Marcus

Chapter Twenty Nine

Caroline ~

It had been four weeks since she had arrived in California and they had been nothing, but pure heaven. Marcus and his teammates had welcomed her into their lives as if they had known her for years.

She spent most days up at Knight with Lainey, helping her with her work load seeing as they both specialized in analytics. Lainey was eager to learn and insanely smart and when there was a lull in the workload she and Lainey would solve puzzles together, challenging one another to kill time.

Everything was perfect, which is why Caroline wasn't one bit surprised when she heard an unfamiliar ringing from within her bag. She and Lainey locked eyes and knew it was coming from the phone that Lainey had programmed with a Colorado number - the number she'd given to Fox if he needed to contact her.

Of course Fox is calling to ruin my fucking day. He wanted me to shave down my six week leave to four weeks and he obviously wasn't kidding.

"Afternoon Sir." Caroline said, rolling her eyes as the feigned respect fell from her lips.

"You done vacationing?"

What an absolute douche.

Her silence was an answer in itself and Caroline had to grit her teeth to restrain her tongue.

"Ah come on, you know I'm giving you shit. How are you? Healed up and ready for work?"

"Work?" she asked, wanting to know what he was referring to. She had blown her cover at the compound and wasn't working any other jobs when she was put on medical leave.

"Yes, work. You're still under contract, or have you conveniently forgotten that fact?"

Caroline let out a hard sigh, shaking her head at the arrogance of her supervisor. He had no idea that she knew what he had done, that he'd effectively ruined her life to keep her working. Her hands started to shake as she tried desperately to control her rage, prompting Lainey to swiftly stand and leave the room.

"I haven't forgotten." Caroline said through clenched teeth.

"Good because there's been some developments."

About that time Marcus' large frame appeared around the corner, reaching out and rubbing his hand down her back in a soothing motion as he took a seat next to her in Lainey's office.

Marcus mouthed a quick "You okay?" as he sat and studied her, trying to understand what was going on while simultaneously comforting her.

Caroline nodded her head and tugged at her right earlobe to solidify that she was okay and didn't need him to intervene. She set the phone down on the desk and put it on speaker, signaling Marcus to close the door to block out the background noise.

"I'm listening." Caroline said.

"I need you back here ASAP. One of the teams here has tracked a high priority terrorist who is set to attend a slave bazaar and we need you to gather intel. It'll be a quick in and out all we need is the drop sites for his purchases so we can track him down. You're the only one that is well known and trusted in that ring." Fox said.

Caroline watched as Marcus' expression hardened and his lip snarled in disgust as he stared down at the phone with his arms folded across his chest.

"Don't you think that's taking a huge risk, considering I blew my own cover at Hashim's compound. I know it's different smuggling routes and a completely different trade ring, but it's still a risk...an unnecessary risk if you ask me." Caroline said, seeing Marcus nod slightly with his approval of her response indicating that he was thinking the same thing.