Page 106 of Her Unflinching Warrior (Omega Sky)
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“Good to finally meet youin person,” Kane said to Jada as the big man gave her a hug.
“Same,” she said as she hugged him back.
Gideon had found out that the reason why Dex Evans hadn’t been on the last call was that Black Dawn had been called out on a mission somewhere in Eastern Europe. Right now, Clint, Lydia, and Rylie were working on tracing back multiple feeds. The one from Kendall’s manifesto, his website from the Streetgamer.com board of directors’ biography, his address to ‘donate’ money, and tracking down all of the places that Jenny Sims had tagged ‘Miles’ on her post. They had a lot of slogging to do, but currently, it was their best chance to track Kendall down.
Lark meanwhile was taking one last crack at Naomi Sims via teleconference. Her thought was that Jenny was going to be feeling humiliated after the video and she would be reaching out to her sister who was currently out on bail.
Gideon looked around the Coast Guard Jayhawk that Commander Clark had been able to procure—once again the Commander had decided to come with them. Kostya took it in stride. It was three hundred and sixty-five miles to the dam, and it would take them a little over two hours to get there. Kane and Jada were sitting together huddled around Kane’s tablet, still working on various virus scenarios. One of the things that had Gideon twisted was how in the hell did four hundred and eight dams get infected? All of them would have required an onsite visit to get the malware installed, but how?
Kostya nudged him then made the hand signal for Gideon to change the radio frequency so it was just the two of them.
“How are you doing and give it to me straight.”
“Better,” Gideon admitted. “What you said, and how you said it… it unlocked something for me. You’re right, I’ve been holding onto a lot of guilt that just isn’t mine. But to tell you the truth, I didn’t even know I was carrying that much of a load until that asshole tried to do a number on me. I mean, talk about gaslighting a person.”
“Exactly. You’ve been feeling like shit for almost thirty years for making the best decision a kid could make, and this bastard knew how to press your buttons, but he overplayed his hand. The net result is you pulled your head out of your ass. I’m happy for you.”
“So am I.” Gideon nodded his head toward Jada. “I also got it together about Jada too. I was just hiding behind the age thing. My damage was guilt, and I couldn’t see it, so I threw her away. Biggest mistake of my life. Thank God I’ve got her back.”
“Having a woman… a partner. There’s just no way to describe that feeling and how great it is,” Kostya agreed.
“How much do you know about Amy Linden?” Gideon asked.
“Some,” Kostya said.
They both looked over at Ryker who was talking to Nolan O’Rourke. “Now that’s another man who’s twisted up about a woman. Does he even have a shot, ’cause if he doesn’t, the kind thing would be for a brother to put him out of his misery,” Gideon said.
“That’s the thing,” Kostya said. “Lark can’t get a lock on her, and Amy’s her best friend. I’ve only met her a couple of times, and the only time I spent a significant amount of time with her was the night those two met. Sparks were going off like the fourth of July.”
“So? That’s a good thing, right?”
“I can’t get into any details with you. I won’t share anything Lark has asked me to keep to myself, you know?”
Gideon nodded.
“And what she has shared, doesn’t give me a real good clue as to which way she’s going to go with Rykerorthe best way for Ryker to approach. My gut is, it’s because she doesn’t have any idea how she wants Ryker to approach.”
“Lieutenant, I hate to tell you this, but you’re not making a whole hell of a lot of sense.”
“Do you see why I don’t talk about it?”
“Yeah,” Gideon sighed.
“Look, Amy comes off like a sex goddess on stilettos. She had every man in that bar drooling over her, and that was even when Lark was beside her.”
“Shit, that’s saying something,” Gideon said in surprise.
“Exactly. But Amy wasn’t aware of it. What’s more, if she had a clue, I think she would have been uncomfortable as hell. If you want my real opinion, I think she’s pretty inexperienced.”
“Come again?”
“This isn’t anything that Lark’s shared, just my observation.”
“And our boy didn’t pick up on that?” Gideon asked.
Kostya rolled his eyes. “As oblivious as Amy was to men falling all over her, I don’t believe the word virgin is in Ryker’s vocabulary.”
