The Fall of East: Book 3 in the Hear No Evil Trilogy, Malone, Nana [inspiring books for teens txt] 📗

Ben flipped him off.

I threw up my hands. "What is the point of you being the Director Prime of a secret organization if you can't keep a secret?"

Ben shrugged. "That woman is terrifying. She'll do things to me."

Drew snorted a laugh. "Oh, pray tell. Please, some of us are in Siberia here. What kinds of things?"

Ben pinned him with a glare so hard that Drew physically backed away. "Easy mate. I was just having a laugh."

"Not funny.”

“Tetchy, aren't you?"

I glanced at Drew. What was he playing at? "Let's keep this brief. Amelia is with Nyla now, and the others will be joining her for a girls’ night, but it won't take long for them to realize we all had a work meeting. Including Drew. And then they’ll come looking."

From behind us, a feminine voice said, "You mean that even though you agreed that we were all a team, working together for the same greater good, then you sneak off to have secret meetings and cut us all out? I have no idea why any of us would be angry about that, do you?"

Bridge whirled around quickly, nearly toppling himself off his stool. The rest of us turned around more slowly because we had been caught by the one absolute loose cannon on our team. Before I turned, I knew I'd find Emma Varma standing behind us in all her pissed-off glory. Her dark inky hair fell in waves around her shoulders. She had on black leather pants, a tight black turtleneck, and her hands were on her hips, looking every bit a stealthy ninja as Bridge asked, "How did you find us?"

"Well, it was pretty easy, actually. First, I checked in on Nyla before heading over. She said you were at some work meeting, East. Then I went to the office and your assistant, the timid one, she said the three of you went out for drinks with him." She pointed at Drew.

Drew gave her a wide grin. "I always did like you, Little Tobes."

"My name is Emma. No more attaching my worth to my brother's name. I'm worthy all on my own. Anyway, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which bar. You all would go either close to home or close to the office. And there's really only a handful of bars that carry the specific brand of scotch that this idiot likes." She pointed at Bridge, and he snorted.

"Are you following us because of me, Little Tobes?”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat at the low tone Bridge used with her. We’d been mates for more than half our lives, and I didn’t think I’d ever heard him address anyone else quite that way.

She laughed. "No, dipshit. Actually, I was scoping out a different bar when I remembered I’d put a GPS tracker on Ben."

Ben scowled and glanced down on himself quickly. "What? Where?"

She shrugged then took a stool between Drew and Ben. "I'm not inclined to expose my ways of tracking you boys down.”

Little Tobes was all grown up, and she was taking no fucking prisoners. I sighed. "Well then, fantastic, you found us. What is it that you think we're doing?"

"Don't play dumb. Just get on with it. How are you lot going to find Henry Warlow?"

Bridge just laughed. "You are tricky, aren't you?"

I had no choice but to give her a gaze that was all respect. She'd mentally deduced what we were up to, and she was resourceful. She made a good addition to the team whether Bridge wanted to accept it or not.

She looked at the bartender, signaled for a beer, and Bridge's scowl only furrowed further. "You're not supposed to be drinking."

"Relax, Dad, I've been of age for years now."

It was his turn to wince, but she had a point. He'd been treating her like she was thirteen. And she was a good deal old enough for this.

"So, where are we?"

Bridge just scowled down into his scotch. "Just go away, Emma."

"See, that's the joy in this. Just because you told me to go away doesn't mean I have to. Now, one of you can start talking, or I can start calling in the wives and fiancées and what not, and ask them why their men are having private talks without us."

I shook my head. "You wouldn't. I’m just starting to get on Nyla's good side again. She'd eviscerate me if she found out."

Emma grinned. And before Bridge could do anything about it, she took his drink from him and took a long sip.

Her gaze never left his, and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Watching the two of them eye-fuck was disconcerting to say the least. After all, this was Little Tobes. Emma. Toby's little sister. And it was Bridge, but every time we feared for Emma’s mental sanity, she gave as good as she got. So she could clearly take care of herself.

"Don't make me repeat myself. Where are we?"

Ben sighed. "Look, I'm telling Livy when we get home anyway. So you all better figure out a way to make things okay with your women, because otherwise, they're going to kill us."

Emma shrugged. "Yeah. Next time don't have secret meetings."

I sighed. Nyla was going to kill me. Hopefully, I could tell her before Emma did, or worse, Telly. Telly would rub it in and get Nyla even more riled.

Ben said, "Fine. Right now, we're trying to figure out how we prove that Jameson at the very least knew Warlow. And if he has any idea of where to find him or knows what happened to him, we need a way to get him to share that information."

Emma took another sip of Bridge’s drink. To her credit, she didn’t wince at the taste. “Do we have any new evidence?”

We all shook our heads and I said, "No, we have nothing concrete. All we know is that Henry Warlow disappeared after that regatta in the photograph in Jameson’s office."

"Okay, like how? Is there a record of him leaving school? Was there anything