The Payback (Team Zulu 2)

29

Sage

Shoppinghadn’tgonelikeI’d expected. I’d thought for sure I’d be trying on gorgeous dresses and helping Brandon pick out a suit.

Instead, Brandon had taken us to a derelict warehouse on the seedy side of town. The inside looked like a criminal’s wet dream with shipping containers full of everything one might need to take down a small army. Guns, knives, hand grenades, explosives—you name it. If it could maim or kill a person, they probably sold it there.

Brandon spent the rest of the afternoon and evening working on his laptop and making other preparations for the ball. We used any spare time continuing to collect incriminating evidence on Franky’s devoted followers.

One upside of Dante’s fancy party? Brandon had hacked the invite list, so we knew who he planned to bring across to his new regime. That took the guesswork out of where to target our investigations and allowed Brandon to work faster.

Things between Brandon and me were…well, they were strained. The distraction of our busy workload helped a little, but my chest ached every time I glanced his way and found him engrossed in his laptop. I missed the glimmer in his aquamarine eyes whenever they met mine. I even missed his cocky personality. I just missed…him.

On my screen, Dante and Maxim were turning in for the night. I’d soon do the same. My eyes shifted to Brandon. We’d hardly spoken all day, and I found myself searching for neutral subjects to talk about just to hear his voice.

I cleared my throat to get his attention. “Do you think it’d be all right if I checked my email?” Brandon turned to face me. “I need to contact my supervisor and the students I tutor with an excuse for my absence.”

“I can make that happen.” He came across to my desk and leaned in close to use the keyboard. I wished he didn’t smell so good, or that the brush of his jeans against my leg didn’t energize my pulse.

“There,” he said with a final click of the mouse. “Whatever you do from this window is untraceable. What reason are you going to give them?”

“I’ll probably go with mono. That’ll buy me at least four weeks.”

“Kissing disease,” Brandon said with a note of surprise. I glanced up to find a small smirk on his lips. “Good choice,” he added.

He’d made a wisecrack. Should I ignore it? Or should I groan like I normally would and continue the banter? Although joking about us kissing seemed like a terrible idea.

While I silently overthought the crap out of the situation, Brandon returned to his desk.

Shift your focus, Sage.

I logged into my account and found hundreds of unread emails. I scanned them quickly, not interested in wasting time on anything unimportant, and froze when I found one from Agent Maya Williams.Holy shit. With everything that had happened these last couple of weeks, I’d all but forgotten I’d asked the FBI agent to search their criminal registry for the eagle tattoo.

I clicked on the email. My eyes flew over the words only to readSorry, no match was found. My heart and all my hopes of tracking Kieran’s murderer plummeted to the ground fourteen floors below.

If I asked Brandon to look into it, he would. He was the kind of guy who’d do whatever he could to help me despite the awful things I’d said and the disgraceful way I’d behaved. He probably had a bunch of medals for bravery and heroism stashed away in a drawer somewhere. All I had was a growing list of people I’d let down.

I decided against mentioning the eagle tattoo. I told myself it was so I didn’t distract Brandon from the more important task of gathering the evidence we needed before the ball. But the truth was, I didn’t want to talk about the shooting, Kieran, or anything that might make us revisit what had happened last night. Not only was I a piece of shit, but I was also a coward. Ironically, those were the same reasons I hadn’t apologized yet.

Weary from a stressful day of dognapping and monitoring Dante, I readied myself for sleep, then curled my body into bed. Brandon would continue to work until the early hours of the morning like he had every night since the shoot-out at Vixens.

As I drifted off to the gentle sounds of Brandon’s fingertips moving over the keyboard, a part of me wished they were moving over me instead.

A strange ringtone ripped me from my slumber. Why wasn’t Brandon answering?

I rolled over to shove him awake, only he wasn’t there. And it wasn’t Brandon’s phone ringing. It was the burner he’d bought me today.

“Brandon?” I called out while rubbing my eyes. No light shone from under the bathroom door.

He wasn’t here.

The alarm clock on the nightstand displayed 2:13 a.m. I picked up the phone and checked the screen. It readSexiest Hacker Alive.

That man’s arrogance knew no bounds.

I sat up and answered the call. “Brandon?”

“Caller ID was a little on the nose, wasn’t it?” Brandon’s hushed voice purred in my ear.