Rory’s sharp gaze met hers as she entered further into the room. “How are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” Clara responded, her voice steady despite the chaos of emotions inside her.
She noticed her superior signaling towards two empty chairs, and she made her way over.
“We’re just waiting for one more,” he said. “Then we can begin.”
Clara nodded as she took her seat and waited, her mind still partly occupied by the events of the previous night. The small talk around her seemed distant, the voices blending into a background hum as her thoughts wandered back to Seb.
The door to the office opened, cutting through her reverie. She looked up, expecting to see yet another unfamiliar face, but instead, her eyes met Seb’s. The shock of seeing him here, in thissetting, was mirrored on his face. Their gazes locked in a silent acknowledgment of the surprise and confusion that rippled through them both.
For a moment, time seemed to stand still as they stared at each other, the room and its occupants fading into insignificance. The revelation that Seb was the ‘one more person’ they were waiting for sent a flurry of questions racing through Clara’s mind. What was he doing here? How did he fit into this scenario? Was he CIA—like her?
The pieces of the puzzle were even more jumbled than ever. The tension in the room crackled like a living thing, humming with the unspoken questions between them. Clara could feel the eyes of everyone in the room on them, sensing their mutual surprise.
“Clara?” Seb said.
The six men who were seated around the table that Clara didn’t know drew in sharp breaths then turned to stare at her intently as if they were seeing her with fresh eyes.
“Thisis Clara?” one of the men asked.
When Seb nodded, one of the others let out a low whistle.
Clara’s superior, Senior Officer Miller had been listening to the exchange, his gaze flitted back and forth between them. “You two know each other?” he asked.
Clara opened her mouth to reply, but Seb answered the question before she got the chance.
“She’s my mate,” he said simply.
Senior Officer Miller choked on his surprise. “I see. Ah, that… might complicate things.”
“You’re CIA?” Seb asked.
Clara nodded. “I take it you are, too.”
Seb gave a curt nod of his head.
“I brought Seb and his team here because of Rory’s intel about Ortega attending the gala last night,” Senior Officer Millerexplained. “We understood that most of Ortega’s guards would be with him.”
“They were supposed to be,” Rory said defensively.
Seb turned to Clara and frowned. “I don’t understand. If you knew the CIA were bringing over a team to infiltrate the warehouse, why were you so surprised to see me in the forest last night? You must have had an idea of who I was.”
“I didn’t know about the plan,” Clara said, turning to shoot a glare at Senior Officer Lopez. “Not until this morning. But it would have been nice to have been kept in the loop.”
“If you didn’t know about the operation, what were you doing in the forest?” one of the six men that Clara didn’t know asked.
She heaved a sigh. “I had orders,” she said cryptically.
He frowned. “From whom?”
Clara glanced at her handler, Senior Officer Lopez, then at Senior Officer Miller before turning back to the man. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“Apologies,” Miller said. “Clara, this is Max. Next to him you’ve got Logan, then Arlo, Toby, Carter and Ezra. Seb as we’ve already established, you already know. They work out of the San Antonio field office in Texas.” He glanced to the other men, and added, “Clara’s U.S base is the Washington office.”
“You still didn’t explain why you were in the forest last night,” Arlo said.
Clara glanced at Miller briefly before returning his gaze. “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that.”
