Page 48 of Skin In the Game (The BlackWater)

Becky snickered and muttered “Standard man.” Under her breath and Maddie laughed too.

“Well if you’re ever looking for something better you know where I am.” Jamie said quietly smirking and Maddie felt her jaw drop in shock. Out of all of them he was the one she hadn’t quite jelled with, hadn’t quite bonded as close. It wasn’t that they didn’t get on it was just that he was a jock, and somehow he gave her weird Rab vibes and that comment just confirmed it.

But before she could say anything Cole had launched something at his head. It rebounded off the side of his face and he just sat there blinking.

“Say shit like that again and you’re gone, you hear me.” He snapped.

Jamie nodded.

“We are not Homewell here. We do not put up with shit like that.” Cole stated.

Maddie looked from Jamie to Cole and Cole gave her a hard look back. She frowned, not sure if she was meant to feel grateful to him for defending her or angry that he had felt the need too. That she had needed him too.

“Do you still have his number?” Brandon asked and Maddie looked across at him.

“I think so. I pulled the back up from my old phone. Why?” She said.

“Maybe we could arrange a rendezvous, see whether he is a suspect and what he knows.” Brandon said looking at Cole then.

“How do you mean?” Maddie asked.

“You get back in contact, say you’ve missed him, yadayada, we pick him up and go from there.” Brandon said.

Maddie bit her lip thinking it over. Would it work? He didn’t know she knew so what was the risk really? Besides he had come crawling back before, all she had to do was convince him she was into him which wouldn’t exactly be hard.

“Absolutely not.” Cole said and Maddie looked at him.

“Why?” Brandon asked back.

“They’ve already tried to kill her once, I’m not risking that just on the off chance her fuckboy is in on this.” Cole stated.

“Fuckboy?” Maddie repeated but he ignored her. They both did.

“This could be a breakthrough.” Brandon said.

“Don’t give a shit. We’re not sending her in. She’s not even trained for that.” Cole replied.

“It’s not a real undercover op. She’d just be meeting up with an ex, we’d make it somewhere public, she’d be perfectly safe.”

“Not a fucking chance.” Cole growled.

“I’ll do it.” Maddie said loudly cutting across them.

They both turned to look at her.

“I can do it.” She said. It wasn’t even that big a fucking deal, she thought.

“I said no.” Cole stated and she scowled before looking at Brandon.

“And it’s my decision. I say we give it a go.” Brandon stated.

Maddie nodded.

“Douglas I want you to work it, get the field teams to pick a suitable location. Maddie, if there’s places you two used to meet that you think would work…”

“We weren’t together. Not properly, so there aren’t any.” Maddie stated.

“Fine, Douglas, you get on it, I want a plan to me asap.” Brandon said.

Everyone nodded and stood up and Maddie glanced back at the screen for a moment.

It had been a stitch up she realised. He had targeted her. Almost a year ago he had targeted her. She shook her head furious that she had fallen for it and furious that it had gone on so fucking long. She turned around and headed for the door.

Cole grabbed her arm and she looked down at his hand before up at his face.

“What are you doing?” She asked him. They were alone now, just the two of them. Everyone else had long since left.

“If you’re uncomfortable about this...” He said.

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