“It’s phenomenal, as is Rose.”
“Yeah, she is. Don’t know what we’d do without her.”
“This might be a totally inappropriate question, but where did you get the funding for all of this? The communications center alone has to be worth millions.”
“Several. We’ve built it up over the years. We started with our savings, some personal loans. Some life insurance policies. Whatever we could get together. Some of our jobs have included a nice paycheck. We put as much as we can back into the organization.”
“We?”
“The six of us who started OZ. Xavier, Sean, Gideon, Liam, and Hawke.”
“Hawke?”
“We lost him a few years back.”
“I’m sorry.”
Ash accepted her condolences with a nod. Only a handful of people knew the full story of what really happened to Hawke. He didn’t like keeping secrets from his team, but in this he’d had no choice.
“So you’ve been friends with them a long time?”
“Yeah. When you almost die with someone, you form a bond.”
“A band of brothers?”
“Something like that.”
“You’ve managed to do a lot with OZ in a relatively short period of time.”
“We’ve been lucky.” He nodded to the chairs in front of his desk. “Have a seat. We have a situation I want to discuss with you.”
She came toward him, and though she was smiling, he saw something in her eyes that told him she wasn’t as relaxed as she was trying to appear.
As soon as she was seated, he walked around the desk and sat in the chair beside her. “I need your honest answer about something.”
“Okay…yes…of course.”
“Omar called. He’s set the auction up for two weeks from today. The timing is good. It’ll give us a chance to create some background stories, work different scenarios, and get prepared.”
“I’m getting the feeling there’s a ‘but’ attached to that statement.”
“Omar insists that you accompany me.”
“Why would that be a problem?”
“I need to know how you feel about going back there.”
“I’m fine. I—”
Ash held up his hand. “Stop it, Jules. I was there. I saw what happened…how you reacted. I need to know if you can handle it. If you can’t, I’ll tell Omar we split up, and Eve can attend with me. You can still be part of the op, working in the background with Jazz and Serena. But there’s no need for you to go as Elsa.”
* * *
Jules told herself that she should be touched that Ash had so much concern for his employee. And while intellectually she could accept that, she couldn’t help but feel she had disappointed him.
“No, do not even get that in your head,” he said.
“What?”