Page 102 of The Lazarus Protocol

“Jay will get a lead.”

“I might duck out on this and hook up with Jay to give him a hand. I don’t like sitting here when Kai is…”

“I know.” Adam couldn’t argue with the guy. “Do what you can to warn our friend. Then go help Jay get your boy. We’ll do the same.”

“Thanks, Nix.”

“As if you need to say that.”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.” Adam hung up the phone, feeling wiped already and they hadn’t been away from the castle for more than two hours.

“Sure you’re up for this?” Dan had a backpack on and held a laptop to his front. Tech support and a medic all rolled into one.

“I’m fine.” Adam glanced at the sky, but the afternoon sun was a little too bright. Pain thrummed through his head, but only because he’d fallen asleep awkwardly on the short plane ride here.

“So we’re just ignoring your physical condition?” Dan shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking like a mother hen about to pounce and take his temperature.

“I wouldn’t say I’m ignoring it.”

“Just strategically avoiding the subject.”

Adam smiled at his friend. “Did you come with me just so you could be annoying?”

Dan opened the laptop and folded it back on itself. “The train is incoming.”

“And she’s on it?”

“That, or she’s walking down the track. And at the speed she’s going…”

“Fine, I get it.” Sure enough, the train came into view, heading toward this station on the tracks. Adam didn’t think about how it felt to hear Ice explain what he’d done after Steph confessed her personal connection. Or what drove him to find her and make it right. Nor did he want to think about the team’s reaction and what they thought that meant.

He didn’t have a thing for her.

And if he did, it wasn’t like that was an option for him. She had a job, and he had a life. Those two didn’t mix.

Dan said, “Ice is paranoid about people lying, and I’m not sure I blame him.”

Adam shot his friend a look. “Even though he lies all the time?”

“He just doesn’t want the situation to become sticky with someone whose loyalty we can’t be certain of.”

Not something Adam would necessarily argue with. But when it was Steph? Yeah, reason had gone out the window. At least he could blame it on the pain meds.

Dan shook his head. “I get it. We all do. But can I just say, I don’t need your permission to look up this colonel you tussled with and have Marina worm her way into his entire life and then systematically destroy him for what he did to you.”

Adam said nothing.

“But you don’t want him destroyed?”

“If I go after him, the risk of me exposing myself to people who will lock me up again, or kill me, is too great. And I know I’ll only be getting revenge thinking it’s going to fix the problem. It won’t.”

“You’re sure he isn’t doing what he did to you to someone else?”

Adam shook his head while the train brakes squealed and it came to a stop. “He’s on a…watch list. I’m restricted from being involved, but there are people whose job it is to make sure he’s not hurting anyone. I get reports.”

“That’s how this thing you’re in works?”