Hell, for a few seconds there, right after his teammates had left the safe house, he’d almost buried his own wolf. He wasn’t sure what had stopped him from walking out until he saw Harley standing there, silently supporting him. He couldn’t leave because this was where Harley was.
He only wondered if Erin knew how close she’d been when she said he trusted his new teammates more than his old ones. In fact, she’d been spot-on. And while the entire STAT team made him feel accepted, Harley made him feel a lot more than that.
“I need to call my mum and dad and tell them about Tilly,” Rory said, pulling out his cell. “As far as they know, she’s at uni right now. I don’t know how I’m going to explain any of this.”
Sawyer didn’t envy the guy. As Rory walked away to have that conversation in private, Sawyer turned to ask Harley if she wanted to find the rest of her teammates when her phone rang. Thumbing the green button, she held it to her ear.
“That was Jake,” she said when she hung up. “They’re about to talk to Brielle and figured we’d want to join in.”
It was a quick ride up in the elevator to the fourth floor, where they found the rest of Harley’s STAT team gathered in the hallway talking to Tessa, the agent from the support staff, who was filling them in on everything that had transpired overnight. There’d been a lot of logistics involved when it came to getting the supernaturals who’d been kidnapped home, as well as finding holding areas for Yegor’s goons and the people who’d attended the auction that they’d taken into custody. STAT was a whole lot better at the behind-the-scenes stuff than MI6, that was for sure. He counted eight armed guards as well as security cameras positioned at various places. Harley’s organization definitely knew what they were doing.
“Getting the low-level trigger pullers into a local jail wasn’t a problem,” Tessa said. “The buyers, on the other hand, are a different matter. McKay has been working with Europol all night to figure out what to do with them, but honestly, with the money these people have, there’s a good chance most of them will walk. They’re too well-known to hide them away in a backwater prison somewhere, and it’s not like we can put the supernaturals they purchased on the witness stand for a trial.”
Sawyer had a sudden vision of lawyers trying to wheel the mermaid’s tank into a courtroom. Yeah, he didn’t see that going over very well.
“So, these rich assholes try to buy a bunch of supernaturals for fun and they’re going to just get away with it?” Caleb said. “Doesn’t that seem kind of fucked up?”
“It is,” Tessa replied. “But unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do about it.”
Caleb shrugged. “We could just kill them.”
That got a laugh from Tessa. “Yeah right. I wish.” When Caleb didn’t so much as crack a smile, her eyes went wide. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Do you see anyone else laughing?” Caleb said.
Sawyer almost chuckled at the nervous look Tessa threw the omega’s way. Caleb was out there, but Sawyer had to admit, the guy was growing on him.
“Okay, then,” Tessa said, looking at the rest of them. “I assumed you’d want to talk to Adriana and Kristoff as well, so I had them brought in with Brielle. Her brother, Julian, on the other hand, is still recovering from the knife wound he sustained in the fight. Before we go in, I should probably tell you that McKay is eager to get Brielle and her brother back to DC ASAP, so don’t even think about offering her any kind of deal.”
Caleb frowned. “She isn’t going to tell us anything if she’s looking at prison time. Trust me, once you know that, you don’t have any desire to tell anyone anything.”
Sawyer wondered if Caleb was speaking from experience.
Giving them a nod, Tessa opened the door and led the way into the room. Since the place had once been a hospital, Sawyer expected a small office with barely enough space for all of them. Instead, it was a conference room with a table big enough for twenty people.
At Tessa’s nod, the two agents guarding the room walked out without a word, leaving them alone with Brielle, Adriana, and her boyfriend, Kristoff.
Sawyer and Harley took seats opposite Adriana and Kristoff while Tessa and the rest of the STAT team spread out around the table. Adriana was clearly nervous, but she also seemed excited at the same time. He wasn’t sure which of those emotions was responsible for the little blue sparks running across her skin every few seconds as she sat there holding her boyfriend’s hand where it rested on top of the table.
As for Kristoff, the blond man was carefully composed, his face an unreadable mask as he assessed each of them in turn. But while he might appear calm, his elevated heart rate gave him away. The guy was worried about how this was going to go, and with good cause. The only reason he was sitting here right now and not in one of the local jails along with the other people they’d arrested was because Adriana swore up and down to anyone who’d listen that he was a good man who’d gotten caught up in a bad situation.
But while Kristoff might look relaxed, Brielle seemed like she truly was. She was still wearing the vivid blue dress she had on last night and was sitting back in her chair, legs crossed, her dark eyes taking them in one at a time. She spent a few extra moments sizing up Caleb, and Sawyer wondered what that was about. Did she recognize that he was an omega? Or had she heard his comment outside the door earlier and was trying to figure out what made him tick?
Sawyer opened his mouth to ask Brielle how she’d gotten involved with Yegor—considering how quick he’d been to use her as a human shield when things went bad, the man couldn’t be that fond of her—but Adriana interrupted before he could get the words out.
“I know I should have told you the truth from the beginning, but I knew how it would sound if I admitted Kristoff was one of the guards, so I left out that detail,” she said quickly, like she’d been rehearsing exactly what she wanted to say and had to get it out before she forgot it. “But Kristoff isn’t like those other jerks. He protected me and kept me safe. It was only after you rescued me in Paris that I realized I’d fallen in love with him.” She leaned forward to cover their clasped hands with her free one, her dark eyes pleading. “Please don’t send Kristoff to prison. He doesn’t belong there.”
Sawyer exchanged looks with Harley to see that she looked as conflicted as he felt. Adriana’s kidnapping and imprisonment had been traumatizing for sure, and Stockholm syndrome was definitely a real thing. On the other hand, maybe that wasn’t what this was at all. Maybe they truly were simply two people who’d fallen in love.
“How did you get involved with Yegor, Kristoff?” Jake asked. “If we know how you ended up working for him, we might be able to put in a good word for you.”
Kristoff glanced at Adriana, giving her a small, reassuring smile before turning back to Jake. “I started working for Yegor over a year ago,” he said with a slight German accent. “I took the job knowing he was a criminal, but things hadn’t been going so well lately and I needed the money. I thought he’d hired me to steal stuff or sell drugs, maybe rough up some people who owed him money. When he had that first auction a few months ago, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I had no idea I was getting involved in trafficking people. That isn’t what I’m about.”