In a surprising turn of events, Ash had been both kind and gentle. Not that she’d thought he was deliberately mean, but he was a tough, straightforward man. Seeing his gentler side stirred emotions within her that had no place in their relationship. Not only was he her boss, but she was keeping a mountain of secrets from him. If he discovered even one of them, his attitude toward her would quickly change.
“Finished?”
“Yes, thanks.”
Speculatively, she watched Ash clean up the coffee table. Every time she’d asked if she could help, he had declined. Was it his way to do everything himself, or was he being polite? Either way, it needed to stop. She was almost one hundred percent again and needed him to see that.
When he came back and sat on the other end of the sofa from her, she said, “So when are we going back to work?”
“In a few days. Don’t worry. The rest of the team is keeping busy. OZ never sleeps.”
“I feel fine. There’s no need to stay away on my account.”
For several long seconds, he eyed her as if he were a scientist and she were an interesting specimen he’d never encountered. Jules held his gaze, refusing to give him an inch. She knew her strengths, knew what she could handle.
“Did you know that you scream in your sleep?”
He said the statement so mildly, one would think he was discussing the weather. Still, her heart gave an extra thud of dread. Her nightmares were not a topic for discussion.
Refusing to allow him to put her on the defensive, Jules matched his mild tone when she answered. “I’ve never taken anyone’s life. Even though it was self-defense, I would think nightmares would be normal. Doesn’t mean they’ll have any impact on my job.”
For the most part, until this latest event, she had been able to relegate the nightmares and night terrors to only a couple every month or so. Even then, they usually came after she’d hunted down a killer. She had known they were back, she just hadn’t known that she’d screamed out loud.
“Can’t argue that. I have them on occasion, too.”
Barely breathing, she waited for more questions. Asher Drake was known for not backing down. Talking about her nightmares without discussing their content would be impossible. She wasn’t ready to go that far. When he found out the truth, everything would end. It was too soon. She had accomplished nothing. She had to have more time.
“What made you decide to create OZ?”
The lame attempt to change the subject brought a slightly raised brow, but no other reaction. And he did her a favor by actually answering the question.
“A lot of different reasons. After I left the FBI, I didn’t do anything for a while. Kate called and asked for a favor. It felt good to be doing something productive again…to help someone. After that, another job cropped up, then another. We were a group of friends with specific skills that could be utilized to do good things. We worked well together, trusted each other. We just needed a name and a place to work from.”
“And Option Zero? How’d that name come about?”
He lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug, but his words were some of the most profound she’d ever heard. “At our core, that’s who we are. We help people who have nowhere else to turn, who have zero options. We’ve been there ourselves. The name made sense to us.”
And that was one of the biggest reasons Asher Drake fascinated her so much. She knew his past…knew the things he’d been through. Instead of allowing bitterness and grief to overtake him, he had let his circumstances motivate him to help others.
In part, he was the reason she hunted down killers. Yes, she did so because of her past, but Ash was the person she’d had in the back of her mind when she’d first started hunting. Like Ash, she had a unique perspective and specific abilities. She, too, had been stuck in limbo for a long time, unable to get past her pain. Hunting monsters became her way of coping.
“I know I’ve only been involved in a couple of ops, but neither of them was to help just one individual.”
“Some are, some aren’t. A few are ongoing. Even though I make the final decision, we have a meeting once a week to discuss possible cases. Everyone gives input.”
“Kate said that you have a tremendous network to pull from. How did you gain so much trust in such a short amount of time? OZ has only been in existence…what? Five years?”
“I think you’re confusing trust with need. We’re given intel to handle a situation. What we aren’t given we get through any means necessary to accomplish our objectives.”
“Like what?”
“Barter, bribe, coerce, intimidate. It’s not always pretty, but to get the results we need, we sometimes have to get creative with our intel gathering.”
“What are some of the ongoing cases?”
“The one with Schrader is our biggest.”
“How did it come about?”