“Don’t talk to X again without discussing it with me first.”
“You’re my bodyguard, not my boss.”
“Cross me and we’ll find out who’s in charge here.”
Rogue held up a hand. “We needed this information. And we needed it fucking fast.”
He was right, but I still didn’t like that I hadn’t been consulted. “What about the blond guy? Is he FBI too?”
“X was cagey about the details,” TJ said. “But he’s definitely FBI. More importantly, it looks like the FBI has an inside connection here.”
“Evan.” I should have known better than to assume loyalty from someone who’d already proven they weren’t going to stay loyal. Not that anyone should have supported the evil bastard he’d been working with, but I’d been taught to never trust a snitch.
“That’s my best guess,” Rhys said. “Next, I’d look at Colton since he is the one who escorted Evan here.”
I thought about seeing Colton in the barn after following Evan from the barn to the house. I hadn’t found any evidence that he was involved in anything fishy, and X had been the one to assign him escort duty, but we still needed to watch him. “I agree. We need to be very careful what we say around either of them. Do we know where the blond bastard is now and whether he’s FBI?”
“No, but X is tracking him down.”
“Are we assuming Evan led them here?” Rogue asked. “They could have tracked him on their own.”
Rhys sighed. “I’d like to think they followed him, but…”
“Evan was acting strange this morning,” Jacob said.
I turned to him. “Strange how? When did you see him?”
“When I came downstairs, he was on his phone in the kitchen, but he ended the call abruptly and acted nervous. I told him I was happy to step outside or whatever to give him privacy, but he said he didn’t need it and hurried off to his room.”
“Shit. Have we confirmed his whereabouts?”
Rhys nodded. “I asked Madison to track him down and say we had a threat and needed everybody to stay put.”
“So what’s the plan?” TJ asked.
“My brothers and I will figure that out, and if we need—”
“I’m not just sitting around here while you take on the goddamn FBI.”
“You’re not taking charge either.”
He raised his hands in a surrender posture. “Fine. You’re running this mission, but I’m in on it. If Blondie needs to be taken out, I’ll do it. Then you won’t have the blood on your hands. Believe me, mine are already covered.”
Mine were too, likely just as bad, only I’d been ordered by the government to do most of my killing. I had every confidence I was nearly as good a shot as TJ, and Rhys was probably better. “We’ll decide about that when and if the time comes.”
Jacob was watching me, but I couldn’t read the expression on his face. Would he still want me after seeing what I was willing to do to keep my family safe?
I suddenly felt like the air had been knocked out of me. Jacob was part of that family now. I might not be able to say the words yet, but I knew it was true.
“I’ll go call X and update you. For now, we’ll keep watch over Evan without letting him know we suspect him.”
“We’re not going to lock the little son of a bitch up?” TJ asked.
“He doesn’t pose any physical threat, and if we leave him be, we might catch him contacting his handler.”
“He needs to pay if he brought the feds here to expose us,” Rogue said.
“He’s probably scared,” Jacob said. “He’s alone, and he just escaped from his horrible family, and now he’s here for who knows how long.”