Page 285 of Unexpected Heroine

I suspect that’s why even the hushed conversations and intrusive stares following me down the hall can’t bring me down. I’m on cloud fucking nine.

I didn’t lose her.

Lettie is still mine.

She knows all my secrets—all the big ones, anyhow. And she still loves me.

Me. Tomer Stillman.

How the fuck did that happen? Despite living it, I’ll never know how I wound up in her heart.

Wish I didn’t have to leave her to return to work. With everything out in the open, the grief that undermined all our past time together is gone.

Poof.

No more viscous dread to taint our love. No more anxiously awaiting the moment the noose would slip over my neck and cinch off my airway. All I want is to breathe the pure air with Lettie.

Sadly, basking in euphoria with the love of my life must wait. On the bright side, she’s content at the shelter and proud of the work she’s doing to heal.

And she’s safe there.

Now, I can focus on ensuring she stays that way, along with the rest of my Redleg family. To do that, we must eradicate the Lenkov infection.

When I enter the lair, Klein’s back is to me. He faces the whiteboard along the wall with a marker in his hand. Mia’s seated a few feet behind him in the middle of the room, lingering about halfway between him and her desk as if she’s been bouncing back and forth.

Nice. They’re already brainstorming.

Hearing my approach, Mia spins her chair to face me. “Oh, hey. You’re back.”

I pull out the chair at my workstation and quirk a brow at her. “What? No confetti cannon to herald my arrival? No song or dance? Nothing?”

Flashing an indulgent smirk, she wiggles her splayed palms beside her face.

“That’s more like it,” I goad her.

Klein backs away from the board, hitting me with a cross between puppy dog eyes and an accusatory glare. The latter makes more sense when he takes a pointed look at the clock on the wall and rolls out his lower lip.

He opens his mouth to speak, but I put out my palm. “I know I was gone a while. Sorry. I had to take care of something.”

Mia digs her heels into the carpet and drags her chair closer to me in a series of overdramatic scoots. Her smile stretches, and her eyes take on a maniacal quality. She cups both hands around her mouth and yell-whispers, “Spill it. Every damn detail.”

Avoiding eye contact, I fire up my machine and play it cool. “About what?”

Gurgled laughter reverberates around the office. Nothing like her normal bright and vibrant chortle. “Cal, did you hear that shit?”

He strides over, plopping down in his chair. Reclining back, he steeples his hands in front of him. “Oh, I heard. It’s adorable how he thinks we’re letting him off the hook. And all this time, I thought he was intelligent.”

With the sensation of weightlessness pulsating through me, I moisten my lips with my tongue and keep my line of sight straight ahead.

Mia propels herself to my side with one final drag of the chair, then smacks me in my upper arm. “Talk, dammit!”

I shirk away, rubbing my bicep. “Hey! Workplace violence. Read the policy manual. That’s punishable by flogging.”

One of those monstrous guffaws erupts from her. She throws a hand over her face to hold it in, failing spectacularly. No measure of fingers and flesh could hold that sucker in.

Through mirth-soaked breaths, she admonishes me. “Dammit, Tomer. You can’t say shit like that. Especially today of all days. Imagine if Boss were here and heard me cackling?”

Klein eases over from the wall, tugging a few locks of Mia’s hair. “Gotta come up with something better than flogging, T. She likes it, so it wouldn’t be a punishment for her.”

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