Chapter 13 #2
Opal cradled her phone, staring at the words until they started to run together. She could turn it down. Go home and eat whatever Sinner made for dinner. Maybe play a hand of poker or cuddle up in bed and talk about her day with him like they were really a couple.
Or she could do what she came here to do.
She accepted the job and shot a text to Sinner.
New job. Might be late.
She plugged the address into her GPS and set off walking. The neighborhood shifted fast, the way it did in cities—one street was clean and bright, the next was peeling paint and empty storefronts.
The warehouse sat back from the road, half its windows dark, held together by corrugated metal and grime.
She approached slowly, searching for a sign or a door that showed it was a business even as her instincts locked in.
Her senses sharpened as she picked out a side door with the street number painted on the wall beside it. Her boots were quiet against the cracked pavement, and she tucked her purse tighter under her arm.
She knocked, listening to the hollow echo in-side.
Suddenly, she caught movement from the corner of her eye and spun to see a man emerging from the shadows as though he wanted to see her before showing himself.
“You must be Kelly.”
She nodded and pasted a firm smile on her face, one she could snap into place without thinking.
“You’re the client?”
“Yes.” He eyed her. Not with hunger like the drug dealer did…with calculation.
She held out her hand, and he shook it. She noted how soft his skin was. Nothing at all like Sinner’s. Whatever this man’s business, it didn’t involve physical labor.
“I’m glad you could help me on such short notice. I’m really in a bind with the tax deadline approaching.” He strolled to the door, and she took the moment to memorize his appearance.
He had one of those faces people easily forgot and brown hair, cut close but not military-close. He was clean-shaven with no scars, piercings or tattoos. He didn’t smell like smoke or grease or anything that would hint at the nature of his business. She only picked up the scent of cheap soap.
She continued to study him from the back. After he unlocked it, he swung the door inward and flipped a switch, casting greenish-yellow light over the space.
It revealed a small, cramped office. Several filing cabinets lined the walls and the metal desk was piled with stacks of papers.
He shrugged. “It might take you a while. These are all my receipts for my business. I need you to sort them into categories and enter them into my tax return.”
She blinked at the overwhelming sight. “It is a lot.”
He hooked his hand around his nape. “Yeah. I got a little behind when my mother got sick.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll do what I can.” She took a step toward the desk, careful not to turn her back to him.
He reached for the deadbolt, and Opal’s heart stalled.
She let her gaze sweep the room in a single, fast inventory.
Rows of shelves. Stacks of boxes.
No windows she could get through quickly.
If that lock clicked, she’d have one exit, and it would be through the door he controlled.
“Oh, you don’t have to lock that.” She kept her tone light. “We can talk with it open.”
Her instincts were blaring with alarm bells.
Suddenly, he cut the lights. Blackness swallowed the room. Long fingers bit into her arm. Panic seized her lungs, but only for a single heartbeat before her training kicked in.
Deathly calm came over her.
She whipped her free hand under her skirt and yanked her knife from the sheath fastened around her thigh.
Even though it was pitch-black in the office, she knew where every single stack of paper was and the location of every piece of furniture.
Her attacker wrenched her arm hard enough to make someone weaker shriek in pain, but she compartmentalized the pain like Smith taught her. She twisted her wrist and shoved her elbow back to break the grip even as she raised the knife with her free hand.
In a lethal downward jerk, she buried the blade deep in the muscle of his thigh.
He issued a scream that echoed off the walls.
Opal bolted for the door. Before he even stumbled a step, she’d launched out of the warehouse and hit the streets at a dead sprint.
In her mind, she heard Smith’s voice. You gotta be faster, little girl. Those short legs can’t be your downfall. Faster, girl!
She pushed harder, turned one corner and then another, throwing out her senses into the night because she only had her own back out here.
By the time she reached her car in the office parking lot, she was breathing hard and had a stitch in her ribcage like someone twisted a knife in it. When she got behind the wheel, she wasn’t shaking, at least not on the outside.
She’d blown her cover and failed—again. The FBI was going to throw her to the curb. If that happened, she’d have no choice but to disappear again. Find a place she could work for pay under the table. Go underground. Deep underground.
As soon as she rolled into the parking lot of the extended-stay hotel, Sinner met her at the car. When he ripped the door open and pulled her out, he caged her against the car with his big body.
“What the hell was that?” he growled.
“That was—”
“Not here.” His whisper was hushed, barely leashed.
He grabbed her by the hand and hauled her across the cracked concrete to the stairs leading to their room.
Inside and alone with Sinner, she fixed her stare on him.
She knew the moment he saw the blood.
He curled his big, rough fingers around her wrist with so much tenderness that it made her eyes sting even as he yanked her hand up to his face.
“It’s not my blood.” Her voice wavered halfway through the sentence, and she steeled herself to stop the sound.
“Opal, what the fuck happened?” His eyes were wild, dark with a brutality directed at whoever’s blood was on her hands.
“Call Con. We have to call Con.” Even though it would mean losing her job and the only identity she had. Losing the only thing she was good at. Losing the man who’d become so much more than just a partner.
Sinner didn’t argue.
He didn’t question her.
He had her back.
And Opal realized—with a clarity that almost hurt—that he might be the only person on earth who ever had.