I cut my stare and grind my teeth so damn hard that my jaw locks up.
Candace angles in my direction. “It’s to protect my father, Rick,” she says. “And you. We don’t know that he’s not coming for you.”
But we do because her father was the man giving us orders. If the CIA was involved, it was with him, not me. “He thinks you’re sick. Shouldn’t he be checking on you?”
“His affection for me, or lack thereof, is not in question,” she says. “I just want to buy us time to do whatever we can do to protect my father.”
My lips thin. “Text,” I say. “You’re on edge. He’s going to know. He’ll read it in your voice.”
“He doesn’t read anything from me,” she says. “But I’ll text.” She grabs her phone, types the message, and then waits. Her phone buzzes back with a message and she reads it out loud: In meetings. I’ll try to call you in a few hours.
Her eyes meet mine, and there’s uncertainty and confusion in her stare. She doesn’t understand why I’m so damn possessive and yet I shoved her away last night. Or why Adam had to tell her my history. I think of her words “you can’t just kill him” again and cut my stare. That’s who she believed I was before Adam told her otherwise. That’s who her father told her I was. Fuck, that’s who I told her I was. Why am I pissed that she believed me?
A few minutes later, we all have MacBooks in front of us reviewing copies of the same documents. In the hours that follow, I stick to my chair, keep to myself, but I can feel her sneaking looks at me, willing me to close the space between us, but I don’t. If I go to her, I’m going to kiss the hell out of her, and she’s going to end up naked, and on my tongue, again. And that won’t happen without some potential shouting on her behalf that I probably, most likely, almost certainly, deserve.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Savage
Hours tick by filled with research and at some point, Adam pulls out a collage of photos that Blake sent him. Candace manages to identify a man we all feel might connect the dots we need connected. I weed through document after document with not much success. “I should search my father’s home office,” Candace offers. “Maybe there’s something there that tells us what he knows about Gabriel.”
“I did,” I say. “Last night while you were sleeping.”
She blanches and turns to me. “Did you find anything?”
“Nothing that helps,” I say tightly.
“Maybe I’ll see something you didn’t.”
She’s right. She might. But that brings us back to her father’s involvement.
The doorbell rings with a pizza order Adam insisted on half an hour ago . “I’ll grab it,” she says, standing up, allowing me a save that won’t last.
Smith pushes to his feet. “I’ll help.”
The two of them leave and Adam and I are alone. “Better she finds out from you than Gabriel.”
“You mean, better I tell her before it explodes from your Texas-sized mouth.”
“You’ll thank me for what I did later,” he assures me. “I know you think you’re protecting her by pushing her away, but you’re a Walker now.”
“Says the man that’s here because Tag pulled me into this shit.”
“Her father drug you into this shit and we’re going to end it. We’ll get you your freedom.”
My enemies run deep, in a way his boy scout ass can’t understand.
Smith and Candace return with a stack of pizzas. “We’ll set them all out in the kitchen,” Candace says and when she walks by, I have this caveman urge to chase her, throw her over my shoulder, and take her to the bedroom. When we’re naked, all the rest of this shit burns away while we burn alive.
Adam’s cell buzzes with a text and he glances at it and then me. “Aaron’s flying in tonight. He says he has information we need that’s better shared in person. And to watch our backs.”
“I don’t trust the CIA.”
“He’s not CIA. He’s Walker.”
“Once a CIA asshole, always a CIA asshole.”
“Once a mercenary, always a mercenary?” he challenges.
“Exactly.”
“We need him,” he says, ignoring my reply. “And the CIA burned him, which is why he ended up with us. He knows how to rip through their secret chains of command.”
“Gabriel was top-level CIA,” I say. “They say it comes from above and flows down. That’s Aaron’s resume.” I stand up. “Pizza calls.” I walk toward the kitchen.
“Tell her,” he calls out.
I lift a hand and enter the kitchen to find Smith and Candace laughing while eating pizza.
Thunder rumbles above and Candace jolts, her eyes rocketing to mine. “I guess I’m more uneasy than I realized.”
“A little rain never hurt anyone,” I say, my eyes meeting hers, the memory of the night we met in my mind, and the rain that gave me an excuse to scoop her up and put her in my truck. “I love a good rainstorm.”