SIXTEEN
Rivers wanted to freeze this exact minute and live in it forever.
Caryssa lay tucked against his side, her hair spilling across his chest and one hand splayed on his abs, anchoring them both to this moment.
He traced patterns against her shoulder. “Do you spend much time in Philly? With your family?”
He felt her muscles tighten inch by inch. “No.” She kept her gaze fixed on his chest as she spoke. “I feel terrible that I don’t. Especially now, knowing what you gave up to keep the city safe.” Her voice broke with pain. “It just holds too many memories.”
His throat constricted with a tight ache. He had understood that his disappearance would cost her more than just him. But hearing that she’d cut herself off from her own hometown because it was too full of ghosts hurt more than he’d braced himself for.
“I know,” he said, voice rough, and cradled the back of her head. “I know, Ryss.”
What else was there to say? No apology was big enough to cover the graveyard of memories she couldn’t walk through. He just held her and let the silence say what words couldn’t fix.
Both of them knew this was going to end soon. Coming to terms with it was going to hurt.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand, a harsh interruption that made her flinch against him.
He reached out and clasped the device, bringing it up to read.
War room. Now.
“Damn.” He was already sitting up, and the warmth of the last hour started to fade away. Even if he grabbed for it, the thread would slip through his fingers.
They dressed fast, not speaking. He handed her a sock she was searching for and she tossed his shirt at him. She hustled into her clothes and hurried into the bathroom for a quick cleanup.
He was waiting when she emerged a minute later and they walked into the war room together. Most of the team was already gathered. Rome and Monk looked to have just come from their afternoon workouts, wearing gym clothes, sweat dotting their foreheads.
Younger had what remained of a beef stick in hand, and he polished it off in two chomps. Rorke and Townie were engaged in a quiet conversation and O was hunched over his computer, as usual.
Cannon walked in last, and the air around him crackled with tension as if he carried his own weather pattern with him. “O’s got something,” he said without preamble.
O projected a map onto the big screen. “Found the warehouse.”
Rivers’s gut bottomed out, and he turned his head to meet Caryssa’s gaze. She stared back, and though she tried to fight off the emotion this announcement came with, he saw it clearly.
O continued, “Property is registered under the second business entity. It was completely buried and took forever to surface. There’s a warehouse on it, out past the industrial district in Portland.
” He tapped a few keys, providing the team a series of photos of warehouses and shipping yards and heavy trucks parked along a concrete wall.
Next frame was a satellite image of the location. “The records trace back to Bill.”
Caryssa bowed her head, and for a heartbeat, her lashes swept downward as she closed her eyes. When she lifted her head again, she’d managed to slide her mask into place again.
Cannon gave a hard nod at the screen. “We’ve got the address. Now we need the plan.”
The room broke into motion. Rorke pulled up floorplans from public records. Rome located satellite imagery and Monk and Townie got together on access points. O was already digging deeper into the property records, checking on security.
“Cameras?” Cannon asked, not looking up from the table.
“Two on the exterior, both older models,” O said. “Interior’s a question mark. Won’t know until we’re inside or I find blueprints on file with the county.”
“Guards?”
“Unconfirmed.”
“Crew?”
“If there’s one at all, I’d bet on a skeleton crew.”
Cannon’s jaw ticked. “Then we go in ready for more.”
Rivers sat frozen for one long beat, unable to move around the dread sitting cold in his gut.
This was it. The thing that ended everything.
Across the table, he caught Caryssa’s eye, knowing her expression matched the feeling in his chest. They both recognized the gravity of the situation. This was the beginning of the end of them.
“Lane,” Cannon addressed her, and she looked up. “You’re coming with us. We need a Bureau presence onsite for chain of custody of any evidence. Saves time.”
Rome arched a brow. “Did Command clear this op?”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re going in now.”
A beat filled the silence.
“Rorke, talk to me about entry points,” Cannon went on as if he hadn’t just made a call before the paperwork caught up to him. He trusted his gut first. Justified it to Command after. Dealt with the fallout if there ever was any.
Still, it was one thing to play with the lives of the team and another to include Caryssa.
He caught Cannon’s eye.
She’s an FBI analyst, he wanted to argue and knowing it was futile.
His CO held his gaze for a beat, steady and unapologetic at dragging Caryssa into the op.
She was FBI. They needed her presence in that warehouse. Didn’t make it any easier to swallow.
Cannon scanned the team. “We roll in three hours. Gear up, run your checks.” He touched on Rivers again. “Get your head straight before then.”
The meeting broke up. Rorke and Rome headed for the armory and O remained glued to his laptop, digging for anything useful before they rolled out.
Rivers rounded the table to Caryssa’s side. Staring down at the top of her head, his heart squeezed. “Three hours,” he said low enough for only her to hear.
Her expression shivered for only a second, that mask slipping and returning in the same blink. “Yeah.”
Dammit. This is gonna hurt like hell.
He already felt it coming the way a man felt the weather changing in an old wound long before the pain hit. If they had three hours until they deployed, he would try his best to spend them by her side.
He dropped into the seat beside her. “What can I help you with?”
She met his gaze, her hazel eyes brighter with emotion. “I need a plan in place to for how I stay in comms with you all once we’re inside. I’ve never coordinated on a live tactical entry. I don’t know your protocols.”
He nodded and began working through logistics with her, but neither of them said what they really wanted to say—what needed to be said.
* * * * *
Caryssa packed her bag like a woman preparing for a funeral. Her own, maybe.
She folded shirts she barely remembered bringing and zipped her laptop into its case. She zipped her go bag shut and left it at the foot of the bed.
She was most likely leaving after the warehouse. She wouldn’t spend another night in this room.
She wouldn’t spend another night with Reid.
As she stared at her badge and sidearm, she pondered this feeling of detachment inside her. These things seemed to belong to someone else’s life.
Even before Reid left her life, she’d spent years building an identity out of that badge. Special Agent Caryssa Lane, the one who found what nobody else could find.
She’d never once questioned whether it was enough. It had to be enough because there was nothing else for her.
Standing here now, staring at the same badge that had gave her last six years a purpose, she felt the ground shift under all that she knew.
For a moment, her eyes blurred and then cleared, but the heaviness didn’t fade.
Would she be leaving directly from the warehouse, catching the first flight back to DC after the raid?
Or would Reid be walking her through the tunnels, teasing her about hoods and blindfolds and ripping her heart out all over again?
She didn’t think she could sit in a vehicle with him knowing it was the last drive they’d ever take together or without begging him to turn around and take her back.
To let her stay.
A soft knock sounded, and she turned, heart slamming at the simultaneous hope and dread that it was Reid coming for one last private moment.
“Come in,” she called softly.
The door opened and Jolie and Stina appeared in the doorway.
Jolie rushed in, already reaching to pull her into a hug. “We just saw the men. We heard.” Her voice sounded thick, and her eyes were red from crying. Caryssa imagined the strength these women had to muster every single time Monk and Rome walked out that door.
Stina followed, wrapping her arms around both of them, and for one second, Caryssa allowed herself to sink into the embrace of women she’d known less than two weeks, and suddenly parting from them felt like someone wrenched on her soul.
Stina drew back, worry written across her pretty face. “You’ll be careful?”
“I’ll be fine.” She managed a smile, though it cost her more than it should. “I’ll be back. We’ll do nails. Make more mug cakes. I haven’t begun to share all my recipes.”
The promise sounded thin even to her own ears. Empty.
She smiled through the downpour of sadness in her heart, holding it inside, hidden and private, hers alone to carry.
“You know,” Jolie said, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand, half laughing at herself, “when you first got here I thought you were going to be some cold FBI robot who’d write us both up for the yarn incident.”
“I considered it.” Caryssa startled herself with how easily the joke came despite what was hovering over them all.
“See, this is why we like her,” Stina told Jolie as if Caryssa wasn’t standing right there.
Jolie gave her one more squeeze before letting go. “We mean it. Be careful.”
“Definitely will.”
She watched them go, throat tight, and gave herself three seconds to hold on to that emotion before she shoved it down hard. There was no space for sad faces or what-ifs where she was headed.
There was no room for her feelings inside her tactical vest, and they were far too heavy to carry into a warehouse raid.
She slipped her sidearm into the holster and tucked the badge deep in her pocket. Without looking around the room she’d miss the way she’d miss a lost limb, she shouldered her bag and grabbed her carry-on.
She walked the corridor alone.