Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
By the time Sinner boarded the bus headed to the construction site on Monday morning, he was already irritated.
Not because of the noise or the press of bodies, or even because public transportation meant too many unpredictable variables—though it was reason enough to dislike it. But their midnight run to a bad part of town didn’t end in any drug deals.
Sunday, they had the same bad luck. Each time he tried to boost her morale, her mood darkened more.
He wasn’t surprised when Opal stood at the door that morning, pulling on her boots, the ends of her hair still damp from the shower, and told him she intended to head a few blocks farther east into a more dangerous section of town.
The places where people didn’t ask questions if you kept your voice low and your eyes down.
To get what she needed, she needed to be seen, she told him.
He knew it was true, but he didn’t like it.
He wrapped his fingers around the pole as the bus lurched into motion, letting his body sway boneless in an act he was getting goddamn tired of. He stared out the window in an unfocused way, jaw tense enough to snap tendons.
Letting his partner operate independently was standard. Encouraged, even.
But letting someone he cared about step into unknown danger without him ran against every instinct drilled into him since BUD/S training.
Stay together. Cover your six. Control the variables.
He wasn’t controlling shit when he was on this bus and she was out there alone.
He got off at his stop and took off walking toward his job site. The city blocks stretched out here, giving him a little room to breathe.
His phone vibrated, pulling him out of his thoughts.
Glancing around to ensure there weren’t people within earshot, he took the call. “Franklin,” he gave his cover name.
Dante’s voice came through first, rapid and energized. “Morning, sunshine. You’re trending.”
“That so?” Sinner kept his tone flat.
“Elin and I have been monitoring chatter on the dark web since early morning. Cipher’s network is moving in.”
Elin cut in, her Swedish accent crisp over the line. “Your backgrounds are being checked. Financial records hacked, employment histories opened. Some photos were scraped from social media. And they got you on closed-circuit camera popping a pill and sleeping on the job.”
Dante cut in. “Cipher’s going to make contact soon.”
Sinner felt a flicker of heat in his chest at the mention of the terrorist.
Fucking fantastic. The last thing he wanted was Opal out there—bait for one of the biggest psychopaths the world had ever seen.
The answer had been blazing a trail through his brain, but when he let himself say it aloud, it scared the hell out of him. “Cipher won’t contact me. He’ll go straight for her.”
“Exactly,” Dante said.
“Which means if this works, this could all be over sooner than we expected.” Sinner’s tone was steel over gravel.
Another bus rolled past. Aware that people could be watching, he exaggerated his limp and continued toward the work site, raising a hand to scratch at his skin like he was in the throes of withdrawal.
Sinner hated the hotel, the job, the act—but he didn’t want the op to end.
He loved the way Opal challenged him, the way she viewed the world one way while trusting him with little pieces of herself every day.
He…loved Opal.
Dante’s voice sounded piercing. “Sinclair. You sure you’re in this?”
“I’ll finish it.”
Elin sighed into the line. “We’ll keep monitoring. You’ll know if anything changes.”
He ended the call, leaving only the thump of his uneven steps on the pavement and the hum of the world around him.
Sinner glanced at his phone. This was it—they were nearing the end. He should text Opal.
Unable to go through with it, he dropped his arm, phone tight in his grasp, and kept walking.
Twenty steps. Forty.
He stopped in his tracks and raked his hand through his hair in a display of agitation that was as real as it was contrived.
“Goddammit,” he bit off. He stopped and dashed his thumb over the screen.
It’s a done deal.
Their code for the trap being set. The mission was nearing the end.
Right when he and Opal were just getting started.
Just thinking about walking away made him feel like—after rolling with every other punch he ever took in his life—he might not recover from this one.
He strode faster, immersing himself in the stream of construction workers headed to the site.
The morning passed in a blur of motions he forced himself to execute. He worked when told, rested when it made sense. He let the foremen see him struggling with pain just enough to keep the story intact.
And through it all, he watched his phone for a response from Opal.
He saw that she read the text. She never replied…and her tracker was moving.
“Fuck!” He pressed his fist to his mouth to hold back a roar. Even if Sinner told her to abort the mission and turn back, she wouldn’t. He knew her.
By now, he probably looked as crazy as he felt inside, pacing just to keep himself from rushing to her. Every time he checked his phone, her dot moved. She crossed streets. Paused. Moved again.
His gut tightened when she drifted farther away from her office building, even though he knew that was her plan. She needed to act desperate and willing to cross lines.
By afternoon, his phone finally vibrated with her reply.
Copy.
Just that. No questions. No reactions.
It was exactly like her—and somehow that made it worse.
She was stubborn enough to dig in when backing down would’ve been safer.
He stood near the wall he’d helped build, not even seeing the shape.
“Hey, Mike!” his supervisor called out. “You gonna earn your pay today?”
Sinner tucked the phone away and returned to work, rubbing his back and popping a pill.
Forcing his hands to shake and popping another.
In between these gestures, he hauled materials until his muscles burned.
At least the work burned off the restless energy coiling tight in his chest, but nothing could ease the terror rising inside him.
Opal was out there. And if his team was right, Cipher was watching.
Every step she took carried her closer to the center of the web.
Her dot slowed again, hovering near a cluster of side streets that made his fists ball.
Goddammit, she shouldn’t be in there alone. He should be with her.
She was starting to trust him, and he had to trust her too. He’d spent his whole life in the background—watching, supporting, staying invisible because that was what ghosts did.
The guys always joked, asking what Sinner did. They never got that what Sinner did was hide in plain sight. What Sinner did was what no one else could. What no one else would.
Or that Opal was the first thing that made him want to step into the light.
* * * * *
Opal checked her phone and walked out of the building without slowing her stride.
It’s a done deal.
Their code that meant they were nearing the end of the op. Cipher was circling.
Strange that her first reaction wasn’t relief. It was a tightening low in her belly that didn’t belong to the mission at all, and had her staring at the screen as if there was some hidden meaning behind Sinner’s words.
She locked those emotions down. Emotions had no business bleeding into an op. And what good were they, anyway? They wouldn’t stop her from going through with her plan.
At noon, she walked out of the building with the same measured pace as her coworkers. The bench where she ate was uncomfortable, but it was warmed by the sun and positioned where she could see the corner and the flow of foot traffic without appearing to be looking.
She sat and unwrapped her sandwich. Turkey. Dry bread.
She ate slowly, scanning the street with her peripheral vision. There were a handful of office workers on break. A guy in a reflective vest dragging a trash bin. A woman talking on her phone.
She needed to make herself visible, even as she had no clue how Cipher would approach her. It might be through a drug dealer, or an email or as one of her coworkers.
Sinner was probably losing it right now.
Sinner. She was too close to him, and not just physically. In a very short time, she’d grown…to care about him.
It was more than Sinner’s skill in bed. It was more than the passion he brought to every single task he set his mind to, whether it was making pizza, kissing her senseless…or protecting her.
He saw her.
She swept another look around but noted nothing out of the ordinary even though Cipher’s people were apparently watching.
She finished the sandwich and sat there a few minutes longer, letting herself be seen.
When her break ended, she returned to her cubicle and more budgets. Occasionally, she paused to scour her inbox and spam folders for anything that could be from Cipher.
There was nothing. The day dragged, and by the time the last hour hit, she felt edgy as hell. She needed movement. Needed purpose. Needed something to happen.
After work, she didn’t go back to the hotel. She walked to the corner where she met the drug dealer.
She stood there longer than she should have. But her instincts told her not to go home yet.
She pulled out her phone and shot a reply to Sinner just to make a connection. She texted a single word: Copy.
After that, she pocketed her phone and continued down several streets. She was no quitter, and she refused to end up fired from her only job option and sleeping on a park bench.
As she reached another corner, her phone chimed with a notification for a side job. She didn’t glance at it immediately, assuming it was just another request to walk Goliath.
But after a moment, she took out her phone and skimmed the message board. She stilled. There was a new job alert, accounting work needed for a local small business doing last-minute tax preparation.
And it was right around the corner.
Last-minute. Around the corner. After business hours.
This could be it.