Page 49 of Broken Trust
He nodded. “We send a team in the way we did with the Canadian.”
The screen swam in front of her vision and she only saw a foyer, small shoes by a door and heard a dog’s panicked bark.
“No.” Her voice cracked. “Not that. Not again.”
He nodded once. “We have to consider the risk.” He pitched his voice lower. “If we stop him, all the fail-safes could pop. If he’s removed from the string of command, the eleven handlers could act.”
She pressed her thumb into the hinge of her jaw until it hurt. “Then there’s only one other way.”
Their gazes met.
“Face to face,” she said. “He won’t click a link. He won’t take a call. He’ll go to ground. So someone has to go in person.”
In her head, she saw Liam in that interrogation room with Silverton. While it was terrifying, his confidence, his control, was hot as hell.
“It’s risky, but it’s our only shot.” Dante nodded as if solidifying the plan in his mind. “You can continue following every email from Kent to the other eleven handlers…or we go straight to the source.”
“It could be bait.” She bit down on her bottom lip.
“I’ll flag it to Con.”
She brought up a fresh document and began to summarize everything she found and she and Dante had discussed so it was on the record.
When footsteps sounded in the hall, Elin’s entire body jolted with electricity. She’d been listening hard to every set of footsteps in the house, just waiting for the pattern that belonged to one man.
Don’t,she told herself. She looked up anyway.
Liam stepped into the lab and stopped, gaze raking over her like she sat there as naked as she’d left the bed hours before.
On the surface he appeared composed, but the tightness around the corners of his smoky blue eyes gave him away.
Her heart seemed to grow legs and climb the rungs of her ribs to lodge in her throat.
“Con wants a brief.” His gaze was steady on her. He didn’t look at Dante.
Dante pushed to his feet and walked to the printer. Realizing he required the paperwork to hand to his CO, Elin hit the print button. The softwhooshof the paper moving into the machine was quiet beneath the throb of her heart.
Liam’s focus locked on her. Did she imagine that glint in his eyes? Had she imagined the same glint when he hovered over her…moved inside her?
With the fresh printout in hand, Dante paused in the doorway. “Elin?”
She looked up, past the wall of chiseled man who rocked her universe.
“Yes?”
“You did good. Get some sleep.”
She nodded at Dante’s praise, but she saw his gaze shift to Liam, questioning if it was a good idea to leave them alone.
She gave him a slight nod, and he walked out.
She flattened her palms on the desk to ground herself. Unsure what to say or even do next, she stood with the intention to skirt past Liam and rush to bed.
Alone, she told herself firmly.
He had other ideas. In one step, he blocked her path.
“Liam.”
