Page 30 of Mitch

Waggs looked up. “He needs an MRI scan.”

“No.” Gunner started to sit up, his breath hitching as he bit back grunts of pain.

“What happened?” Jack folded his arms over his chest, his face a stony mask of anger.

“I had to prove I was loyal to them. They tortured me until they were satisfied I wasn’t working with you.”

“Fuck sake,” Mitch growled causing Gunner to look at him through one open eye. “Who did this?”

Gunner looked down, spitting out blood from his mouth. “Bás but he had no choice or he would’ve blown his cover.” Gunner glanced at Waggs. “That’s why I know no internal stuff is fucked up. He pulled his punches. Listen, I haven’t got a lot of time, they’ll be watching me closely now. I met the boss, and you won’t fucking believe who it is.”

The tension seemed to magnify. It was so thick that you could almost touch it in the air around them.

“Tell me,” Jack ordered as all eyes went to Gunner.

“Osbourne.”

“Deputy Commissioner Osbourne?” Waggs asked incredulity lacing his tone.

“Yeah, met him earlier. He wants you out so he can put his own men in our,” he paused for a second, “your places.”

“That bastard.” Alex paced, showing a rare moment of fury.

“He must have someone inside the Palace, though.”

“He has his men,” Mitch offered as his own anger unfurled in his belly. He should be used to it by now—money was so often the source of conflict or war, yet he still found it hard to understand.

“No, higher up than that. We need to talk to Fitz and perhaps even consider Fitz as the source.”

“I don’t like him for this.” Decker was walking around the car after Alex had run a wand over it looking for bugs or bombs and finding none.

“Who then?”

“Not sure but Fitz is loyal to the Queen and she’s loyal to us.”

“Everyone has a price,” Waggs said as he straightened and held out a hand to help Gunner up. They fell silent as the meaning behind his words settled over them.

“I should go.” Gunner stepped towards the driver’s side.

Jack followed him. “You need to pull out, this is too dangerous. You could get killed next time.”

Gunner shook his head. “No, it’s fine. I need to find out who the insider in the Palace is and I think Osbourne has a partner. Bás agrees with me.”

“You and Bás best friends now or what?”

Mitch frowned not liking this turn. He didn’t trust the Irishman’s sudden appearance in all of this. The man was a true ghost, not even Will could find him, and that was a dangerous place for the team to be especially as he’d been the man to torture Siren—Alex’s woman.

His link to Osiris, the largest Heroin dealer in the US and Europe and the man who’d hidden under the radar for so long before Roz and Zenobi had eliminated him for hurting one of their own, was reason enough to distrust him. Now Gunner seemed to be allying himself with him too. It made Mitch’s skin crawl to think one of their own was in such a precarious position, but then he remembered Gunner wasn’t Eidolon any longer.

“No, but we have the same goals.”

“We had the same goals, that didn’t stop you before.” Mitch pointed to his chest with emphasis.

Gunner’s jaw went hard, the verbal blow landing where Mitch had meant it too. “Do you think I don’t fucking know that? I fucked up and now I’m trying to fix it.”

“How?” Jack stepped closer his head tilted, the light showing the tension on his face. Gunner held his gaze, not flinching but Decker must have seen something they didn’t

Decker moved in for the kill, his voice low and calm. “You’re hiding something.”