And that fucking terrified him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“IS THIS SOME kind of fucking joke?” Stephanie asked as she peered around the room. Of course, it was a joke. Any second now, her co-workers would pop out of the closet and bathroom with a sheet cake that said Sorry your case went to shit in the worst way. Welcome back.
Not that she was in the mood for a practical joke or a damn party. She was beyond exhausted. Two months of horror-filled dreams that made sleep near impossible would drain anyone.
Seconds ticked by, and the only thing that happened was the SACs pursed lips drooping into a frown. “In deference to your situation, I’ll overlook your outburst, but in the future, control your tongue when you speak to your supervisor, Agent Little.”
In deference to her situation.
In deference to her fucking situation.
Her mouth formed the shape of the wh in what, but the word never came out. Instead, she took a breath and stared at the ceiling until she had something nicer than fuck you to say.
“Please excuse me, sir,” she said through a locked jaw, “but how can you justify giving Agent Rey a post-humus Medal of Valor?” The muscles at the base of her skull felt like they were being tightened by a crank.
“He died in the line of duty, Agent Little. On an undercover mission that took him away from his wife and child for over seven months. The gang is killing each other in a civil war. We haven’t had any more reports of missing women. His mission was accomplished.”
The air in the windowed corner office she’d once been so enamored with grew hot, stifling. The top button of her blouse was dangerously close to choking her. She needed air. Needed out. But that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
“He was a traitor, and you’re treating him like a hero. He was the reason I was grabbed. He was the reason I was terrorized. He was the reason I was nearly raped—hell, he was the one who almost did it. He’s why I have ring-shaped scars around my wrists and ankles.” She drew in a shaky breath and straightened in her chair. “And he’s the reason I still wake up screaming every single night,” she said, head high. There was no point in hiding it. The lack of sleep was evident in her pale skin, sunken eyes, weight loss.
It wasn’t anything to be embarrassed about. For forty-eight hours she’d been terrorized, the threat of rape and death hanging over her head every second. It was traumatizing. No one would make it out without a nightmare or two. No one needed to know the majority of her nightmares involved the FBI arresting her for aiding and abetting, for perjury, and for murder. That her dreams were plagued with Rey’s taunting face reminding her he knew what she did and would find a way to make her pay.
Did Maverick have nightmares?
Not the time. Not the place.
“So your report says.” Director Baccarella leveled her a stare that had her fuming. He was in his early fifties with salt and pepper hair and a small but growing gut that spoke to his time out of the field and behind a desk. The salt and pepper hair that once made him look distinguished in a Clooney kind of way was looking much more salt than pepper since she’d last seen him.
She’d lied about so much, it was ironic one of the only truthful parts of her statement was the portion he chose to call into question.
“Excuse me?” she asked so low she wondered if she’d said it out loud. Even though she deserved so much more than a little disbelief, the sense of betrayal was so heavy on her chest she couldn’t muster the power to speak louder.
“Look, Stephanie,” he said using her given name for the first time in two years. “Daniel was a decorated Special Agent. He’d been in the FBI over ten years. He had a wife. Kids. He was a Boy Scout Troop leader, for fuck’s sake.”
Like she didn’t know all this? She was the one who worked closest with him over the past two years. She was the one who sat at his family’s table for Sunday dinner more times than she could count. She was the one who rushed to his house to babysit his kids when his wife cut her palm slicing an avocado and needed fifteen stitches.
“So, what? Because he looked like the poster boy for the FBI on paper, my report must be wrong? I’m lying? Maybe I’m bitter that the mission went south and I’m looking for someone to pin it on? Must be. Because I’ve only been here two years. I’m not married. No kids.”
What a mess of a situation. Because she was lying about so much. But not about this. Not about Rey giving up everything he’d supposedly believed in for nothing but some cash and some power.