Page 60 of Skin In the Game (The BlackWater)

Monday she walked into the office unsure how to act, unsure how to be around Cole now. He’d spent almost the entire weekend at hers, in her apartment, barely letting her out of his sight and definitely not letting her out of his hands for long.

She went to make a coffee and was grateful that Becky was already there chatting away and that the coffee was freshly brewed.

Brandon walked in and said something to Douglas and he muttered back before Brandon clapped his hands and called them all for a catch up meeting.

Maddie followed Becky into the Briefing Room sipping her coffee and spent what felt like the entire meeting hyper alert that Cole might walk in and that she’d act weird or that he’d act weird or that it would be weird.

When he did walk in later he acted so normal, so standard Cole that it surprised her. She made a point of focussing on her work, focussing on the new tasks they’d all been assigned following the failed attempt to capture Grant not only because it was a good distraction but because now that she knew he’d set her up, that he pretty much admitted it to her face she was more determined than ever to nail his arse and make him pay.

When she got home, she half expected him to show up in that arrogant entitled way that he seemed to always be around her. But he didn’t show and after going for a long run because she couldn’t face the gym, she went back home, had a hot shower, and then drank more beer than she knew was reasonable.

She wasn’t missing him, she knew that, she just couldn’t figure it out. He had gone from being all domineering, all possessive of her, to complete radio silence. Was he doing it to prove a point she wondered, to show her how in control he was that he could take over her thoughts without even being there? The man had become even more insufferable than before she realised.

The next day he didn’t show at all. He’d spent days before out of the office so she didn’t think anything more of it beyond the relief that she didn’t have to overthink every minute.

On the third day though she wondered if he was avoiding her but then mentally smacked herself for being so damn ridiculous. She wasn’t that kind of girl, she thought, she wasn’t the kind of person that let someone control her, dominate her thoughts, occupy her space like this. She should be feeling relieved, relieved that he was gone, because now she could refocus on what she really wanted, proving who the hell had set her up and why they’d singled her out.

She got to work early that Thursday, hitting the gym hard and heading up to the office with an extra strong coffee. Brandon was there and she frowned. He was usually there before her but even this seemed too early to be reasonable.

“What’s up?” She asked looking across at him.

“Got some new intel from one of the field teams.” He replied.

“Anything good?”

“Maybe but we need to analyse it, there’s a lot here to go through and we need to move fast before the situation changes and we lose the chance to act on it.” He stated.

“Sounds like we’ll need a lot of coffee today then.” Maddie said and Brandon smirked.

“That’s the spirit.” He said before passing some files to her. “Wanna get started?”

“Sure, I’m already prepared.” Maddie replied taking them and holding her mug up in her other hand.

Brandon laughed. “Knew you’d fit right in here.” He said as she walked back to her desk and started going through the first page.

They sat in the Briefing Room, Brandon, Douglas and Maddie going through the new data. Jamie was still MIA. Becky had the day off and Maddie missed her jokes as well as her sarcasm too. They’d been there all day, had lunch ordered in and god knows what the time was now but Maddie knew it was at least early evening.

“I think this might be something.” Douglas said passing the sheet for them to see. Maddie leaned over and then glanced at Brandon.

“Does that match with the other record?” Brandon asked.

“Yeah it matches exactly.” Douglas replied.

“What does that mean?” Maddie asked.

“It means we might have something. Douglas you get this down to the field ops team. I want them on this first thing.” Brandon stated.

Douglas nodded getting up to head off.

Maddie looked back at the papers in front of her. It felt like there was something that tallied in she just couldn’t see it yet. Frowning she got up to make some more coffee and came back to see Douglas hadn’t returned and it was just Brandon there.

“He headed off. Think his wife was getting antsy.” Brandon said when he saw her looking around.

“Oh. Well I guess it means there’s more coffee for us right.” She smiled and he laughed.

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