Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
“What happened, Miss Mia? Really?”
I don’t even fucking know.
We start over. Not as anything we were before.
“I handled it,” I say. “That’s what matters.”
“Mm-hmm.” He doesn’t sound convinced. “We need to debrief properly. Tomorrow. We’re expecting more news from Mank in the meantime. I’d transcribed and sent over the recording you made from the warehouse.”
“I’ll be there.”
“And, Mia?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t go dark on me again. Please.”
The please gets me. I can feel it.
“I won’t,” I say, and this time I mean it.
“Or we’re going to have to send in enforcements to get your extraction.”
“I understand.”
I end the call and toss the phone onto the bed. My hands are shaking slightly—adrenaline crash, exhaustion, the accumulated weight of too many lies pressing down on my chest. This is the first time I’ve really lied to my team and it makes my stomach churn.
I need sleep. I need food. I need about a week in a dark room with no one asking me any questions. I just need to be alone.
The next morning my body forces me to sleep in, but I still feel tense when I wake, so I take a long bath, pouring nearly the entire contents of the hotel body wash into the tub. I sit there and disassociate, something I’ve learned not to interfere with. After an agent goes through a traumatic event, like being captured, we often need time to just stare at the wall and process what happened without actively thinking about it.
For me it means staying in the bath until I’m one giant prune, then wrapping myself in a robe and doing the same on the couch, though this time I have coffee and a Beatles documentary I half pay attention to. I lie there for hours, eating minibar snacks, and rotting until there’s not much left in my brain and I’ve become one with the cushions. I dread the moment my alarm goes off and I have to leave this cocoon for the debriefing at the safehouse.
There’s a knock at the door.
I freeze, waiting for someone to say “housekeeping” but no one does.
It has to be Vanguard…but why not just appear on my balcony as always?
My heart rate spikes. Part of me—the part I’m trying very hard to ignore—wants it to be him. Wants him to have followed me, to have changed his mind about keeping distance, to be standing on the other side of that door with that look in his eyes that makes me forget everything I’m supposed to be.
And just realizing how loud that part is makes me know how damn close I am to throwing in the towel and giving it all up for him.
I cross to the door and check the peephole.
My stomach drops.
It’s not Vanguard.
It’s Cal.
What the hell?
I open the door slowly, keeping my expression neutral even as my mind races. He’s standing in the hallway with a duffel bag over one shoulder, looking exactly the way I remember—tall, lean, that shock of dark hair falling across his forehead. The furrow between his brows that appears when he’s worried.
And he’s worried now.
“Hi,” he says.
“Uh, hi Cal.” I step back, letting him in. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“That’s the greeting I get?” He sets his bag down, his eyes doing a quick assessment of me—the hotel robe, the wet hair, the dark circles I couldn’t hide. Those faint bruises. “No ‘good to see you, Cal’ or ‘how was your flight, Cal’ or—”
“How did you even know which room I was in…Cal?”
“I have my ways.” He shrugs and I can tell he’s holding something back. “Mank sent me.”
“Mank sent you,” I repeat, frowning. “All the way here? Why? As backup?”
“As support. You know there’s a difference.” He moves further into the room and looks around. “Nice digs. Magazine journalism must pay better than I thought.” He turns to face me, and the lightness drops from his voice. “You look like hell, Mia.”
“Gee, thanks. You really know how to flatter a girl.”
“I’m serious. You look…” He trails off, searching for the right word. “Exhausted. Like you’ve been run over by a lorry who then went back and did it again. You look bloody wrecked. No offense.”
I look wrecked because I’ve been taken apart and put back together wrong.
“No offense, of course,” I say with a snort. “It’s been a trying mission.”
“So I gathered. Three days dark—that’s not like you.”
“Did Bayo call you?”
You got here awfully fast if so.
“Bayo doesn’t know I’m here yet.” He says it casually, but something about the phrasing makes my antenna twitch. “I came straight from JFK. Wanted to see you first.”
“Does Bayo know you’re coming at all? Kat?”
A beat. “They will.”
The twitch intensifies. Standard protocol would have Cal coordinating with the team on the ground before making contact. Showing up unannounced, going directly to my hotel instead of the safehouse—it’s not how things are done.