AMIDST THE CATS' CRADLE - 8
C H A PT E R E I G H T - - - - J O R D A N
"I'm telling you, I'm Perfectly fine," Shaun whimpered, collapsing down on his stomach in the makeshift operating room constructed out of a corner of The Firm's base of operations for this mission.
Jordan still had flashbacks of the devastation on the flight even though it had been more than nine months after the mission in Cebu every time he examined a person who had suffered a concussion. Although no one had killed save the Arctics agents at the time, a few of the football players had come dangerously near. To stop their homicidal rages, the squad had to kill every single one of them, yet even an opponent of the same size as a 250-pound man could be destroyed in a matter of seconds.
After the effects of the medication and the adrenaline wore off, some wound up in intensive care, and after handing Gwen over to the intelligence service, Jordan joined The Firm's medical team to help them out.
He wondered idly, a question he had been asking himself much too frequently ever since the night he, Mitch, and Gwen had spent together.
"Doc, are you going to take action, or am I just showing off my tender flesh for fucking nothing?"
Shaun looked at Jordan while raising himself up on one elbow.
“Wise-ass. Shut up and act normal. You're now a father to two children. You'd think you'd grow out of your sass," Jordan mumbled as he peeled aside the bandages he'd placed the day before over a knife wound in Shaun's lower back.
He’d gotten insanely lucky, as the slack-jawed idiot who’d come for him from behind had missed every possible thing he could hit that would have done serious damage. Not that it mattered, considering that the guy still ended up with eight broken fingers and the knife shoved into his thigh for good measure. The up- and downsides of missions in odd locations—no one was going to mind if you fucked up an Argentinian drug trafficker in the middle of nowhere, especially if he was asking for it.
"What about my sass? What am I, a character from an Oprah episode? " Shaun snorted, rolling back on his stomach without complaining. "Please hurry up. I need to clock out and go check on Dani and the kids. Rhian is practicing how to say 'daddy,' and I don't want to miss it because I'm here, conversing with your incredibly hilarious but completely repetitious self."
"Yes yeah, I hear you," Jordan sighed, putting on a fresh bandage as the wound looked excellent and was almost completely healed due to his jaguar's fitness and strength.
Jordan knew that the minute he saw his family, his mending would accelerate even further. When shifters were among their loved ones, it always did. It gave them courage. Twins had a little advantage in this regard because they could recover faster due to being near their sister, but it was still nothing compared to having a partner as well. Nothing is more potent than an Alpha triad.
Jordan thought glumly, tapping Shaun on the shoulder, "Something you'll probably never experience."
"You're all set, big guy. Are we going to meet for drinks tomorrow night at the normal spot? Mitch reserved a table for us at The Pool Room. "We decided we'd have a few shots and see where the night takes us," Jordan said as Shaun pulled himself off the cot and stood up, stretching as if Jordan had confined him for hours.
"I'm not sure, dude. We've been gone for a while, and I'd like to spend some time with Dani and the kids. " Shaun shrugged regretfully, grabbing Jordan's leather jacket and slapping him on the shoulder. "However, we'll have another BBQ at our house on Saturday. Gather the entire family, spouses, children, and all. Okay? ”
"Sure," Jordan answered, faintly smiling as Shaun smiled at him.
Now that he had a partner and a family, the werejaguar was smiling a lot more. It wasn't a gradual shift; it seemed to happen all at once. Shaun had changed since he and Dani had started dating. That same applied to the other members of Squad Six, who had all settled down with their happy families. Except for the Allen brothers, that is.
Jordan watched Shaun leave their makeshift mission area, which was tucked away in a random corridor of The Firm's Laguna headquarters. Instead of providing them with a permanent location complete with a medical facility, storage, and other basic amenities, The Firm jerked Squad Six around every time they returned after another assignment. It was always a fresh cubbyhole and a different cot to sleep on.
All six of them would remain on The Firm property, and they didn't particularly appreciate putting their stuff in a different location every time, so back when the entire squad was engaged, they had been working toward acquiring something that didn't change every mission break. However, four of the six of them had already decided to return home for understandable reasons, leaving only Jordan and Mitch to lament their shoddy accommodations.
Jordan grabbed his jacket and the medkit, thinking to himself that he would need to restock once they learned more about the assignment. The team used to go out on the town, get into mischief, fuck some attractive women, and then repeat the process. But those times had long since passed, and Jordan and Mitch were now on their own.
He threw on the jacket, and his mood soured. He couldn’t fault his friends and squad mates. Really, he would have done the same, had he someone to come home to. Questions of family had never really laid heavily on his mind, but recently, he’d been more and more aware of the fact that he wasn’t getting any younger and the lives his pals were leading started looking oddly appealing.
No fucking way you can find someone that fits both you and Mitch. You know that. Even if Gwen came really fucking close, Jordan thought, rubbing his chin as he made sure he had his wallet and his phone in his pocket as he stepped out of the room and headed down the hallway.
He was just rounding a corner when he heard familiar steps, his cougar perking up at the presence.
Mitch, he thought.
He could usually tell his brother was approaching from a good distance away. It helped in battle, too, as he was always keenly aware of where Mitch was and in what state, or whether he was in trouble or not. The black shadows that were hanging over his mood lifted slightly and he let out a sigh, glad at least that he wasn’t entirely alone in this mess.
“Brother,” Jordan called as Mitch came into view, whistling slightly, carrying his duffel over his shoulder.
“Hey, man. Heading out?” Mitch asked as they stopped in the middle of the hallway, at an intersection of corridors leading throughout the fifth floor of the main building of The Firm’s compound.
“I was thinking about it. It’s getting late. Figured I’d get a bite to eat or something, maybe grab a drink or ten.”
“Ahh, good post-mission day, huh,” Mitch said with a chuckle. “I’m up for a drink. Let’s go drop my gear and we can go. Wearing fatigues, I’m pretty sure we’ll be intolerably popular downtown.”
“As usual,” Mitch said, reluctantly turning around and heading back to their shared room.
The Firm had also assigned them an apartment, another thing that kept rotating along with the whims of their employer, but they preferred stashing their guns and professional equipment somewhere a bit more safe than a random dinky house they’d never even been to before. Didn’t mean they minded taking women back to those apartments, though.
“We’re the only ones, huh?” Mitch questioned as Jordan unlocked the door and Mitch tossed his bag in the corner. “Shaun leave already?”
“His wound was fine; he ran off to watch Disney movies with the podlings,” Jordan said with a shrug of his shoulders as they set off again.
“Jealous?” Mitch teased, his blue eyes twinkling with mirth.
“Maybe,” Jordan allowed in a moment of honesty.
“Yeah? That’s new,” Mitch muttered, sounding a bit surprised, but so was Jordan.
“I’m as taken aback as you are, trust me,” Mitch grunted as they reached the stairwell, preferring the stairs to the elevators.
It was an old SEAL thing. Don’t get stuck in a small space if you don’t have to. They hiked down the stairs with swift steps, in peak physical condition as they were, until Jordan almost stumbled and fell about three flights lower. He heard a noise, a voice, and it rooted him to the ground.
“Yo, Jordan, watch your freaking step, man,” Mitch said with a laugh, but he hushed immediately.
The two men stared at one another, eyes wide with surprise as a very familiar, very lovey sound wafted into their ears.
“Are you hearing what I’m hearing?” Jordan asked, the hair on the back of his neck standing up.
“Fuck yes,” Mitch growled, his eyes glancing up and down, trying to distinguish where the noise was coming from. “Up,” he said, and he burst into movement, practically flying up the stairs with Jordan in tow.
It can’t be, Jordan thought feverishly. She disappeared on us. And why would she be in The Firm’s designated hellhole?But that didn’t make his feet stop. The Allen brothers burst into the corridor that opened up on the fourth floor, Mitch a couple of paces ahead, running toward the faint noise. Jordan caught up with his faster sibling only when Mitch’s steps ground almost to a stop, stalking rather than walking now.
Mitch raised a hand, hushing Jordan, and he complied with the command. While Jordan was a talented medic, he could always trust his brother’s instincts better when it came to hunting down something or someone. The ranger in the family had always been Mitch.
“You get that what you’re asking is fucking impossible, right?! I’d never leave them,” the spirited, animated voice of Gwen came through the slightly open door in front of Mitch and Jordan.
Jordan could have been knocked over with a feather at that very moment. Mitch looked back at him, straightening up, a look of dumb, honest surprise plastered on his face.
It’s her…
Before Jordan could say anything for or against it, Mitch had grabbed the door handle and ripped it open. The moment Jordan’s eyes locked with Gwen’s pretty blues, he thought he must have died and gone to heaven, bypassing all that repentance nonsense.
The mission break had gotten a whole lot more interesting all of a sudden.
