It had been an entire night of torture that didn’t enhance his mood one bit.
Neither did the fact that Sola took Cash’s hand as she led him down the hall and into their command center where the rest of the team was already assembled, their usual banter conspicuously absent. No one was happy about this clusterfuck.
When Sola and Aarav dropped into seats at the boardroom table, Cash between them, Jordan cleared his throat and said, “Welcome to Shields. I apologize for the rocky start to things.”
“Rocky?” Cash tossed back his head and laughed at that. “I guess if you’re talking about the cliff I had to scale and bashed one of your employees against as she kidnapped me, you’d be right about that.”
Jordan winced. “In retrospect, it wasn’t done with as much tact as we’d like. But that wasn’t exactly the plan.”
“No. Excuse me if I’m not in the mood to be cordial since you’d meant for Aarav to blow my fucking brains out.” Cash crossed his arms, making the tanned skin of his forearms stretch over corded muscles. Aarav could easily picture him hoisting the sails of his boat in the sunshine and sea breeze. He wasn’t meant to be here in this office, half a world away.
“True. But Sola’s a hell of an operative and she called him off.” Jordan smiled wanly at her then.
“Why did you?” Cash wondered, looking to Sola too.
“It didn’t feel right.” She shrugged one shoulder and stared at the table directly in front of her instead of meeting anyone’s gaze. Aarav hated that he’d played a part in her doubting herself. Never again. Even if that meant becoming uncomfortable and facing whatever the fuck was going on between them, and now Cash—who’d gotten entangled in their bullshit.
“Can you answer some questions for us so we can sort through the intel we have and clear up any misinformation?” Jordan wasn’t usually this meek. It only unnerved Aarav more, and yet didn’t do much to turn down the flames on the rage bubbling within him.
“Why the hell should I talk to you? Why should I trust any of you?” Cash flung up his hands. “As far as I can tell, you’re a fancy bunch of brutes with poor judgment.”
Sola winced and shifted away from Cash, who turned toward her and took a deep shaky breath.
“Except for her.” He gestured with his thumb at Sola.
“I could remind you that we’re armed and prepared to convince you to speak with us however necessary.” Jordan didn’t back down, because at the end of the day, Cash probably wasn’t that far off. If it meant serving the greater good, they were willing to use force. “But we’d much prefer to have a civil conversation.”
Sola turned to Cash then, her eyes huge. “Please. Tell them what you know so you can be cleared. If you need protection, we can help you with that too.”
“From who?” Cash tipped his head. If he was an actor, he was a hell of a good one.
Jordan drew their attention back to him. He nodded to Ruby, who clicked a few buttons and put up several images on the huge curved screen at the head of the room. They weren’t pictures of Cash’s dad, though. It was Jay Barber, the arms dealer at the root of the problem. “Do you recognize this man?”
“Yeah.” Cash shrugged, but Aarav felt the absolute stillness of every Shield in the room. This moment could change everything. Was he admitting they’d been right at first? “I’ve seen him with my father once or twice. I try not to be involved, but sometimes he forces me to attend events, like the one yesterday, or he threatens to cut me off.”
Cash groaned. “I realize by now I should tell him to fuck off. Yesterday was the last straw. It’s more important to me to be left the hell alone. I’ll sell my boat. Figure something out. It’ll be fine. Better than dealing with his shit.”
Aarav’s gut twisted at that. It didn’t take a master profiler to realize that yacht meant everything to Cash, because it was the place he found peace. He must be serious if he’d consider giving it up.
“Do you know his name? Or what he does for a living?” Jordan kept pushing.
“You really overestimate how many fucks I give about my father’s business.” Cash shook his head. “If you were hoping I could tell you shit about that, you wasted a hell of a lot of effort, and could have gotten Sola killed.”
Aarav wasn’t happy about that either. He couldn’t think about it too much or the emotions roiling inside him would boil over. He tried to lock them under his usual impassive visage.
“One thing I don’t get,” Cash continued, “is why some gambling is worth ending someone over. Are you some kind of moral police? Is he cheating or what? I wouldn’t put it past him.”
That sealed it for Aarav. Because he’d had the same exact question until Jordan had revealed the true underpinnings of the Kalykalaos enterprise.
“He doesn’t know shit!” Aarav slapped his palms on the table, drawing the stares of each man and woman around it. Marcus, Kennedy, Knox, Nolan, Ruby, James, Liam, Ace, Tavish, Legend, Ransom, Levi, Sola, and Jordan—every last one of them gaped at him, which only triggered his eruption.
Aarav bolted to his feet, knocking his chair over with a thunderous crash.
He knew he should have taken a walk, found his center, kept his cool, but instead shouts launched from his mouth straight from his soul. It felt so good to get it out, he unleashed his rage, directing it at Jordan. “You damn near made me a murderer. For real. What the fuck?”
His fists balled and he had a vision of launching himself in an epic slide across the polished table to plant his knuckles in Jordan’s horrified face, but Sola was there, reaching across Cash, to cover his hands with a gentle squeeze.
Her touch soothed him like nothing else could, encouraging him to take a long, ragged breath and then another until the red haze dissipated and the concern of his friends ringing them penetrated his fury.