Page 71 of Protect Thy Enemy

The sound of the door creaking open pulls me back to the present. Tate walks in first, his usual easygoing swagger on full display. Park follows, silent and steady as always.

Tate grins the second he spots me, his voice cutting through the heavy silence. “Damn, Williams. You piss off Grant this time, or did he wake up on the wrong side of the universe?”

I glare at him, defensive before I can stop myself. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Uh-huh.” Tate smirks, leaning casually against the wall. “Sure you didn’t.”

The conversation dies the moment Grant enters. His presence hits like a cold front, the room shrinking under the weight of it. His movements are precise, his expression unreadable, but a tightness in his jaw betrays him.

I can’t decide if the tension radiating from him is worse than the way he refuses to look at me.

Tate straightens, his earlier teasing replaced by a quiet observance. Park doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. No one does.

Grant flips open the mission folder, the deliberate slowness of his movements somehow more intimidating than if he’d slammed it onto the table. When he speaks, his clipped voice is stripped of anything personal.

“We’re meeting Shaw at 1400 hours. You’ve all been briefed, but we’re going over this again to ensure no one screws it up.”

His eyes sweep over the team, but when they reach me, they linger just long enough to twist something in my chest. Then, just like that, they’re gone, back to the file in front of him.

He launches into the details, laying out every step of the plan. There’s something colder about him today, something harder. It’s not just his tone or his refusal to look at me. It’s the way he seems to be holding himself together by sheer force of will. It's like he’s one wrong word away from snapping.

Tate shifts on his feet, looking like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t. Park remains stoic, his gaze fixed on Grant with a quiet intensity.

When Grant finally finishes, he snaps the folder shut and looks around the room. “Questions?”

The silence that follows is deafening.

I shake my head, forcing myself to focus on the mission, on Shaw, on anything but the weight of Grant’s presence. But it’s useless. The memory of last night, of that look in his eyes, won’t let go.

I tell myself I’m imagining it, that I’m reading into things that aren’t there. But then why does his coldness feel more personal than anything he’s ever said to me?

“Good,” Grant says, his tone leaving no room for argument. “Dismissed.”

The team disperses, but I stay frozen for a second longer, my eyes trailing after him as he walks away without so much as a word in my direction.

***

It’s an internal battle not saying anything for the first ten minutes of the ride. My eyes flick to Holden, his profile cutting in the morning light. His hands grip the steering wheel with the kind of tightness that screams he’d rather be anywhere else.

Cold. Detached. A stark contrast to how he’d been last night.

I told myself not to think about it or let it cling to me, but here it is, clawing its way back. The way his voice had softened when he thanked me. The heat that simmered in the air when I opened that door. The way he’d looked at me like—

I’m starting to lose the battle as my patience thins, each passing second pushing me closer to snapping. I glance at him again, searching for any hint of what’s going on behind that stormy expression. But his jaw is locked tight, his gaze fixed on the road ahead like I don’t even exist.

“Are you going to keep ignoring me?” The question escapes before I can think better of it.

His eyes flick to me, brief and unreadable. “I’m not ignoring you.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” I mutter, crossing my arms.

His grip on the wheel tightens, but he doesn’t bite. Instead, the silence stretches again, thick and suffocating, and it’s all I can do not to scream.

I lean back in the seat, forcing myself to look out the window instead of at him. This shouldn’t bother me as much as it does. It shouldn’t matter that he’s acting like last night never happened, like I didn’t exist at all outside of the rookie he’s obligated to put up with.

But it does. And it’s starting to feel like he’s doing it on purpose.

Fine. Two can play that game. I settle deeper into the seat, clamping my mouth shut and willing myself to ignore the knot twisting tighter in my stomach.

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