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“Me too.”
She looked down at her mug. “You’d better come back in one piece, Sutton. I didn’t spend all this time building you a fake life just so you could waste it.”
“Me, waste a fake life? Never.” His real life, on the other hand…
“Are you nervous?” she asked.
“About the computer stuff or the criminal stuff?”
“Either. Both.”
He thought about it. The honest answer was complicated. “The criminal stuff, no. I know how to be in a room with dangerous people.” Hell, he knew how to be the most dangerous person in the room. “That’s not new for me. I’m a little nervous about the computer stuff. But less because of last night and today. You fixed that.”
“The salt shakers fixed that. I just pointed out when you were wrong.”
“You pointed out when I was wrong a lot.”
“Well, that would be because you were wrong a lot.”
“Fair point.” He took a drink. “What actually makes me nervous is the in-between. The hours when I’m not doing anything. Just being there. Being him.”
“Being who?”
“The version of me they’re expecting.” He didn’t elaborate. She waited, and when he didn’t continue, she didn’t push. He appreciated that more than she probably knew.
“I guess there’s a lot of downtime.”
“Yes, but no. You always have to be on when you’re undercover. You can’t let your guard slip even for a second. That’s easy to remember when tensions are high. Not quite as easy when everyone’s sitting around drinking and chatting. They expect you to participate, but really, they’re hoping to catch you in a lie.”
The cover holds as long as you stay inside it. The second you step outside, even for a second, you’re done.
Nolan’s words came back to him. Hell, they’d never left.
If Ryder wasn’t able to do this, to hold his cover and do all that computer shit, it was over. Not just for him, but for those kids being trafficked. The Diehl brothers wouldn’t be fooled twice. Ryder was the only chance.
“I suggest you explain how you like your princess coffee and that should be participation enough. No lies needed.”
He laughed out loud. She was doing it again. The thing she did when she forgot to be guarded. The dry humor, the quick mouth, the version of herself that came out when nobody was watching. Except he was watching, and she knew it, and she was letting him see it anyway.
“What are you going to do while I’m inside?” he asked.
“Monitor the Diehls’ communications from the lab. Watch for anything that shifts while you’re in there. If the digital landscape changes, I’ll flag it through Fallon.”
“So you’ll be up all night.”
“Naturally. But like I said, I prefer nighttime anyway. Fewer people.” She said it casually. “The compound is different after midnight. Quieter. I can think.”
“That, I understand.” He held out his cup in salute.
“What about when you’re done undercover?” she asked. “When all this is done. What do you go back to?”
“Zodiac. Regular ops. Whatever Ian DeRose needs.” He took a drink. “What about you? Back to your apartment?”
She was quiet for a second. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying not to think about that.” She turned her mug in her hands. “When Fallon came to Rogue full time, I lost my partner. The work we did together, the operations, all of that stopped.”
He hadn’t thought about it from that angle. Fallon gaining Rogue meant Cassandra losing the partnership. From what he knew about their operations, Cassandra had set everything up behind the scenes, but Fallon had been the one actually on-site.
“What have you been doing since she’s been gone?”
