Fuck.
She crosses her arms.Looks out the window. The city slides past at 1:30a.m., indifferent and bright, and I watch her jaw work while she processes and calculates and refuses to look at me.
Good. I need her not to look at me right now.
"Ground rules," she says finally.
"You're not negotiating ground rules."
She reaches into her gym bag and holds it up slightly. The drive. "I'll throw it out the window."
She might do it.
The corner of my mouth moves. "You'd destroy your only leverage."
"Maybe leverage isn't worth dying for."
"Then we agree." I hold her gaze. "Which is why you're coming with me."
She stares at me for a long moment. Her eyes shift. Not softening. Not backing down.
Recalibrating.
She's deciding what she can work with. What she can use.
It's the most interesting thing I've seen in years, and that is a catastrophic problem.
"Fine." She drops the bag back to her lap. "But when we get wherever we're going, I want answers."
"Some."
"Actual answers."
"Some actual answers." I watch her mouth press into a flat line. "That's the best offer you're getting."
She looks away again. Profile sharp, chin up, throat exposed above the neckline of her scrubs. There's still a smear of dried blood on her forearm that she hasn't noticed — or has noticed and decided doesn't matter.
Both options are equally likely.
I think about what those hands would feel like wrapped around me. Gripping my shoulders. Pulling me closer while I pin her down and find out how loud she gets when she isn't in control.
I look out the window.
She's Virelli. She's the asset.
Get it the fuck together.
The restof the drive happens in silence.
Fifteen blocks. Maybe twenty. I stop counting because counting is what I do when I need my brain somewhere that isn't her, and my brain is not cooperating.
She's against the opposite door. As far from me as physics will allow in a vehicle this size. Arms still crossed. Jaw still set. Looking out the window like the skyline personally offended her.
She doesn't look at me once.
I keep my eyes forward. Or try to. It lasts about six seconds at a stretch before something pulls my gaze back — the line of her throat above the scrub collar, the blood smear on her forearm she still hasn't wiped off, the way her thumb keeps moving against the strap of her gym bag like she's counting breaths.
I know what counting breaths looks like. I've done it in every bad room I've ever been in.
