ELEVEN #2
“When I get back. I’ll talk to Cannon about what you told me.”
She held his gaze. For the first time, she didn’t argue.
The phone buzzed again.
Cannon. Impatient bastard.
Rome backed toward the door even though everything in him wanted to stay. Stina remained beside the counter, surrounded by ingredients and the wreckage of a meal she’d never cared about making in the first place.
He turned into the corridor and forced himself toward the war room, worry weighting every step.
Whatever started in Chicago wasn’t over.
* * * * *
Stina ruined the recipe ten minutes after Rome walked out.
She didn’t do it intentionally, but at some point the pile of ingredients became a disaster that a dog probably wouldn’t eat.
She set down the knife and braced both hands on the counter, replaying their discussion in her head.
Now all she could think about was a man in a dark coat leaning against a car outside Antonio’s. The black baseball cap hid a face she didn’t look at for long because she told herself she imagined that she’d seen him before.
Then an epiphany hit, and her stomach bottomed out. Even though she supposedly had an undercover agent guarding her, this guy had still managed to follow her. Had that man killed her bodyguard?
Her stomach rolled, and she pushed away from the counter. The cookbook remained open behind her, but the words blurred too much to matter. She didn’t know whether she was more rattled by the memory or by the look on Rome’s face when she’d told him.
She hated that she’d wanted him to stay when his phone went off, because she’d put the days of wanting to chase after a man behind her.
Stina snatched the towel from the counter and wiped her hands even though they weren’t dirty. Then she walked out of the kitchen with no idea where she was going, only that standing still felt impossible.
She made it as far as the common room when Jolie looked up from her laptop.
“Oh no.”
Stina stopped. “What?”
“That face.”
“I don’t have a face.”
“You have several faces.” Jolie closed the laptop and set it beside her on the couch. “That one says something happened.”
Stina wanted to deny it, but Jolie would see right through it.
“Rome was asking me questions.”
Jolie’s expression sharpened. “About what?”
“Chicago. Before all this. Before the photo and the agent and all the things keeping me here.” She dragged a hand through her curls and started pacing in front of the coffee table. “He asked if I ever felt watched and talked myself out of it.”
Jolie didn’t interrupt, but alarm flooded over her face.
“I remembered a guy outside Antonio’s.”
“What?”
“Maybe the same guy near my apartment. Or maybe not. I don’t know. That’s the problem.” Stina turned and faced her. “I can’t tell what’s real anymore. I don’t know if I noticed something important or if my brain is rewriting normal behavior into a threat because everything going on is insane.”
Jolie crossed the room to her. She caught both her hands before she could start pacing again.
“Your gut picked up something. That matters. You were busy surviving your actual life. Rent. Work. Bad shifts. All of it. You didn’t fail some imaginary test because you didn’t turn into a federal investigator overnight. ”
The words helped.
Not enough.
Her friend tugged Stina toward the sofa, but she resisted.
“I can’t sit down. If I sit, I’m going to think.”
Jolie squeezed her hands and looked around the common room. “So we won’t sit.”
Stina narrowed her eyes. “That sounds suspicious.”
“We can do things around the base.”
“Like what?”
“Home improvements.”
The word struck her hard—home. This was home to Jolie now.
But…could it be hers?
She thought of Rome’s arms, and her stomach tumbled.
They looked around the common room. It wasn’t cold exactly. It was just…a man’s space.
Sofa, TV, place to put your feet up. Everything else was clutter, so that was where they started.
They worked without much talking for a few minutes.
They moved the lamp. They draped a blanket over a chair and shifted a few books on the coffee table until they looked intentional instead of left behind when the team rushed out on an op.
Small things, but it no longer looked abandoned, and that seemed to make a world of difference, both to the space and Stina’s outlook on being here.
Jolie straightened the blanket. “Better.”
Stina leaned against the arm of the sofa. “It’s weird how much better.”
“That’s because we made it ours too.”
Stina’s throat tightened.
“You’re thinking about him,” Jolie said.
Stina snapped her gaze back. “Who?”
Jolie gave her a look.
“Don’t say it.”
“Rome.”
“I was only telling him off in my head for leaving at an important point in our last conversation.”
“Uh-huh.” Jolie folded her arms and eyed her. “I bet you were thinking about his chest.”
Stina picked up one of the pillows and fluffed it even though it didn’t need it. “I definitely was not thinking about his chest.”
“Then it was his ass.”
She threw the pillow at her friend. Jolie caught it and set it on the sofa again.
Stina let out a sigh. “In Chicago, I had a life. Here, I’m just the woman people are trying to kill.”
“Oh, Stina. You’re still you.”
“Am I?” The question came out smaller than she wanted. “I can’t work. I can’t leave. I can’t fix anything. I don’t know how to live in limbo, Jolie.”
“You don’t have to know everything all at once.”
Stina gave a soft laugh. “That sounds like one of your psychology discussion posts.”
“It’s not. It’s best friend advice.”
That was worse.
Better.
Both.
Stina looked around the common room again. It was definitely warmer and cozier. It was proof that two women could take a dead corner in an underground base and make it feel human.
But the man who might—or might not—have been watching her still sat in the back of her mind. And now she knew the danger had probably started long before she ever understood she was in it.
For the first time since she left the kitchen, she could breathe around the fear she’d been hiding.
Only a little.
For now, that would have to be enough.