Chapter 15 #2
He paced the room. He stepped onto the balcony, but the scent of sewage and rotting trash surrounding the hotel did the exact opposite of clear his head.
He went back to watching Opal’s pin on the map, the tiny dot moving in miniscule increments along the route.
He didn’t even make it out the door to go to work when the call came in. Con’s face filled the screen, his expression as grim as death. Chickie, Chase and Steele flanked him in the war room, but Sinner knew everyone was present.
“Charlie,” Con addressed them. “We know for certain Opal encountered Cipher last night. What we don’t know is where the hell he is now.”
Sinner’s pulse hammered in his throat. “Opal stabbed him. He’s come after people for less. You have to get us out of here—but point us in the right direction. I won’t walk us into a goddamn trap,” he bit off.
A twitch at the corner of Con’s eye was the only indication that he registered his request. “Dante and Elin have pulled all the street cam footage they could find. The grid is expanding by the minute. They worked all night on it. We’re doing everything we can to keep you safe.”
“Safe isn’t good enough.” Sinner’s voice came out sharp as a blade. “I need a location. A direction. Anything.”
Before Con could respond, movement in the background caught Sinner’s attention.
Kennedy appeared on screen, her hair mussed and exhaustion shadowing her eyes. She moved to stand beside Dante, one hand resting on his shoulder. Kennedy’s appearance backed up the claim that Dante was up all night working to find the terrorist.
She looked around the table. “Cipher is big on revenge. It’s his whole personality. He’s going to be out for blood.”
Kennedy didn’t tell them anything the team didn’t know. But she had firsthand knowledge of just how bad this could get.
Sinner dug deep into the well inside him and drew up all the self-control he could muster or else he’d defy direct orders and hunt down Cipher himself.
He glanced at the little pin moving on the map as Opal drove the usual route to work. His hand tightened on the phone until the case creaked.
Talk resumed for long minutes. Every kernel of intel was shared, from possible sightings of Cipher after he fled the warehouse to how he contacted Opal through the task app without leaving a digital trail.
Dante patched in the FBI, and more intel about the scene at the warehouse was disclosed. On every single op, Sinner listened with laser focus. But now that the woman he loved was involved, his concentration slowly swirled around the drain of despair.
He kept jerking his attention back to the discussion, only picking up every other word.
This was the reason Blackout SEALS were dead to the world. The reason they weren’t allowed to have wives, families, girlfriends, and severed ties with everyone from their old life.
Because there was nothing he wouldn’t do to save Opal.
Sinner’s lungs burned. His thigh muscles twitched as his body tried to take over. Meanwhile, the team talked circles around a plan. Chase suggested Opal be put in a safehouse, and Con shot down the idea.
“We did that once with Kennedy. We need to keep Opal close.”
Sinner’s gaze dropped to the tracking app. The little dot that represented Opal wasn’t where it should be. Her pin wasn’t anywhere near the office.
“She’s not at work.” His cold tone cut across the other voices as his blood turned to ice.
Elin’s face appeared in the corner of the screen. “What?”
“Opal’s not at work. Did you pull her?” His heart sledgehammered his ribs.
Elin shook her head hard. “No. She’s not going anywhere without you. Dammit! Mason and Ash haven’t reached her yet.”
“Goddammit!” Sinner blasted to his feet.
In the back of his mind, he heard Con’s voice that day he pulled Opal into his office alone and shared his concerns about her bad track record as a team player.
His gut told him the situation was off. She was great at playing roles and masking her emotions…but not when it came to him.
He shook his head. “She wouldn’t leave without telling me.”
His brain fired through the possibilities. Opal was a lot of things—savvy, street-smart and a hard ass—but she was never reckless.
She didn’t run. She didn’t make moves without thinking them through and overthinking them five more times after that.
“I have a tracker on her. I’m going after her.” Sinner was moving as he spoke, grabbing his go-bag from the corner and checking his weapon.
“Negative. Wait for the team. We’re assembling now.”
Sinner’s hands stilled for half a heartbeat. “Cipher’s not going to wait for us to get the advantage—he’s going to move fast. You know it. I know it.”
“Sinner, that’s an order. Stand down!”
But he was already at the door, his hand on the knob. He looked into the camera one last time.
“I’m not losing her.”
He ended the call.
Cipher wanted revenge? He could fucking have it.
But he’d have to go through Sinner first.
And Sinner didn’t plan on losing.
* * * * *
Though Opal felt anything but steady on the inside, her hands didn’t have the slightest tremble as she drove.
That was good. That was training.
The rest of her was a goddamn mess.
All she could see was Sinner’s dark eyes when he told her he wouldn’t let her walk into danger. And oh, her lungs screamed for air she couldn’t quite give them because her heart stopped pumping as she walked away from the man she loved.
Anything could happen today. Cipher could blow up her office building. He’d done it before.
He could go after Sinner to get to her.
The urge to turn around flared hot inside her, but she gripped the wheel tighter and fixed her stare on the road stretching ahead. She checked the rearview mirror for the tenth time in as many minutes. No tail. No black SUVs that could be the good guys or the bad.
Her phone rang. She glanced at the screen.
Unknown number.
Her stomach dropped as she reached for the device. Though her heart pounded, she kept her voice even. “Hello?”
“Opal?”
“Yes.”
“It’s your m-mom.”
“Mom?”
A scream suddenly ripped through the speaker—high, primal, curdling.
Opal’s foot slammed on the brake. The car fishtailed, tires screeching as she wrenched it onto the shoulder. Her heart jackknifed into her throat.
The scream cut off in ragged sobs.
“Mom!” The word tore past her lips.
Her mother’s voice came through, shaking and thin. “Opal—”
Another scream, long and loud and so full of pain that white spots flashed in Opal’s vision.
“He’s hurting me!”
“Mom!” Her voice cracked. “Mom, who is hurting you? Where are you?”
“He says his name is—”
The line cut off with a sickening abruptness. Then a new voice filled her ear.
One Opal recognized from the office just before the lights went out.
“Hello, Opal.”
Every inch of her skin crawled. Her breath stopped in her chest.
Cipher.
“I’ve met your mother.” His tone was almost pleasant. “And I think we should have a reunion. Don’t you?”
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel until they tingled. “If you hurt her—”
“You’ll what? Stab me again?” A dark chuckle. “You’ve got spirit. I respect that. But let’s not pretend you’re in a position to make threats.”
She forced herself to breathe. To think. “What do you want?”
“A conversation. Face-to-face.” He rattled off an address—a suburban street she didn’t recognize. “You have thirty minutes. Come alone. No FBI. No Blackout. No Sinner.” He said the name like it amused him. “Or your mother dies screaming.”
The line went dead.
Opal sat frozen, the phone screen black.
Cipher had her mom.
Her mom.
The woman who’d taught her to read, who’d kissed her scraped knees. She wasn’t always perfect, but she worked her ass off to keep some normalcy for Opal in a life that was far from normal.
And now she was in Cipher’s hands because of her.
Her mind raced, calculating risks.
One—Cipher was setting a trap. He wanted revenge for the stabbing, and he was using her mother as bait.
Two—if Opal called in backup, he’d kill her mother before they arrived. Cipher didn’t bluff.
Three—if she went alone, she’d likely die. Or worse, be taken, used, broken.
Four—if she didn’t go at all, her mother would suffer for hours before Cipher finally ended it.
None of the options were good.
Only one was unacceptable.
She couldn’t let her mother die because Opal was a coward. Not after so many years of distance.
Her hands shook as she shot off a text to Sinner.
Pork chops for dinner.
The signal that she was in trouble.
With hands that were steady only out of sheer force of will, she punched the address into her GPS and pulled back onto the highway, her pulse drumming in her ears.
At least she had her boots on. Easier to fight in these than Alyssa’s pretty leather heels.
And she’d worn pants today, so the knife was strapped around her torso, just under the hem of her blouse, the leather strap warm against her ribs.
Cipher was injured. She had the advantage.
Maybe.
She still wore the tracker Sinner planted on her boot. She should tear it out, leave it on the side of the road.
Make herself a ghost again.
But she couldn’t do that. She had a partner now.
A lover.
The love of her life.
Sinner would find her. He’d come for her like he always did. The way no one else ever had.
She left the tracker where it was. Worst-case scenario, he’d find her body.
Best case? He’d find her alive.
She pulled up to a house at the end of a quiet suburban street. It looked abandoned, like that office he lured her into, but with peeling paint and an overgrown lawn, the windows dark and lifeless. The kind of place people forgot existed along with the stories of the people who’d once lived here.
She killed the engine and sat for a beat, letting her heart slow and her mind go cold and sharp the way Smith taught her.
Pain is just information. You can use it or let it stop you.
Nothing was going to stop her.
She stepped out of the car, her borrowed boots crunching on gravel. The air was too quiet. Not even the birds wanted to witness what was about to go down.
Her hand slipped beneath the hem of her blouse, fingers closing around the hilt of the knife. She walked up the uneven path to the front door.
It was unlocked. Of course.
She pushed it open, and the hinges groaned like they were dying.
Inside, the house was dark and musty, the floor littered with broken furniture and trash from squatters.
“Mom?” Her voice echoed.
No answer.
She took a step inside.
The door slammed shut behind her. Before she could turn, something hard and heavy cracked across the back of her skull.
Pain exploded through her head, bright and blinding.
Her knees buckled.
The last thing she saw before the darkness swallowed her whole was the knife slipping from her fingers and clattering to the floor.
Then…nothing.