Page 4 of Broken Trust
His face had gone pale, then flushed as emotions flickered across his features too fast for her to keep up. Shock. Guilt. Something that might have been pain if she didn’t know better.
If she didn’t know that hechoseto leave,choseto let her believe he was dead while he was out here playing soldier with his band of brothers.
Liam made a noise deep in his throat.
The men shifted uncomfortably, sensing the tension but not understanding it. She felt their eyes on her and the weight of being the only woman in a room built for warriors.
They were all broad-shouldered with eyes as hard as the steel blades that Liam preferred to fight with.
But it was Liam who held her attention. Liam with his oak-brown hair slightly longer than she remembered, bearing new scars she didn’t recognize.
Liam, with the same eyes that used to look at her like she was the only person in the world who mattered.
Those eyes were looking at her now with something close to devastation.
Good.
She saw that warning flash in his eyes. The same look he’d get when she asked too many questions about his work and attempted to break through the walls he built around himself.
Liam spoke first, his voice as rough as gravel. “How did you—”
She cut him off hard. “I’m looking for someone named Sophie. Unless she’s a muscle-bound powerhouse, I gather she’s not here.”
“Who’s she calling muscle-bound?” one guy asked loud enough to earn several chuckles from those around him.
She looked straight at the tall god of a man standing at the front of the room. “Are you Con? He gave me clearance to come.”
The room went silent. Even the monitors seemed to hum quieter.
Liam stared at her harder.
Before her courage left her and her knees buckled at the mere look of him, she tilted her jaw a notch higher to completely avoid his intense gaze. “Can somebody please direct me to Sophie?”
She wanted to kick Liam in the balls. Wanted to scream. Wanted him to explain why she wasn’t worth the truth and why he’d let her break herself grieving for him while he was out here alive and breathing.
But mostly she wanted him to see that he hadn’t broken her.
Liam tried again, in that low rumble meant only for her. “Elin—”
“Someone named Sophie contacted me,” she pushed on, louder now, addressing the room but scanning the men around her, looking at anyone but Liam. She needed to take control of this conversation before he said something that would crack her carefully constructed armor.
The tall, confident man at the head of the table—their leader Con, she assumed—took over, voice cutting through the tension like a blade. “Miss Lindgren, I’m Commander Ryan Constantine. I appreciate you coming today. I know the trip isn’t easy.”
“I didn’t expect the hood.” She lifted a hand to swipe an errant lock of hair off her face.
Con gave her a nod before continuing. “You’ll work with Sophie and our computer expert Dante to get ahead of a terrorist’s next move. We look forward to working with you.”
Did everybody else feel the pulse between her and Liam? Even without looking his way, she felt his unwavering stare on her. Con threw him a questioning look but began explaining that they had a limited timeline before disaster struck.
Several guys seated around Liam glanced between them, picking up on the throb of energy that actually might be her own fury bursting out of every pore in her body.
She’d never known this emotion. It was a million times stronger than any anger she’d ever felt before, even when she had proof that Liam was actually alive.
“Sophie is highly impressed with your skills, Miss Lindgren.”
She nodded that she understood, but her focus wasn’t on hacking or terrorists. Of course she didn’t stumble into this job. She orchestrated it by placing herself in the path of a cryptologist named Sophie Edwards and demonstrating the precise skills that helped her crack a particular code.
“Elin—” Liam tried again.
