Chapter 9
Nine
Adena
“I’ll check us in,” I say, already reaching for the door.
“Use cash. And not your real name.”
I shoot him an are-you-kidding-me look, then step out into the rain. It’s colder than I expect, sharp enough to make my skin prickle. The office is only a few yards away, but my legs feel heavier with every step—like the adrenaline from the highway hasn’t quite finished draining from my system.
Inside, a wall-mounted TV plays a muted weather report—storms sweeping across the state, warnings scrolling across the bottom. The man at the counter doesn’t look up until I set a folded stack of bills in front of him.
“One night,” I say.
He eyes the cash, then my face, then the rain dripping off my jacket. Just a flick of curiosity before he reaches behind him and grabs a key on a faded yellow tag.
“Room twelve,” he mutters, sliding it across the counter.
As I jog back to the truck, my mind keeps replaying the ambush whether I want it to or not—the SUV drifting into us, the seatbelt biting into my shoulder, the pickup slamming us from behind, my gun firing through the rain as if someone else were pulling the trigger.
When I reach the truck and open the door, Jagger’s watching me, one hand braced on the roof, rain running off his jacket in steady rivulets. “Which one?”
“Lucky number twelve.”
Not that I believe in luck.
The motel door resists before it gives way, and a wave of damp, heavy air spills out—old curtains clinging to humidity, carpet that’s absorbed a lifetime of rain.
I step inside first and set the key on the table, trying to still the shake in my hands.
Jagger closes the door behind us and locks it twice, checks the chain, then rams a chair under the doorknob. He keeps his back to me a moment longer than necessary—either giving me space or pulling himself together. Maybe both.
When he finally turns, his eyes go straight to my hands.
“You okay, Tiger? You’re trembling.”
His shirt is soaked through, clinging to his frame, and there's a dark stain spreading across his right shoulder that has nothing to do with rain.
"Don’t worry about me. I’m not the one who's sprung a leak.”
He looks down and pulls off his jacket, sits on the bed, and tosses it across the room. “It’s an old wound. Must have aggravated it.”
Aggravated is an understatement. “Let me see before you add another stain to the carpet.”
His eyebrow hikes. “Careful. I’ll think you care.”
A stupid flush creeps up my neck, so I turn away and dig out the first aid kit I packed. When I turn back, he's already unbuttoning his shirt. “This isn’t over. They didn’t get what they wanted,” he says.
I frown at him. “But they got more than they bargained for.”
A wry smile appears as the fabric peels away from his shoulder, and I get my first look at the damage. It’s a knife wound that blends into one of his inkwork—a clean line across his delt, maybe two inches long. It’s angry and red, like he never treated it properly.
“When did this happen?”
“It’s nothing.”
He can be macho all he wants, just not when I need him functioning.
“It should have been cleaned and covered. Infection is starting to set in.”
“The infection set in a long time ago, Tiger,” he mumbles.
I eye him, not sure whether he’s being honest or facetious. When I can’t decide, I gesture for him to sit on the bed, then sit beside him, opening the first aid kit I always carry. "Ready?" I warn, tearing open an alcohol wipe.
"Do your worst."
I press the wipe to the wound, cleaning away blood. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t make a sound. He just sits there, watching me work with an intensity that sends warmth creeping up my spine.
The wipe drags lower. Ink shifts over muscle. Pale lines interrupt it—burns, blade marks, damage that didn’t heal clean. My fingers slow without my meaning them to. This is a body built to take punishment and keep going.
Every mark carries the same weight, a choice made… or taken.
His eyes lock onto mine. “Not sure I’d have lived to tell the tale if Paco was riding shotgun.”
"Maybe that's why I'm here," I say. “You needed someone watching your back.”
His mouth twitches. "You saying you’re my guardian angel?”
I apply antibiotic ointment, then reach for the gauze as water drips from his hair onto my hand.
“No, but maybe in God’s providence, I somehow have the skills to help you.”
His brow wrinkles. "You're not like any church girl I've ever met."
"Then you’re attending the wrong churches," I say.
He laughs. "Where'd you learn to shoot like that? The security team you work with?"
I nod. “They drill hard, but my dad gave me the grounding. He’s a combat instructor in the Navy.”
Interest sparks in his eyes. “Where’s he stationed?”
“Little Creek.”
He studies me with new interest, maybe because he’s former Navy intelligence. “Does he know what you’re doing?”
I meet his gaze. “No.”
Dad doesn’t know I work covertly—or that I’m in danger more often than he’d tolerate. He agrees in theory with private security work. He just doesn’t appreciate the different level of accountability.
“What about your mom? I can’t imagine her being happy you’re out here with me.”
I don’t bother to hide my wince. “She’s never happy.”
She’s not happy with me anyway. I’m a perpetual disappointment to her.
He shifts his weight, gauges me, then smiles lazily. “You know all about my background. Tell me yours. We’re partners—and I’m mortally wounded.”
With an eye roll, I relent, only because I have no ground to protest.
I know his background: his mother was a teacher, and he joined the Navy at eighteen, following his father’s footsteps.
Then he left to join the DEA ten years ago, when his superiors decided he was more suited to posing as the enemy than analyzing them.
My own background reads less impressive, more embarrassing.
“She was a beauty queen, runner-up Miss America in the nineties. She got me into child pageants. I hated every second of it.”
He nods, unsmiling as I place the gauze over the wound. “That’s why you work best under pressure? You grew up on display.”
The memory surfaces sharp and unwelcome—hot stage lights burning my eyes, the scratch of sequined dresses, my mother's perfectly manicured nails digging into my shoulder as she hissed last-minute instructions. Smile bigger. Stand straighter. Don't you dare cry.
“That and trying to hide forgeries I was selling under threat of discovery by my father.”
My bedroom was the perfect training ground. Every creak of the floorboards outside my door made my heart stop.
“They were far too busy hating each other to notice me or the fake IDs tucked between textbooks anyway.”
“Not together, I take it?”
I shake my head. “They divorced when I was ten."
“Explains a lot,” he says. "Half the time you had to be a princess. The other half, a tough girl."
I glance up at him. “You make it sound like a survival tactic.”
“Isn’t it?” he asks quietly.
I don't argue. He's right. It was a matter of survival. I couldn’t please both of them, so I learned how to fool one while making the other feel like I was just like them.
It wasn’t until I started working for Silas Hightower and he led me to Christ that I realized I’m not like either of them.
For a long while, he’s quiet as I work, trying to remember every piece of field medicine Axel drummed into us.
"Is your faith going to impede your cover?"
My fingers pause over his chest as I meet his eye. It’s the question I’ve been asking myself ever since Silas called and told me Deliah might die because of the drugs she’d been given.
“I’ve worked undercover before.”
“Have you ever had to compromise?”
I mentally scroll through all the ops I've been in since I joined Hightower.
I reach for a bandage. “No.”
Before I can slap it on his burly chest, he snags my wrist, forcing me to look at him. “Will you?”
I hold his gaze, unwilling to blink. “There’s a line I won’t cross.”
His fingers slip up my wrist, his body shifting closer until he's right in my face. "Then you'll hesitate. And in three seconds, you're made. They don't give you time to think about your soul, Adena—they watch for the blink. One slip and you're done."
The intensity in his voice isn't anger—it's something rawer, like he's trying to warn me away from a cliff edge he's already fallen off.
"I won't hesitate," I say.
His grip tightens fractionally. "You will. Because you've still got something to lose."
His eyes search mine with an almost desperate edge. "I don't even recognize the guy who took this assignment."
The confession hangs between us, unfiltered. I tap one of his darkest tattoos, a coiled snake wrapped around his forearm. “This is all covering. God sees the man inside. You’re not beyond His grace.”
He releases my wrist abruptly. "Just stay sharp," he says, voice flat. "That line of yours? They'll find it. And they'll use it against both of us."
Jagger
The storm is getting worse. Lightning strikes more frequent, thunder rattling the windows. I watch Adena flip through the yellow pages, trying to square the woman who just preached redemption with the one who returned fire on the highway without flinching.
"There's a diner two blocks over," she says. "Ruby's. Open until nine."
"Safer to stay put."
She closes the phone book. “If we don’t move now, we won’t get another chance to eat until morning."
I glance out the window. No sign of movement. The weather is enough of a deterrent, but there’s always a chance someone is out here waiting.
“There’ll be a vending machine around.”
A tiny hint of annoyance flickers across her face. “This might be the only chance we get at normalcy.”
She’s right on the money. This isn’t just about drawing unwanted attention or anyone looking too close at me. It’s about preserving the cover but holding onto ourselves in the process.
And I can’t do that if I’m trapped here thinking about what she said—about redemption I can’t earn.
I rise and grab my jacket. "We eat, we come back."