Caleb

Chapter Nine

Caleb ~

After Lainey and James had gone to bed, the team remained in the media room to go over a few things before they turned in for the night themselves.

"Looks like Lainey's warmin' up to you." Marcus said with a smile.

"She's comin around," Caleb returned, still running on his emotional high.

Something had changed in Lainey after their conversation on the balcony. She was still feisty and independent, but she had slowly started to put a little more trust and faith in Caleb which made him feel invincible. Her gestures of trust were small and would probably have gone undetected to anyone who was watching, but those little gestures meant a lot to Caleb. She had allowed him to guide her through the ballroom with his hand on the small of her back. He tested the waters with the action to see how she would react, but to his surprise and delight, she didn't pull away or question him. She simply moved where he led her and allowed him to take care of her, which was a big step for Lainey.

Caleb, Marcus, and Pierce all eyed Declan for a second or two wondering if he'd have any comment on how cozy Caleb and Lainey had been on the couch.

"What?" Declan said with an arched brow.

"No comment Boss? We're all waiting for you to kill the mood." Pierce said, obviously wanting to address the elephant in the room and get it over with already.

Declan gave Pierce a smirk which was a good sign. Dec didn't usually smile when he was about to lose his shit.

"No comment here." Declan said.

"Reeeally?" Pierce said, folding his arms across his chest, taunting his friend.

"It's not uncommon to become close with a client, in fact on a long term job like this, I think it's a good thing. She's much more likely to confide in Caleb if she feels comfortable with him and if she confides in Caleb, we get more intel."

Caleb's thoughts immediately went to the conversation he and Pierce and overheard in the limo that evening.

"Just keep your dick in your pants, Doc. Harmless flirting is fine, but you fuck her and piss off dad, our asses get reassigned and the whole op is blown."

Annnnnd there it is. I knew this conversation was going to happen again at some point.

"Heard Boss, no fuckin'," Caleb said with a sarcastic smile.

"Can we stop talking about Caleb's dick and where it is or isn't going, and start talking about the piece of intel he and I overheard in the limo tonight?" Pierce added.

"Lainey had a run in with Santiago Moreno tonight. Turns out Lainey sniffed out a potential money laundering scheme in one of his companies while she was reviewing his books."

"No shit." Marcus said, impressed by Lainey's find.

"She and James are going to go over the financial records together tomorrow morning. Hoping to get a peek ourselves if we can, but if I'm being honest Caleb has a lot more of a chance of accomplishing that than I do. Lainey's comfortable with him in her space and is more likely to include him in the conversation tomorrow. James isn't quite used to having a security detail closer than ten feet, much less conversing with him at work."

Pierce is trying to make me look good and I fucking love him for it.

"Try to get eyes on those documents tomorrow, any specifics you can relay back to Alpha is going to be worth its weight in gold."

"Will do Boss." Caleb confirmed.

"Mac you overhear anything during your time with Camila?"

"Not anything of value yet. Just gossip over brunch and a shit ton of shopping. One thing that does play to my advantage is that Camila and her socialite friends don't know that I speak Spanish, hell I doubt she knows any of us can speak Spanish. But I plan on letting them think that for as long as I can. Maybe one of them will slip up about one of their husband's business ventures." Marcus said.