Full Circle by Rj Scott (top 50 books to read TXT) 📕

up to the ex-SEAL without too much concern. Dale had backed down with an apology, muttered something about how he was sorry. Apparently Joseph had managed to get an email to him and he had informed Dale in some kind of weird SEAL code that his team was going dark for a while.

Manny could understand Dale's stressed concern. Joseph, an active SEAL, was somewhere in the world doing something that would probably be considered black ops. It didn't matter that Dale and Joseph had this relationship based on meeting when they were in the same country.

Getting a message from Joseph like that had to be hard.

Seemed like everyone was paired up. Except him, of course. He didn't really do all that relationship stuff and, hell, the only single one in the room, besides Michaela— who was ballsy but didn't have a dick, was Jake. Serious, introverted, enormously responsible Jake. Manny didn't lust after Jake. Manny liked a different kind of guy. Stubble was good, rough round the edges was good, sea-storm eyes were way past good. He pulled himself together to concentrate when he realized it was Josh Headley's face in his mind.

Fuck no. Manny did black and white. He didn't do all those shades of gray that were hidden in Josh's green eyes. No way.

Shaking his head he checked out the others in the room; two operatives from the West Coast sat in the front row clutching files. Their presence was interesting given his own connections to LA and his old life. He focused back on Morgan who looked confident despite the nerves Nik confessed to.

Morgan coughed and cleared his throat and then began. "We are following leads to the brokers behind the senate powers, in this case, that of Senator Thomas Bullen.

The third and remaining Bullen brother out there is where much of the research we have pulled together is directed.

We have limited listening surveillance in the senator's home office but he isn't there an awful lot and comms haven't picked up anything useful." He looked at Nik who just smiled reassuringly at him and then, shuffling papers, he continued.

"Adam Brooke and a partner with the FBI managed to get Gareth Headley to turn and Alastair was arrested. As you've probably all seen on the news, Senator Thomas Bullen, 56, has issued a press release detailing his shock at an 'unprecedented scandal'. We think he thinks…" Morgan paused and looked a little flustered at his overuse of the word think.

Manny sympathized. He hated standing up in front of people and doing these freaking briefings. He was far happier and a lot more efficient emailing reports.

"Sorry." Morgan coughed. "Maybe he considers the press release will take the heat off of him."

"It won't," Michaela said forcefully. Morgan nodded in eager agreement.

"No it won't," he continued. "It may actually make our job harder. Still, it doesn't mean we won't reach the same conclusions or manage to get to the same evidence.

He hasn't moved to the Bullen mansion despite the fact there is now no brother in the house. He is keeping his head down, his rhetoric up, and as far as the public are aware he is simply having nothing to do with the family businesses under investigation. Uhm—" Morgan checked down at his notes again, "So… His approval rating is sliding to new lows and for all intents and purposes he's lost the chance of becoming governor, but how much that has put a fire in his belly to seek other ways of gaining control over anything at all? We won't know for sure for a while. Our suspicion is that he could see his future with the family business and not representing constituent interests."

Manny listened to the carefully spoken words. From the head nodding, the senator taking a greater hand in the family business was what everyone in the room was thinking he may do. The senator was a smooth, urbane politician with all the right words and all the right actions but scratch just a little beneath the surface and he would bleed Bullen blood.

"He already appears to be fighting to stay in control of the family and we think he's stamped his mark." Morgan looked down at the paperwork. "There have been three bodies in as many weeks, and the Bullen family's connection is red-flagged all over the place."

"Anything we can pull him in for?" Jake asked quickly.

Manny waited for the answer. He already knew what Morgan was going to say as it had been Manny who pulled together that particular party room of blood and gore. Morgan had paled when he had been handed the data.

None of the murders had been pretty. In fact, the guy in New York had died a particularly violent death involving knives. Not a nice thing to be looking at over your

breakfast cereal.

"Nothing concrete," Morgan offered after a moment's consideration. "Some second-level guys from competing groups who have their hands in pies in Albany.

One from New York City itself." The knife victim.

Michaela whistled. "The Bullen's are going up against the New York City families?"

Morgan shook his head. He didn't have an answer although he, Nik, and Manny had discussed that very thing over pepperoni pizza and a single beer each two nights ago.

"Not the senator, necessarily; it could be Alastair is trying to consolidate his position since he's been released from his arrest." This from Nik who sat forward in his chair with his hands steepled and his chin resting on them.

Morgan cleared his throat again and then sipped some water. Manny caught Jake sending the young man an approving supportive smile. That single action had an immediate effect on Morgan as he stood a little taller.

"Bullen has a fortune in the millions of dollars, most of it the result of his ownership of stock in various companies, including a huge holding in Selby Oil. Emily Selby is his wife and the shares came to him by way of some kind of dowry, I guess. They were