assed and he was clearly all in with his cute doctor.
It was adorable. If you were into that kind of thing.
“Think I might be ready to call it a night,” Hux said a minute later, draining the last of his beer. “Gotta get home and do… you know… stuff.”
“Once again, Huxley, I make it a point not to know what stuff you might be getting up to of an evening, especially since your former roommate is now shacking up at Carter’s place.” I grinned. “But whatever it is, enjoy it. Tomorrow afternoon we meet with HOG Corporate to go over the specs.”
He returned my grin with one of his own. “Can’t wait.”
Neither could I.
I looked around for Alana, our server, so I could pay the tab, but before I spotted her, my phone rang. Unknown caller, but a local number, so I answered just in case it was someone from HOG.
“Champion.”
“Percival,” a familiar cultured voice said. “Guess you haven’t changed your number. I wondered if you might after all these years.”
My shoulders instantly went tight, my chest burned, and my stomach churned.
“Vince,” I managed to say smoothly. “How’s my least favorite DEA agent? Do the other agents not trust you to use the phone number lookup function, even after all these years? Don’t worry, buddy—I’m sure you’ll graduate to big-boy jobs soon.”
“I go by Vincent now,” Satan’s hand puppet corrected. “As you know.”
I snorted. “How would I know? I do not make a point to keep up with your life. Vince.”
“But your mother sends me a lovely card each year on my birthday,” he sniffed, “and I return the favor.”
The burn in my chest flared hotter. Vince was the sort of son Isobel “Bunny” Champion always wanted. Figured she’d kept him, even after we’d broken up.
“Was there a reason for your call?” I demanded. “Has hell frozen over already? Did you want to make sure I fed Hercules? Because I have. Every day for the last five years. Every day since you—”
“I’m calling as a professional courtesy,” he interrupted. “It’s come to my attention that your little band of rent-a-soldiers may have been involved in an incident down in Venezuela last month.”
I seethed. I wanted to believe Vince had been a decent human at some point and that I hadn’t wasted my time trying to make things work with someone so self-centered… but I honestly wasn’t sure.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” I hedged. “Champion Security deals with any number of incidents every single day.”
“This would be a memorable one, given that it involved infiltrating a villa reportedly owned by Cartel de la Luna and operated by Gustavo Santiago.”
Ugh. I’d been afraid he was going to say that. The very last thing I needed was to have fucking Vince investigating something that could have potential blowback on HOG… and by extension, Champion Security.
“I’m holding a signed report you provided to the authorities,” he continued, “in case that jogs your memory.”
I scowled. “If you have my report, then I can’t imagine what more you’d like me to say.”
This was not entirely true.
The report I’d filed with the authorities made our involvement sound like a simple hostage rescue situation—one kidnapped American tourist, one simple extraction from one drug lord’s compound. We’d kept the HOG security breach and the real reason for Buck’s abduction out of the reports. We’d also kept any mention of Carter and Riggs out of the report so Gustavo wouldn’t learn of their presence at his compound. We hadn’t mentioned Gianluigi’s involvement either, since he’d freed our guys in the end and had done a hell of a good deed in making sure Buck got on the plane too, especially knowing how angry Gustavo must’ve gotten.