AllFreeNovel
Share Us
John, raising a curious glance to her while leaning forward, greeted, “Long time no talk, man.” Such pure sarcasm, it didn’t even need the dry tone. There’d been a pile of burner phones on the dining room table when they got here; the pile had been depleted to three. The two men had been in constant contact—which further explained John’s open inquisitiveness. “You got something you’re holding out on me?”
Over the line, there was a shuffling sound. “I’ve got something requiring a higher security clearance than yours, Captain.”
Tracy shoved up from the desk. John, trying to hold her back, was too slow on the uptake. “And you’re throwing that out at a time like this?” Her head started to throb. She ticked it John’s way. Sol couldn’t see the action but it sure as hell informed her tone. “What part of his eleven years in SOF are you forgetting? He’s used to receiving more high-level intel in one mission than you get in a year.”
“You mean received.”
“Tracy.” Franz nudged his left foot behind her right calf. “He’s right.” He looked professional but grim. “If this is high-level shit, then trusting me—”
“He’s trusted you with me.” Making sure the whole building felt her stomping retreat, along with the seething tone, might have been overkill—but the show wasn’t just for John. Sol’s brain was a bucking bronc of weirdness right now, and she was tired of wondering where he’d throw her next. “Think that might change your mind about getting your head out of your ass right now, Mr. Wrightman?”
John didn’t move.
Faint static shooshed out of the phone. Sol hadn’t ended the call—though obviously wasn’t happy with it.
“All right,” he finally uttered. “I’ll tell you what I know. But then I really might have to kill you, Franzen.”
The man tied it off with a wry chuckle. Tracy wasn’t sure whether she wanted to thank him or borrow his figurative gun and shoot him. Her goals weren’t so fuzzy when it came to the big warrior sitting before her, leaning in to add his own laugh to the exchange before jibing back, “Promises, promises, asshole.”
***
Twenty minutes later,she and Franz had barely moved physically—though everything about the world, including the planet’s axis, felt inexorably shifted.
Felt?
No.
The planet literally had to have jumped off its rotation, for what Sol had just shared as conclusive truth. A viable enough theory, at least, that the FBI and CIA were playing nice about pursuing it together—and because of that, scooped up three suspects who apparently hopped back onto the right axis and started talking about the plan that stalled seven world governments in the exact same day.
But now, seventeen minutes after Sol turned the surreal into the real and the impossible into words, Tracy couldn’t do the same. Letting the stillness stretch on felt more…right. Respectful. The memorial she hadn’t been able to speak for Craig. The sadness she’d been sucking back, perhaps hoping it had all been a dream and they’d find her friend miraculously alive in some bunker even she didn’t know about, below the Residence…
Craig would know what to do about this insanity.
But Craig really wasn’t coming back.
Words she couldn’t wrap her heart around—and never would.
Words she somehow had to beat into her mind.
Just…not right now.
Which was why the stillness felt better.
Which was why, the second John rose from the chair, she seized his forearm though said nothing. Her tongue was a slab of glue. Her throat was a desert of despair. But he stared down, seeming to know that too.
“It’s okay, Tigress.” He deliberately used the name, despite how it clearly clenched his own throat, before wrapping his long fingers beneath her elbow. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
The words hardly made him flinch. The only change she noticed was the hue of his gaze, emerging from shadows to a caramel tint, he shifted closer. “It really is going to be okay.”
She gave at least an effort to believe that. Pulled in a deep breath, praying his conviction permeated her, but it was like throwing open the freezer door instead. She gripped him harder as a shiver conquered her, full of fear and dread and rage.
“Keep living that fiction, buddy,” she finally gritted. “You’re not the one who has to deal with a world where a dozen paramilitary organizations, led by a huge cell in the US itself, decided to form their own terror cartel.”
He moved his grip to the back of her head. Tucked her close to his body, her cheek against the ridges of his abs. “And you’re not going to do it alone,” he countermanded. “You have a ‘cartel’ of your own, already working together to fight back. Remember what Sol said? It’s only been two days, and they already have three assholes in custody—colluders talking without coercion or pressure. They’re crumbling from the inside already. They know what an insane plan they signed up for. Order doesn’t come from chaos.”
Tracy wrapped her arms around the tree trunk of his waist. Rubbed her cheek into the firm warmth of him, letting his words soothe her like autumn leaves drifting from mighty branches. He smelled the same way, oaky and savory, and she indulged in another deep breath just to appreciate that rich scent.
