Mo Grá| Derek Morgan

chapter fifteen

But the woman standing before him was none of those things.

The color had yet to return to my face, and my eyes were wide open, as if I had seen a ghost. I felt as fragile as I looked. My hand trembled slightly as I shoved my phone into my pocket, and my voice quivered when I finally spoke. Fear was etched on my face, but words eluded me. No one would like the answers I had to give.

"I will be," I said, attempting to reassure both him and myself.

"Do you need to step away from the case?" he asked, his concern palpable as I sank into one of the chairs, twisting the chain of my necklace anxiously.

"No. I can be here. I just need a minute," I replied, striving to maintain my composure.

"What's going on with you?" he pressed gently.

"I just haven't been eating or sleeping well lately. It feels like I'm slowly losing my mind, caught between paranoia and caution, scared of what's waiting on me," I blurted, feeling the weight of my vulnerability as Hotch sat beside me. We fell into silence as the gravity of my words hung between us, unexpected and raw. I knew that revealing this sliver of my turmoil would elicit concern, but it also offered a semblance of an answer—an explanation that might stop his questions.

I hoped that sharing even this much would suffice, that it would deter further inquiries and allow him to communicate my state to the rest of the team. I didn't want to be asked if I was okay, I didn't want to delve deeper into the chaos of my emotions.

For the few precious moments, we sat in silence, and I felt an unexpected sense of gratitude. The quiet was comforting, and Hotch's presence made me feel less alone. "Sloan, you're probably one of the strongest people I know," Hotch eventually said, and I turned to him, surprised by his words.

"I don't know the specifics, and I understand you might never share them, but if something is affecting you this deeply, it's undeniably important. Do what you need to do, and remember you have a lot of people in your corner."

< 𝑀𝑜 𝒢𝓇𝒶 >

I joined Hotch, Morgan, Rossi, and Prentiss in the SCIF, where they were meeting with some leaders from CWS. As members of the team engaged with the men at the opposite end of the table.

The team was getting too close to the truth, and she didn't know what she was going to do.

"Kerry Fagan, Ron Cosenza, and Byron Delaney— they all worked for CWS," Morgan continued.

"As do 40,000 other subcontractors worldwide," the man at the head of the table replied, unaware that his words were providing the BAU with more information than he intended.

"So they were subcontracted to you?" Derek questioned.

The man hesitated before answering. "If you're looking for answers, take it up with the main contractor."

"And that would be?" Rossi pressed.

"Your government."

"Whoever is killing these families holds your company responsible, not the government," Hotch asserted.

"We run operations from the Middle East to Antarctica," the man replied. "Reviewing them all will take months."

"So you've already begun investigations?" Hotch clarified, and the man sighed, regretting his unintentional revelation.

"That's why you pulled the story," Rossi added as one of the men leaned in to whisper to the head of the table.

After a moment, the man they were primarily conversing with resumed, "The cases these individuals were involved in are protected by a multinational official secrets agreement. Even if I wanted to—"