Page 29 of Fallen Hero

She huffed a cute, annoyed breath as she clomped down the stairs. Her red Vans squeaked going from the solid white treads to the gold-veined marble in the foyer.

“Good thing it doesn’t rain here or this floor would be slippery as fuck.”

“Huh,” she mumbled.

“You don’t agree?” I asked.

“No, I was thinking almost the same thing but about getting out of the shower, wondering how many people have courted a concussion in this place because they didn’t dry off their feet.”

I hadn’t bothered checking the bathroom in my suite, but now I’d make sure there were ample towels to put on the floor.

“This place sucks,” I grumbled.

“Agreed.”

With every agreement, I felt something tighten in my chest. I didn’t want to have similar thoughts and opinions as the woman who drove me insane. I wanted her to be a raving, stuck-up diva with a bitchy personality. Instead, her only flaw was reckless abandonment for personal safety, and if I was being totally honest, I couldn’t fault her for that when I put myself in danger all of the time, as did my teammates—and I didn’t get in their faces when they did.

Why the fuck was I thinking about this?

Christ, I had a serious problem.

Thankfully, before any more opinions could be shared, thus me finding out I had more in common with Calista than I was comfortable with, the living room came into view.

“You look ridiculous,” I told Pete.

The stark-white couch he sat on was absurd. The seats were deep, but the back was so low, it stopped at the middle of Pete’s back. He looked like a giant. I glanced over to the matching couch and cringed.

“I’ll give you a hundred bucks if you give me your chair,” I propositioned Fallon, who was sitting in the only chair in the room.

“Nope. I scouted this chair before you idiots went up to check out the bedrooms.”

Sure enough, Fallon’s backpack was resting on the floor by his feet.

“I hate you,” I grumbled, and moved toward the hobbit couch.

“You hate that I’m smarter than you,” he quipped.

He was probably right. Though I blamed Calista. If she hadn’t muddled my head, I would’ve scoped out the living room before going upstairs, and my ass would’ve been sitting in the comfortable chair.

Calista’s gaze went from couch to couch. Unsurprisingly, she made her way to the one opposite me and sat next to Pete. This had the unfortunate consequence of being in my direct line of sight.

“Shep sent over a full report. There’s not much in there that’s useful,” Pete started. “Kiara Das, nineteen—”

Calista startled and glanced over at Pete before interrupting, “How long has she been here?”

“Three years.”

I knew Calista did the mental math when her head twitched.

“She was sixteen,” she whispered through gritted teeth.

I kept my gaze planted on her as Pete went on. “She came to Dubai with a group of women to be cleaners. There’s no record of any of them working at any of the hotels or record of them being paid.”

“How’d Shep find Kiara?” Fallon asked.

“Dumb luck. He was tracking . . . name redacted,” Pete said, and rolled his eyes. “He got a hit on his guy here, and Kiara was with him, so he ran her. Her family filed what’s equivalent to a missing person’s report in Odisha, where she’s from. Of course, Shep hacked the records and contacted the father to get more information. The father told him about the other girls and the service that hired Kiara. Shep dug around some more. No hits on the others, but he’s still looking and hoping Kiara will give him a lead.”

“Do we have a clear image of her?” Calista queried.