Page 70 of Deep Cover

A soft knock sounded, and she turned, heart slamming at the simultaneous hope and dread that it was Reid coming for one last private moment.

“Come in,” she called softly.

The door opened and Jolie and Stina appeared in the doorway.

Jolie rushed in, already reaching to pull her into a hug. “We just saw the men. We heard.” Her voice sounded thick, and her eyes were red from crying. Caryssa imagined the strength these women had to muster every single time Monk and Rome walked out that door.

Stina followed, wrapping her arms around both of them, and for one second, Caryssa allowed herself to sink into the embrace of women she’d known less than two weeks, and suddenly parting from them felt like someone wrenched on her soul.

Stina drew back, worry written across her pretty face. “You’ll be careful?”

“I’ll be fine.” She managed a smile, though it cost her more than it should. “I’ll be back. We’ll do nails. Make more mug cakes. I haven’t begun to share all my recipes.”

The promise sounded thin even to her own ears. Empty.

She smiled through the downpour of sadness in her heart, holding it inside, hidden and private, hers alone to carry.

“You know,” Jolie said, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand, half laughing at herself, “when you first got here I thought you were going to be some cold FBI robot who’d write us both up for the yarn incident.”

“I considered it.” Caryssa startled herself with how easily the joke came despite what was hovering over them all.

“See, this is why we like her,” Stina told Jolie as if Caryssa wasn’t standing right there.

Jolie gave her one more squeeze before letting go. “We mean it. Be careful.”

“Definitely will.”

She watched them go, throat tight, and gave herself three seconds to hold on to that emotion before she shoved it down hard. There was no space for sad faces or what-ifs where she was headed.

There was no room for her feelings inside her tactical vest, and they were far too heavy to carry into a warehouse raid.

She slipped her sidearm into the holster and tucked the badge deep in her pocket. Without looking around the room she’d miss the way she’d miss a lost limb, she shouldered her bag and grabbed her carry-on.

She walked the corridor alone.

Her boots echoed off the concrete, every step a thudding ache. She’d signed up for this. The danger, the uncertainty. Agents lost their lives on the job and that could be her too. But she’d taken an oath and refused to break her word.

She thought of Phillip, not with grief exactly, but more of a reminder of the cost this job sometimes demanded. He’d known the risk too. Everyone in this line of work did. If he could see her now, he’d understand why she kept walking toward it instead of away.

She found the Sierra team assembled near the tunnel exit, all stacked muscle and broad chests in tactical gear with smudges of face paint on their faces.

Then Rome stepped aside and the sight of Reid in full gear stopped her cold.

He looked like a stranger yet exactly like himself at once. His vest was strapped tight over his chest, his jaw set in a hard line she recognized from the war room, only then his malice hadn’t been aimed at an actual target.

He was terrifying and beautiful and he broke her heart.

Their gazes locked, and the commotion of the team checking comms and running final checks around them vanished.

For five long heartbeats, they stared at each other, unmoving.

Then one of the guys laughed with a carefree manner only men who faced real danger knew how to embrace, and the spell was broken.

She looked around the group and her chest squeezed for another reason that had nothing to do with losing the man she loved all over again. In a short time, these men had become more than just colleagues on an assignment. Between shared meals and private jokes they let her in on, they’d become her friends.

Family, even. God help her.

Reid crossed to her and held out a comms unit. “Let me get you set up.”