He needed her, Halia needed her, and she needed them. Plain and simple. “The decision to stay was hers.”
“She’s a smart girl.” Hands in his pockets, Adam kept his stance casual as he pinned Jamie to the wall with his sharp gray gaze.
“Yep.”
“She’s also young.”
“Yep.”
“You sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Yep. You were right. Halia is my responsibility, and she and Summer are a package deal. Wherever I go, they go.”
“And vice-versa?”
“And vice-versa.” Jamie met Adam’s challenge with an unwavering gaze of his own. “Halia’s mine. Summer is too. We discussedallavailable options, and if she wanted to leave, we’d be packing our bags. But this is our family, our home, and no matter what happens between us—today, tomorrow, or in the future—she agrees, this is the safest place for us to be.”
“We’ll be facing some tough times ahead,” Adam said. “It’s not going to be easy.”
“Didn’t sign up for easy,” he replied, looking around the room at the group gathered and registering a notable absence. “But if anything happens to me, you’ll watch over them?”
“They’re my family too, so it goes without saying they’ll be taken care of. Just like I know if shit goes south for me, Eve will be in good hands.”
Jamie nodded. Not because he felt obliged to but because that’s what they did. Men like Adam, like Chase and the rest of the JTT, put their lives on the line to protect the people they loved.
If one of them fell, the others rallied around and carried on.
They had to, or it was all meaningless.
“How’d she take it?” Jamie asked, his gaze flitting back to the women having an animated discussion while making their lists.
“Hard at first,” Adam replied. “But Eve has a well of strength she draws from, and she’s determined to keep all of us together through this.”
“She’s a remarkable woman.”
“They all are.”
He nodded in agreement. Gray, Eve, Summer—they each had their own strengths—and collectively, they’d turned the JTT into a family. A group of people who came together through circumstance but stayed together by choice. These were his people, his chosen family, and more than one was missing from the room.
Nothing he could do about Tak now, but his best friend was another matter altogether. “We need to talk about Jay.”
“You think he’s keeping something from us?” Adam asked, getting straight to the heart of the matter.
“Yeah.”
“Grant does too. Any idea what it is?”
“No, but I can guarantee it’s not about us. He’s on our side, and he’d never do anything to betray the JTT.”
“You sure about that?”
“Hundred percent.”
“Think you can find out what’s going on in his head, or do I need to haul him in for a little one-on-one?”
Jamie shook his head. “He’s ex-CIA. He’s not giving you any intel unless he wants to. Give me a few days. If I can’t get it out of him, we’ll take away his toys and schedule a group intervention. Work for you?”
Adam huffed. “He’s been on his computers twenty-four seven for months. Cutting him off now would be like severing an arm.”
