“My office, now.” I stomped into my office and didn’t turn around. I could hear her soft footsteps as they fell against the floor. She left the office door open and probably hoped Declan or Aiden might save her ass.
“What can I do for you?” Ariella asked. She stood with her arms tight against her side, her shoulders slumped.
“Have a seat.”
“Are you firing me?”
“What?” I laughed under my breath at the absurdity of her question. “Do I have a reason to fire you?” Had she done something that I wasn’t aware of yet?
She didn’t move from her position on the floor just a few feet away. Her body was practically a statue, except for the slight tremble.
“I don’t believe so,” she stammered.
“Good.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. Five seconds and she was giving me a headache. Maybe I was blaming her for something that wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know the mess I’d gotten Eagle Tactical involved in by accepting Franco as a client. Shit. Franco. He planned on coming to the office around noon. “I need your help.”
She nodded but didn’t say a word.
“The minute the sheriff is done with his interview, I need you to take Hazel to the resort.”
“Blue Sky Resort?” Ariella asked. Dread crossed her face. She looked like she might be sick.
“You can do that, can’t you? I need you to rent a room. No one will think anything of it since no one knows you work for us.” It would be an easy solution for the time being. I needed to get Hazel out of the office and some place safe.
“I—yeah, I can do that.” She rolled her lips tight between her teeth.
I didn’t imagine it would be easy for her to step foot back in the resort that had fired her and where she’d been assaulted. The job itself wasn’t easy.
“I don’t think Mason is going to want to leave her side,” Ariella said. “They have some type of past connection, history together.”
“They do?” She knew more about Hazel than I did. “What else do you know?”
She appeared to relax under my scrutiny. Ariella took another step and came to sit down in the chair that Mason had vacated a few minutes prior. “Hazel reached out to him for help,” Ariella said. “Maybe I should start from the beginning.”
“That would be good.” I perched myself at the edge of the wooden desk and listened to her recant how she’d received a message on her laptop and that Mason had been involved in contacting the U.S. Marshal’s office, someone by the name of Colton to help extract her.
I knew Colton. We’d served in the military together.
“Stay here,” I said and headed out into the hallway and to Aiden’s office for the safe stashed in the wall, hidden away in the closet.
Aiden and Declan went silent the minute I stepped into their office. “Don’t mind me,” I said and went right for the safe.
“Something we can help you with?” Declan asked.
“Yes. I need to get Ariella a credit card to get a room and check-in early at the resort,” I said. I opened the safe and flipped through the materials that were available.
“And you don’t think whoever runs the check-in desk will notice she’s using a fake name?” Declan grinned. “Are you trying to set her up to get arrested?”
Shit. “No.” The hotel would require a credit card for incidentals when checking in. “I’ll book the room online and have her check-in and use her own card.”
Aiden shook his head. “You’re getting sloppy.”
It was the lack of sleep. I didn’t do my best work after being up all night. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
Declan and Aiden exchanged a glance.
“What?” I growled at the two of them.
“Your sexual frustration is killing all of us. Please, go home. Shower, sleep, bluff the squirrel,” Declan said.