into the pan next to her, another piece of debris she’d pulled from the bullet wound hitting the bottom of the metal container. There had been far too many of them for my comfort. A rapid plink-plink-plink while Dan had grown progressively paler.
And I’d been the only one to notice.
Which was a fact I was deliberately ignoring.
Because if I didn’t ignore it, if I looked too closely and admitted—even only to myself—that I might be too interested in Dan, might possibly care for him more than a fellow agent, I would be vulnerable. There was a risk if I looked into the razed organ that was my heart, I might see him as a friend . . . or worse, as a man.
And that could not be.
I knew it just as I knew the sky was blue.
The mere thought made my skin itchy and tight, like hives were just beneath the surface, readying themselves to erupt, and I felt my throat threaten to close as though I’d eaten a piece of cantaloupe—to which I was allergic. I had to force myself to breathe slowly, to not let go of Dan and sprint from the room.
Because no one could see.
He couldn’t see.
Well, at least the last was easy to prevent, considering he was unconscious.
“Okay,” Olive said, as I tempered the panic inside me. “Lay him down. I’ll double-check the bandage on his chest is good to go and then let him—and you—rest.”
Shifting him back with a nod, I knew I’d shower first. I was sweaty and dusty and covered in grime, and normally I would have already gone to clean up, but part of me hadn’t been able to leave the room, not until I’d seen my partner from the mission was okay.
Simple agent-to-agent concern.
Yup. That was it.
That was the only reason—
My eyes met Laila’s, and it was as if my friend had seen right into my mind and was cherry-picking my thoughts.
And her pale blue eyes seemed to shout, “Liar!”
Maybe I was a liar. But also, maybe that was the only way to get through life unscathed and safe and—
Fuck. Shower. Shut-eye. Then I’d be more like myself.
After Olive had moved the pan and leftover supplies, I carefully tilted Dan back until he was safely resting on the bed. A click had the side rail sliding into place and ensuring that he wouldn’t be doing any more diving from or over objects, and thus disturbing the treatment he’d just received.
The urge to flee was strong, but I forced myself to close the distance between me and Laila, to act like a responsible agent.
“What do you see?” I asked.
“Fucking gibberish,” Laila muttered. “None of this adds up. This isn’t like the hard drives we recovered back in San Francisco. Those held copies of bank transfers and statements and accounts and showed the Mikhailova clan in league with prime ministers, arms dealers, several international policing agencies. That was good. We’re taking down really awful people in power, but—” She sighed and leaned back in the chair. “I don’t get why the source was so determined to meet. Nothing on here seems the least bit connected with them, nor does it seemed to be linked with the trafficking the higher-ups want us to investigate. It’s all just . . . inventory and invoices.”
I bent and studied the screen sitting on the desk. This, like all other satellite headquarters KTS had located around the world, was a formidable bunker. The entrance was hidden behind several layers of the most secure and technologically advanced protection KTS could provide, as well as staffed by a rotation of agents conducting business in this part of the world. But once beyond all of those walls and keypads and hidden doors with DNA scans, it was reminiscent of our home base in the northeast of England. Narrow bland halls, rooms lined up along either side. Most were sleeping quarters, each with a simple bathroom attached. But each satellite location also had a mess hall, an infirmary, and a technology center.
Laila, in this case, had opted to use the computer in the infirmary.
Mostly because she and Olive were good friends and had wanted to bullshit as they both worked, but also probably because she wanted to pester me.
Not that I minded. Laila had brought me to KTS, had helped me when I had no one else. There was a bond there, one that couldn’t be broken, not even by the black hole inside me.
“What kind of inventory?” I asked.
Laila sighed,