“No.” All eyes turned to Pax when he gave the curt reply.
Gone was his usual lighthearted banter. He wore a matching scowl to Davis’s expression, and tension spilled through the room as they engaged in some sort of brotherly standoff.
Ben didn’t understand what was happening. “Something you want to share with the rest of the class?”
Pax didn’t break eye contact with his brother. “It’s not my news.”
“What are we talking about?” Jocelyn asked.
Pax folded his arms over his chest. “Davis, you know I’m right. It’s not safe. You’re offering because that’s what you do, not because you think it’s a good idea.”
Whatever was going on arced back and forth between the brothers. The rest of them sat there watching the staring contest.
But Ben had to pipe up. “Someone took two shots at Jocelyn in one day.”
A fact he still couldn’t process. Men at her home. Others following her around town to this house. He expected danger in his job. Even though he watched Davis and Pax get ripped apart when the women they loved stepped close to danger, Ben never thought his work would bleed into his personal life. Lately that was all it had done.
His father blamed him, claiming after all his years of service he was suffering a backlash at the Pentagon for Ben’s choices. Powerful people sat in jail awaiting trial. And Ben had walked away from a career that had once meant everything, only to have his name stamped on the front of every paper and as the lead in every news broadcast.
“Lara is pregnant.” Davis made the announcement with a slap of his palm against the table. “Okay, that’s the issue.”
Everyone started talking at once. There were backslaps and congratulations. Davis took it all in, nodding and thanking everyone even as his face grew more drawn.
“Why the secret?” Not that Ben knew much about babies, but he couldn’t imagine a better set of parents than Davis and Lara.
“She’s not far along, and because of what happened before with the miscarriage...” Davis blew out a harsh breath. “Well, we were being careful and preferred not to talk about it yet.”
That explained it. Fear gripped Davis. Ben didn’t blame him one bit. “Congratulations.”
The only one not jumping up and down with good cheer was Jocelyn. For a few seconds she just sat there. “It’s great news, but how could you let me in the house at all? Or Ben?”
Again with the theory that he was the devil’s right-hand man. “I’m sitting right here.”
Jocelyn gave him a “wait until I get you alone” glare, and not in the good way. “My point is that Davis strikes me as the kind of guy who might put his wife in a protective shell when she’s pregnant. And in this case, he should. We’re talking guys with guns here.”
“I would if Lara would go without yelling the house down. I’d take her to an island with a private doctor and hide out until the baby comes,” Davis mumbled under his breath.
The click of Connor’s coffee mug against the table had everyone turning. He didn’t slam it down or yell. No, neither was Connor’s style. He simply commanded attention and somehow got it without any fanfare.
He cleared his throat. “I’m not convinced this is a Corcoran issue but—”
“What does that mean?” Jocelyn asked.
“I think they—whoever they are in this case—are after you.”
“Why?” Ben asked.
“I’ve been with Ben the whole time,” she said at the same time.
“If someone wanted to take Ben out, they could have gone after him on the street or at his house. Why wait until you were around?”
Ben had walked through that argument in his mind and on paper. He came up with one reason. “Leverage. They know we’re together and can use Jocelyn to get to me.”
“Together, really?” Pax asked as he looked around the room. “That’s news, right?”
“Then there’s the problem with the records search,” Joel said.
Ben groaned. He knew what that meant and it wasn’t good. Background checks. Quiet checking. It all spelled trouble for Corcoran.
Jocelyn sighed. “Now you lost me.”
“Joel has a warning system of sorts set up. When someone goes looking for information on us or our property or our backgrounds, it trips an alarm and Joel finds out.” Ben found the whole thing spooky but he had to admit it had come in handy more than once in the short time since he’d begun working with the team.
“Last night someone started looking into the ownership of Davis’s house.” Joel made a few swipes on his tablet. “Thought maybe that detective was double-checking but it didn’t trace back to him. This look came from someone skilled at hiding their digital footprints.”