Page 58 of Hunted in the Silence

And she kissed him back with everything she had.

And then they weren’t standing at the conference table anymore, and the map was forgotten, and the last remaining hours between now and whatever came next were not what either of them was thinking about.

Before Brynn could process it, they were tangled together on the floor, and as Cole’s hand slipped under her shirt to cup and tease her breast, she snaked her hand between their bodies to grip the hard length of him pressing against her core. She was briefly, distantly thankful that the blinds on the conference room door were always kept closed.

Just as her thoughts drifted toward the lock, his hips flexed, and every ounce of her attention collapsed into the moment and the man and the heat building between them. She wanted this. She wanted him. And she didn’t care about the where or the when or anything beyond the simple, fierce truth that life was short and happiness was hard-won and she was grabbing this slice of it with both hands and she didn’t intend to let go.

“Are you sure?” Cole asked, his lips traveling down the side of her throat, finding the swell of her breasts. She was nodding before he finished asking, able only to hum her agreement, but he understood, and then he was lifting her shirt and wrapping those lips that had been quietly undoing her for two weeks around one pert nipple and drawing her through the silk of her bra. The flood of warmth between her legs amplified until she had to bite her lip to keep the moan from escaping. In a moment of boldness, her hand slipped past the waistband of his jeans and found his hard length, and she stroked him slowly, deliberately, pulling a low and agonized sound from him that she felt as much as heard.

Then everything went fast. Buttons and zippers and clothes shed in the graceless, laughing, urgent way of two people who had been holding back and were done waiting, and then he was inside her. She exhaled his name and they found their rhythm together, giving and taking in equal measure, and what struck her—what she would remember later, lying with her head against his chest in the quiet aftermath—was how fully present she was. In her own body. In this moment. With this man. No distance, no disconnect, no part of her standing outside it watching for danger. Just her and Cole and the joy of having chosen this with open eyes and no reservations and the absolute knowledge that she would choose it again.

Afterward she lay with her head against his chest and listened to his heart slow. His hand moved through her hair, and neither of them said anything for a long moment because the silence was perfect.

“We’re going to be okay tonight,” he said. Not as reassurance. Just a promise he planned to fulfill.

“I know,” she said.

And she did know. Not because she was psychic. But because she knew the people who were going to be outside that building tonight, and she knew the man whose heart she was currently using as a pillow, and she knew herself, which was the most important thing she’d learned from years of building a life from what had been done to her.

She knew herself and she was not afraid.

She sat up and found her clothes, and he watched her dress. When she looked back at him, she knew without question that whatever this was between them was entirely real and not anything they needed to put a name to right now.

“We should go over the entry points on the south property again,” she said.

“We should,” he agreed, sitting up.

She smoothed her hair and picked up her legal pad, while Cole righted himself, and then they sat back down at the conference table across from each other, the map was between them again, with a little less than three hours to go.

Only now, everything had changed. Because even with the map and the clock and Devlin waiting somewhere in the city, they’d finally given themselves permission to be real.

And it was going to determine how she moved through what came next.

She put her pen to the paper.

“South entry,” she said.

And they worked.

Chapter 18

The single-story commercial building housed a printing company until two years ago. After the printing company folded, the building sat empty and abandoned. The sign was still on the front, faded and peeling. The parking lot had weeds coming up through the asphalt in the places where winter hadn’t killed them yet. From the outside, it looked like nothing. Which was, of course, why Devlin had chosen it.

Cole had walked the perimeter at eight o’clock with Carson and Dax, two hours before Brynn was supposed to arrive. They moved quickly, using the dark and the building’s own shadow for cover. Three exits confirmed—front, rear, and a west-facing side door that was newer than the rest of the building. The kind of door someone added when they needed an exit that wasn’t on the original blueprint.

Back at the vehicles Cole laid out the positions. Dax on the rear. Finn on the west side door. Carson’s people covering the surrounding block in two unmarked cars. Olivia with the technical team half a block north, monitoring Brynn’s phone and the wire she’d agreed to wear after a conversation that had ended with her saying “fine” in the tone she used when she decided something wasn’t worth arguing about. Cole announced he was taking the front in a tone that invited no argument.

At nine forty-five, Brynn came out of the safe house in her dark jacket and the vest underneath it that he’d watched her put on and check twice. She’d pulled her hair back, wore no jewelry, carried only her phone and her keys and a fearless expression that made him fill with pride. He’d stopped at her in the safe house hallway before they left.

“You come out the front door,” he instructed. “Whatever happens inside, whatever he says or does or threatens, you move toward the front of the building and you come out the front door. That’s where I am.”

“Front door,” she said with a nervous nod of agreement.

He kissed her once, fast and certain, and then they’d gone. She drove herself because Devlin had said come alone, and they couldn’t risk him getting spooked and running again. Cole was already in position when her headlights swept the lot just after ten. He watched her park and get out and walk to the front entrance without looking in his direction, and the focused calm of her was something he held onto as she pushed through the door and the building swallowed her.

“She’s in,” he said into the radio. Confirmations came back from each position. Everyone was in place. Brynn’s wire was clear through his earpiece, as was the sound of her footsteps on the concrete floor inside. He settled in and waited, and for eleven minutes it went exactly as planned.

He heard her moving through the front room, heard her voice when she called Devlin’s name, heard the silence that answered and then the soft, unhurried voice directing her farther in. He heard the conversation begin, Devlin’s tone warm and controlled and thoroughly wrong beneath its surface. He heard Brynn answer with the steady voice she used in any high-tension situation, and he listened to every word of it and kept his position and his breathing even and his weapon ready.