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.Though it was hard, Declan squelched his resentment.They had given him no weapons.His gun had never been returned.Maybe their distrust was understandable, but it still infuriated him.Reminding himself that he didn’t need a weapon to kill did no good.Dammit, he felt naked.“Here.”Declan looked down at the soft, delicate hand holding a wicked-looking fixed-blade metal knife.Raising his gaze to her face, he looked into fathomless emerald-green eyes.“You trust me with this?”A soft twist to her mouth and then, “If you wanted any of us dead, we both know you don’t require a weapon.”Declan took the knife and joined the men cutting the branches.Though Thorne gave him a hard look, neither he nor anyone else objected to his help.For the first time in a very long while, he felt like he was actually doing something productive.“Okay.That should be enough,” McCall said.“Let’s get it hidden and get going.”With the branches they’d cut, it took barely ten minutes to completely hide the vehicle.Unless someone walked right into it, it should be here when they returned.“Let’s move,” Mathison called out.Without conscious thought, Declan slid the knife into his belt.It wasn’t until Thorne made a move toward him that he realized he’d done it.Before he could consider his options of either telling the asshole to back off or returning the knife to Sabrina, she grabbed Thorne’s arm and said, “It’s fine.”Thorne gave him a hard look of warning but backed away.Good thing, that, but Declan knew at some point there would be a reckoning between the two of them.He looked forward to that day.In silence and an odd but telling formation, they moved forward.Declan had McCall on one side of him, Mathison on the other.The young, solemn-faced Riley Ingram walked behind him, along with her partner, Justin Kelly.Both Ingram and Kelly had been eyeing him with equal parts distrust and hostility.Sabrina and Thorne walked in front.The positioning of each operative was deliberate.If he’d had any illusions that he was a trusted member of the team, they dissolved the moment they’d started their trek.He told himself they were right to be wary.They’d allowed him to come along to help locate the prison, but he’d made no secret that he had his own agenda.If the two didn’t mesh, he wouldn’t hesitate to walk away and go off on his own.Sabrina was the only oddity in their seeming unanimous distrust.Something had happened over the last couple of days, because she’d been treating him as if he was a member of the team.The knife had been a deliberate move to show him that trust.Not that she was playing the wife, but she seemed to have lost that edge of resentment she’d been carrying with her.She actually was acting as if life was almost normal.If she believed that, she was delusional on top of being a traitor.Aidan could feel Steele’s hostile eyes burrowing into his back.The man didn’t trust him, but since the feeling was mutual, he had no issues with that.What did concern Aidan was Steele’s purpose in the group.He’d made it clear he was only here for himself.Even if Aidan could identify and understand his need for retribution, it didn’t belong on an LCR op.But McCall had made the decision to bring him on.Aidan disagreed with a lot of things in life, but he rarely disagreed with his boss.The man had his priorities straight.If he felt Steele should be on the team, he wasn’t going to argue with him.Didn’t mean he wouldn’t watch his back, though—or the backs of his fellow operatives.A man who’d had his humanity beaten out of him could be damn dangerous.To be fair, he knew some of his ire was directed toward Sabrina.Why the hell hadn’t she told him she was married…and thought she was a widow? He figured the couple of months she’d taken off and then returned looking like a shadow of her former self must’ve been when she’d thought Steele had been killed.Dammit, he had even teased her about having a hot and heavy love affair.She’d just smiled.And now he felt like an ass.“I know you’re angry at me.”Sabrina’s words broke into the silence.She had kept her voice low so only he heard.“You should’ve told me.”“You’re right, I should have.I actually planned to tell you about him right before we got tapped for the Elite team.But then—”“That’s when you thought he was killed?”“Yeah.” Her voice went even softer.“I couldn’t talk about him then.Hurt too much.”“I don’t understand why you kept it a secret in the first place.Hell, LCR has a lot of married operatives.”“True.” Her shoulders lifted in a defensive shrug.“I just don’t like to talk about myself.”He snorted.“You got that right.”Instead of apologizing again, she shot him a hard look.“And you’re an open book? You’ve told me all there is to know about Aidan Thorne, right?”“I’ve told you—”She cut him off with a wave of her hand.“Cut the crap, Aidan.You’ve told me what you could, just like I told you what I could.Noah doesn’t hire people whose lives have been full of sunshine.So either quit giving me your bullshit line of an uncomplicated and happy past or spill all those secrets you hide behind that Prince Charming demeanor.”Aidan slammed his mouth shut.Hell, she was right.He had no right to expect her to reveal her secrets when he had so many dark ones of his own.Acknowledging the well-aimed arrow with a slight nod, he said, “I still trust you more than anyone I know.”Showing him once again that grudges weren’t her thing, she shot him a smile.“Right back at you, partner.”Declan heard the soft whispers of the two people in front of him.Their voices were too low to make out their words, but he could tell from their tones that there had been irritation and then an almost amused affection before they’d gone silent.That reinforced his belief that Sabrina and Thorne had more than just a working relationship going on.Why that bothered him, he had no idea.He told himself because it was just damn rude and tried like hell to make that opinion stick.The sun was high in the sky, and though the foliage above blocked much of the direct heat, it was still hotter than blazes [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Though it was hard, Declan squelched his resentment.They had given him no weapons.His gun had never been returned.Maybe their distrust was understandable, but it still infuriated him.Reminding himself that he didn’t need a weapon to kill did no good.Dammit, he felt naked.“Here.”Declan looked down at the soft, delicate hand holding a wicked-looking fixed-blade metal knife.Raising his gaze to her face, he looked into fathomless emerald-green eyes.“You trust me with this?”A soft twist to her mouth and then, “If you wanted any of us dead, we both know you don’t require a weapon.”Declan took the knife and joined the men cutting the branches.Though Thorne gave him a hard look, neither he nor anyone else objected to his help.For the first time in a very long while, he felt like he was actually doing something productive.“Okay.That should be enough,” McCall said.“Let’s get it hidden and get going.”With the branches they’d cut, it took barely ten minutes to completely hide the vehicle.Unless someone walked right into it, it should be here when they returned.“Let’s move,” Mathison called out.Without conscious thought, Declan slid the knife into his belt.It wasn’t until Thorne made a move toward him that he realized he’d done it.Before he could consider his options of either telling the asshole to back off or returning the knife to Sabrina, she grabbed Thorne’s arm and said, “It’s fine.”Thorne gave him a hard look of warning but backed away.Good thing, that, but Declan knew at some point there would be a reckoning between the two of them.He looked forward to that day.In silence and an odd but telling formation, they moved forward.Declan had McCall on one side of him, Mathison on the other.The young, solemn-faced Riley Ingram walked behind him, along with her partner, Justin Kelly.Both Ingram and Kelly had been eyeing him with equal parts distrust and hostility.Sabrina and Thorne walked in front.The positioning of each operative was deliberate.If he’d had any illusions that he was a trusted member of the team, they dissolved the moment they’d started their trek.He told himself they were right to be wary.They’d allowed him to come along to help locate the prison, but he’d made no secret that he had his own agenda.If the two didn’t mesh, he wouldn’t hesitate to walk away and go off on his own.Sabrina was the only oddity in their seeming unanimous distrust.Something had happened over the last couple of days, because she’d been treating him as if he was a member of the team.The knife had been a deliberate move to show him that trust.Not that she was playing the wife, but she seemed to have lost that edge of resentment she’d been carrying with her.She actually was acting as if life was almost normal.If she believed that, she was delusional on top of being a traitor.Aidan could feel Steele’s hostile eyes burrowing into his back.The man didn’t trust him, but since the feeling was mutual, he had no issues with that.What did concern Aidan was Steele’s purpose in the group.He’d made it clear he was only here for himself.Even if Aidan could identify and understand his need for retribution, it didn’t belong on an LCR op.But McCall had made the decision to bring him on.Aidan disagreed with a lot of things in life, but he rarely disagreed with his boss.The man had his priorities straight.If he felt Steele should be on the team, he wasn’t going to argue with him.Didn’t mean he wouldn’t watch his back, though—or the backs of his fellow operatives.A man who’d had his humanity beaten out of him could be damn dangerous.To be fair, he knew some of his ire was directed toward Sabrina.Why the hell hadn’t she told him she was married…and thought she was a widow? He figured the couple of months she’d taken off and then returned looking like a shadow of her former self must’ve been when she’d thought Steele had been killed.Dammit, he had even teased her about having a hot and heavy love affair.She’d just smiled.And now he felt like an ass.“I know you’re angry at me.”Sabrina’s words broke into the silence.She had kept her voice low so only he heard.“You should’ve told me.”“You’re right, I should have.I actually planned to tell you about him right before we got tapped for the Elite team.But then—”“That’s when you thought he was killed?”“Yeah.” Her voice went even softer.“I couldn’t talk about him then.Hurt too much.”“I don’t understand why you kept it a secret in the first place.Hell, LCR has a lot of married operatives.”“True.” Her shoulders lifted in a defensive shrug.“I just don’t like to talk about myself.”He snorted.“You got that right.”Instead of apologizing again, she shot him a hard look.“And you’re an open book? You’ve told me all there is to know about Aidan Thorne, right?”“I’ve told you—”She cut him off with a wave of her hand.“Cut the crap, Aidan.You’ve told me what you could, just like I told you what I could.Noah doesn’t hire people whose lives have been full of sunshine.So either quit giving me your bullshit line of an uncomplicated and happy past or spill all those secrets you hide behind that Prince Charming demeanor.”Aidan slammed his mouth shut.Hell, she was right.He had no right to expect her to reveal her secrets when he had so many dark ones of his own.Acknowledging the well-aimed arrow with a slight nod, he said, “I still trust you more than anyone I know.”Showing him once again that grudges weren’t her thing, she shot him a smile.“Right back at you, partner.”Declan heard the soft whispers of the two people in front of him.Their voices were too low to make out their words, but he could tell from their tones that there had been irritation and then an almost amused affection before they’d gone silent.That reinforced his belief that Sabrina and Thorne had more than just a working relationship going on.Why that bothered him, he had no idea.He told himself because it was just damn rude and tried like hell to make that opinion stick.The sun was high in the sky, and though the foliage above blocked much of the direct heat, it was still hotter than blazes [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]