Page 91 of Beautifully Scarred Omega

I’ve been sitting near this woman every day since I got here, working her the way I’d work anyone, and the only thing I have to show for it is a watchlist.

The next day I go to Finn’s office for our five o’clock, and he opens the door himself.

When he sees me, the corners of his mouth lift, as if he’s genuinely pleased to see me but trying not to let me know how much.

“Hey.” His voice is warm. Much warmer than before. “Come in.”

These five-o’clock updates used to be strictly professional, but something about him has been different since the night of the intruder.

He steps back to let me pass. His hand rises as I walk by, an instinctive gesture, reaching for the small of my back the way people do when they’re guiding someone through a doorway. But he catches himself. I see his fingers curl inward, his hand dropping back to his side before it makes contact, and he turns toward his desk like nothing happened.

I sit across from him. He settles into his chair and leans forward on his elbows, his blue eyes finding mine. His sleeves are rolled to his forearms.

“How’s the arm?” He asks it casually, but I can see right through it.

Of everything he could have asked, he picked the arm. His gaze drops to my sleeve for half a second.

“It’s fine, Finn. No sign of infection.”

“Did you change the dressing?”

“This morning.” I keep my voice light, like we’re discussing a paper cut.

He nods and squares the folder against the edge of the desk. When he looks up again, his eyes are steady, but I can tell the arm isn’t what he really wants to ask about.

“And the rest of you?”

He leaves the question open, and I want to ask him, what do you mean? But I know what he means, of course. He’s being nice enough to give me space.

“I’m fine.” I bite my lip, trying not to let my eyes drift to his throat. The bruise I left there must have faded by now, but I can still feel the pressure of my forearm against it, and the memory makes my stomach turn.

He holds my gaze for a long moment, and I think he’s going to push. But then he just nods and opens the folder.

“Okay. Where are we?”

I walk him through it. Victor Hartman is still being monitored for the encrypted messages on his secondary device. Declan has been doing more background research on Diana Quinn but nothing so far—I’m rotating there next week to get closer to her. And then there’s Phoebe Brandt.

“Phoebe’s a dead end so far,” I say. “Almost two weeks and I’ve got nothing that connects her to the leak. The debt is there, but we haven’t found any proof that she’s passing information. If she’s the one, she’s really good at hiding.”

“Or she’s not the one.”

“Or she’s not the one,” I agree. “But until I can rule her out, she stays on the board.”

I pause.

“I want to bug her desk.”

The warmth in his expression disappears. His jaw sets and his shoulders draw back, just a fraction, and I already know what he’s going to say before he says it.

“No.”

“Finn—”

“No.” He pushes back from the desk and walks to the window, bracing one hand against the frame with his back to me, the late-afternoon light cutting across his shoulders. When he speaks, his voice is quiet but tight. “Phoebe is an employee. She’s a person who works here, who trusts us, who comes in every day and does her job in good faith. I’m not putting a listening device on her desk based on a credit card bill and a hunch.”

“I know she’s a good person, Finn. I actually—” I stop myself. Like her. The words almost come out, and I have no idea what to do with how uncomfortable that makes me.

“You actually what?”