Juliet especially.
Evan had worked with her for years in the field and knew her instincts were unparalleled. She could read an undercover situation and formulate a plan—sometimes multiple plans—almost instantaneously. She could pinpoint the weakness of an organization or a person’s individual psyche with frightening speed and accuracy.
More than once while undercover with her, Evan had been thankful she was a good guy, on his team, rather than vice versa. To say she was wasted as an analyst/handler wasn’t exactly true; she was good at that, too. But she could be so much more.
Evan had no problem with Juliet taking the time she needed to heal from the physical and psychological wounds she had suffered last time she’d been undercover. As far as he was concerned she could take the rest of her life, if that’s what she needed, and never set foot in the field again. He would be the first one to back her up in that decision. To hold her hand. To do more if she’d let him.
But what Evan couldn’t stomach was that Juliet thought of herself as a failure as an undercover operative because of what had happened to her. That because she hadn’t been able to escape her attacker, she’d failed.
Evan had tried multiple times to tell her what he had written in his official report of the incident. Even under the worst of possible circumstances, Juliet hadn’t broken cover.
She’d saved multiple lives, his included, because of that. No one could’ve asked for more from her. Seasoned agents had broken under much less duress than Juliet had endured. But despite everything that happened to her even through the rape, Juliet hadn’t told anyone she was law enforcement.
She was the furthest thing from a failure as an agent as possible. Evan wished he could make her understand that.
But Juliet no longer trusted herself. No longer considered becoming reinstated even a possibility. Because she believed she was—and always would be—a failure as an agent.
Evan knew he walked a fine line. He didn’t want to push her for more than she was ready to take on, but knew that without some sort of push she might never move forward at all. Either way, it didn’t matter. She wasn’t ready right now, despite what he or anybody else said. Evan would just keep encouraging her, and hopefully, they’d find some way to ease her back in a few months from now.
Baby steps.
He needed to try to get Juliet to open up and talk about what was going on in her head, see if he could figure out a way to help her make some progress.
Of course, Evan couldn’t throw stones too far while sitting in his glass house. He hadn’t told anybody about the dreams that had been plaguing him for the past year and a half. Hadn’t told anyone about how he sometimes sat in his car in front of Juliet’s house at night, just to make sure she was safe.
In case she needed him to protect her. The way he hadn’t been able to do on that last mission. The way that had haunted him ever since.
So maybe Juliet wasn’t the only one who needed to make forward progress. Baby steps for him, too.
But right now he needed to get ready for his meeting with Vince Cady. He flipped through the files on his desk one more time.
Cady was a vicious bastard. Evan was delighted at the opportunity to slip inside his organization and wreak as much havoc as possible. He was a little mad that arresting Cady wasn’t a priority for this operation, but understood why it wasn’t. Omega always kept the big picture in mind.
A chair creaking at the desk across from his drew Evan’s focus. Sawyer Branson winced a little as he took his arm out of the sling it had resided in for the past few weeks, and stretched it gently. “Ready for everything with Cady tomorrow?” he asked, rotating his shoulder.
Evan closed the files. “Yep. As much as I can be with this sort of thing. How’s the arm?”
His friend grimaced. “Let’s just say I don’t recommend getting shot. Even a flesh wound hurts like hell and takes a long time to heal. But it could’ve been much worse.”
“And with pretty Dr. Megan now working right upstairs, I’ll bet you’re not even itching to get back out in the field.” Evan tried not to snicker as he said it, but wasn’t entirely successful.
Sawyer got that goofy smile at the mention of Megan Fuller, the same smile his brother Cameron got at the mention of his fiancée, Sophia Reardon.
Branson men were falling like flies around here. Evan couldn’t help but grin.
“I’m not rushing the healing process, let’s just say that,” Sawyer said, stretching his arm out again. “Wouldn’t want to have any permanent damage.”
“Well, don’t worry. I’ll handle all the heavy lifting out in the field while you and Cameron play lover boys to your respective ladies.”
Sawyer got serious. “You sure you feel all right about going in with Cady? Cam and I both feel we’ve left you on your own. Especially without Juliet available in this situation.”
“I’ll be fine. I’ve been doing most ops on my own for the past year now.”
Neither of them mentioned why. Neither had to.
“Where are you meeting Cady tomorrow?” Sawyer asked after a moment’s pause that held a novel’s worth of unsaid words.
“Undetermined as of yet. I’m going to try to get him somewhere neutral. We’ll see how it plays out.”
“All right.” Sawyer got up and put his arm back into the sling. “Keep us all posted.”
“Yeah, it will be good to have Juliet as team leader on this one. She sees things nobody else does, sometimes.”
Her brother nodded hesitantly. “Yeah, maybe. I hope so.”
“She’ll be fine, Sawyer. Safe here at Omega, as always.”
Sawyer looked as if he might say something else, but didn’t. He just nodded again, then began walking
