Page 127 of The ARC Unit: Breach

At the other end of the table, Bear opened a narrow pouch and checked what he had packed inside. Flex cuffs and zip ties sat near the top, but my eyes kept drifting toward the retention webbing before I could stop them.

The marks around my wrists had been gone for days and my shoulder felt normal again, but seeing the webbing still brought back the pressure around my hands with uncomfortable clarity. The memory of Wolf’s fist closing at the base of my hair came with it, along with everything I had spent the last few nights trying to separate from the anger of what happened.

Bear lifted the flex cuffs. “If the dispatcher comes with us willingly, these stay in the bag. If he runs or reaches for something, Viper controls him and I secure him once the area is clear.”

“Use the webbing if you have to move him through the back exit,” Wolf said. “Less obvious under a jacket.”

My attention went to him immediately and when Wolf caught me looking, I knew there was no point pretending I had suddenly become fascinated by Bear’s pouch. He stood at the corner of the table with a handwritten list in front of him, marking things off while Raven worked at his screens and the others stayed occupied on the opposite side of the room.

I moved closer and leaned against the table beside him.

“You sure find a lot of reasons to use that thing.”

Wolf kept his attention on the list. “It’s useful.”

“If that’s what you’re into.”

His pen slowed against the paper before he finally looked at me. He studied my face for a moment, then leaned closer until his voice dropped low enough that the words stayed between us.

“You have no idea what I’m into, Mercer. And if you did, you wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

He went back to the list as though the conversation had ended there, leaving me beside him with absolutely nothing useful to say. I slowly returned to my screen and tried to pick up where I had left off, but I barely found the right page when Raven swore under his breath.

Wolf looked over from the table. “What?”

Raven turned one of his monitors toward us. “We finally have something on Strasbourg.”

He had spent most of the morning working backward from the warehouse paperwork. The company on the lease was mostly useless, but one of the old payment records showed the name of a small accounting firm that had handled its bills the year before. Raven contacted the firm through our French liaison and asked who had managed the account.

They gave him Elise Moreau’s name and agreed to pass along a message instead of handing over her personal information. Elise called back less than an hour later.

I moved my chair toward Raven. “And she actually agreed to talk to us?”

“Eventually. She wanted to know how we found her first.”

“Reasonable.”

“Once I explained that we were looking into the warehouse and not her accounting firm, she told me she still had copies of some of the old invoices.”

Wolf came around the table. “Why does she still have them?”

“The company stopped using her firm last winter and left several bills unpaid. She kept copies while they were trying to collect the money.”

“And she’ll meet us?”

Raven nodded. “She won’t send the records electronically. Someone from the warehouse company came looking for them after the account closed, and whoever it was already knew she had handled the books. That made her nervous enough that she wants to hand everything over to the authorities once, answer our questions and be done with it.”

I looked at Wolf. No wonder she was nervous.

“What’s in the records?”

“She mentioned vehicle storage and driver expenses. There may be names or companies attached, but she won’t send photographs.”

A person who had actually handled the warehouse bills was far more useful than another collection of shell company searches. She could tell us who gave instructions, who paid them and whether anyone from the company ever showed up in person.

Wolf looked at me. “You speak French.”

“Yes.”