Hannah closed the conference room door quietly, clicking the lock behind her, and reaching for the remote control which would silently close all the blinds, leaving her cut off from the rest of the office.
She was so pissed off she could hardly speak, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out who or what was pissing her off the most.
She was angry with Logan, that was for sure, and she was sure as hell pissed at JT. But she was also pissed at herself, and she just needed a time-out to get all her thoughts in order and figure out why.
Hannah pulled one of the big chairs up to the window and climbed on it, so she could sit on the wide ledge. The best thing about this building was that it had a great view through windows with one-way glass, and she could people watch all day if she didn’t have a million other things to do.
Ok, she thought, start with Logan.
The guy knew nothing about Nikita Federova other than that she had a seriously dominating brother, and life experiences had taught Hannah that you should never jump to conclusions as to why a person did something, without knowing the full facts.
What was it her mom used to drum into her? You can never understand a person until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. Well, something like that anyway.
She couldn’t understand why Logan was being so judgemental. He’d never met Nikita, yet he’d already pegged her as being the devil incarnate.
Everything screamed that his response to Nikita was symptomatic of some form of PTSD type reaction. Something was being dredged up from his past, and he was allowing it to cloud his thinking. And while she sympathised, she truly did, she still needed to be reassured that he was fit to go on the operation. Too many lives were at stake to risk sending someone on a mission who was going to flip out on them, and risk everything turning to shit.
In accordance with her own mantra, Hannah didn’t want to prejudge Logan without the facts, but the difference between her and Logan was that Hannah had tried to find out what was going on first, before jumping to conclusions.
JT knew what Logan’s problem was, that was for sure, and that was another reason for her anger.
For more than ten years she’d worked with JT, side-by-side, day after day, and even night after night, when the circumstances had called for it. And yet, when she’d gone to him with a genuine concern about one of the team, a concern that could spell danger for everyone involved, he’d played the ‘confidentiality’ card, as though she couldn’t be trusted.
What the hell was the point in hiring her to do a job, and then only allowing her to do half of it?
Asshole! Yeah, she was pissed at JT alright.
But that led her back to the question of why she was pissed at herself.
She wasn’t known as the Queen of Badass for nothing, and here she was, acting like a self-pitying child. Where was her spine? Where was her fearlessness and her gumption? Where was that spitfire personality that everyone told her she had?
Well, for the moment at least, it looked like all of her strength of character had left the building.
Hannah let her head fall forward so that her chin was almost resting on her chest.
She knew exactly why she was so upset.
It was because she was disappointed, that strange emotion which could sometimes be stronger than all the others put together.
All these years she’d swanned around as though she was one of the directors. She was used to sitting at the top table and being the ‘go-to’ person that everyone, including JT, turned to for help.
Hell, everyone had treated her like she was a director for so long, it was hard not to feel like she actually was one. She’d given more than ten years of her life to Alpha Company.
And yet this morning, when it had come right down to it, JT had put her very firmly back in her place.
She was an employee, no different to Logan, and while she had been with the company longer and obviously had seniority, JT obviously didn’t think her important enough to share information with her that could prove vital to the mission.
It occurred to her that when she’d been hired at Alpha Company it had been as JT’s assistant. Over the years she’d headed up her own department and her role had evolved into something way more than she’d ever anticipated. Yet her title had remained the same, and JT had reminded her of that this morning, without even having to say the words.
Ok, so he’d promised to let Drew take a look at Logan, and then report his findings back to JT. But then, he would ask Drew, wouldn’t he? Drew was another of the directors.
Hannah wasn’t. And when she’d referred to herself as an employee of the company, JT hadn’t batted an eye, or contradicted her.
She’d half expected him to stop and point out that she was so much more than an Alpha Company employee, but he hadn’t. And hadn’t that been a slap in the face.
Fuck!
Hannah felt the tears run down her cheeks before she even knew they were in her eyes.
What sort of pussy did this make her, if the first time one of the directors told her ‘No’, she just wimped out and went into a sulk?
Hannah pulled her sleeve down and wiped her cheeks.
She was just tired, that was all. She’d been working flat out for more than six months, trying to get everything ready for this operation. Not only was she balancing some of her Alpha Company assignments with working to get the Guardians up and running, but she was also having to nurture the relationship with the informant, trying to get them to trust her.
That was like living on a knife-edge, worrying that at any minute they could decide the risk was too great, and pull out altogether.
At the same time, she was trying to build up a credible background for the Guardians, with a big enough digital footprint to be believable to a bunch of scum-sucking traffickers. If she screwed up in the tiniest way, just the slightest mis-step, the Russians could back out, the deal could be off, and the women would be lost to them. Disappeared into the wind.
Hannah sniffed loudly.
She’d put in all the hard work so there wouldn’t be a mis-step, and so that nobody would get cold feet. Just because she was sitting there having a pity-party for one, did not mean that everything was going down the toilet.
It was all going to work out just as she’d planned it, and nobody, not JT, and definitely not Logan, was going to fuck it up for her or make her doubt herself. Too many lives were at risk to let that happen.
Hannah gave herself a mental shake.
Maybe after this mission was over she’d take a break, and possibly think about doing something else for a while. There were dozens of organisations begging her to work with them. Foreign governments, universities and colleges, research foundations, they all came knocking on her door at least once every quarter, hoping to catch her momentarily disillusioned.
It was a good job she’d left her phone on her desk, she thought, as if one of those calls came in right at that moment, she’d be seriously tempted to take their offer.
Hannah let herself believe that for all of five seconds before she broke down and snorted a laugh.
Who the fuck was she trying to kid? She could never walk away from Alpha Company, at least, not while Danny was still working there.
The one and only reason Hannah was happy to get out of bed every morning, was that she knew she would get to spend most of every day close to, if not with her man.
Dammit, she needed to pull herself together before he came up to check on her. If Danny found out that she had been reduced to tears, and in particular that JT had been the cause, Hannah didn’t give the Captain very good odds of not ending up flat on his ass before the afternoon was out. Her gorgeous husband was laid back about everything, short of someone upsetting his wife or kids.
Hannah glanced out of the window and down at the street, where crowds of people were just going about their everyday business.
The world she lived in, had lived in all her life, was just so far apart from what most people would regard as normal, that she was starting to doubt whether much of her life was actually grounded in reality.
She was married to the most wonderful man on the planet. A guy who would probably make any woman’s ‘Fantasy – would do!’ list. She had three beautiful children who were proving to be every bit as smart as their parents, and she had the most satisfying job imaginable, helping the good guys rout the bad guys and saving the world on a daily basis.
At least, she’d always felt that way, until today.
As she looked down at the road, she noticed a figure coming out of the coffee shop across the street. Logan! Well, the dark copper hair was pretty hard to miss.
Before Hannah had a chance to look away, a woman came out of the door behind him, with a child of about five or six. Logan turned back as they reached the road and said a few words before wrapping the woman in a bear hug.
The kid pushed his way between them, and Logan leaned down and picked the boy up, making sure he was in the middle of the bear-hug.
Hannah continued to watch, but her blood was starting to boil again.
Logan finally broke the embrace, kissing the woman and child on the cheek before crossing the road, presumably to return to the Guardians offices.
Part of the reason these six guys had been recruited onto the team was that they were all single, with no romantic entanglements, and nothing to stop them disappearing for months at a time at very short notice. At least, that was what they’d claimed.
So, who were the woman and child, and what was their connection to Logan?
Hannah frowned.
Had Logan lied about his status, just so he could make it onto the Guardians team?
Possibly. Maybe?
He needn’t have bothered, as being single hadn’t been a deal-breaker. But it had certainly been prominent in the ‘desirable’ category on the recruitment criteria list.
She wasn’t going to jump to conclusions, as it had been far from a passionate parting kiss, but even so, it didn’t look as though Logan was as unattached as he’d claimed to be.
Was it surprising that it was getting harder by the minute to trust the guy?