The work steadied me. Gave my fractured mind something to hold on to. Each face that took shape was proof I could still be useful—that the nightmare I’d survived could mean something beyond my own escape.
I moved to the next buyer, then the next. The yakuza representative, tattoos peeking above his collar. The Hong Kong businessman who’d asked clinical questions about “medical attention for the prey.” The American who’d bid highest for automatic weapons.
Hours passed. I barely noticed. At some point, Lark left.
A plate appeared at my elbow—turkey sandwich cut diagonally, apple slices arranged with almost clinical precision. I glanced up. Travis had already retreated to his monitors, his back to me, pretending he hadn’t done anything.
I ate without really tasting, my attention fixed on the screen. The food was fuel, nothing more—something my body needed to keep working.
Coffee materialized later, black and bitter in a mug that read “I VOID WARRANTIES” in block letters. This time, I caught Travis setting it down, his movements quick and awkward, like feeding a stray cat he didn’t want to spook.
“Thank you,” I said.
He made a sound that might have been acknowledgment and retreated to his corner.
The faces accumulated. Some clear, some blurry where memory had degraded. But I pulled what I could from the chaos of those days, translating fragments into images that might help take these men down.
Eventually, the composites started to blur together. My eyes burned. My fingers moved slower, making mistakes I had to correct. The edges of my vision grew soft.
I don’t know when exhaustion finally won.
One moment, I was adjusting a nose—too wide, the original had been narrower—and the next, I was somewhere dark and warm and floating. Suspended between consciousness and dreams.
A voice reached me through the haze. Gentle. Familiar.
“Mia.”
My name, spoken like a prayer. Like absolution.
Arms lifted me from the chair, strong and careful, cradling me against a broad chest. I knew this heartbeat. Knew this scent—pine and something warmer underneath, something that meanthome.
My eyes fought to open, heavy with exhaustion.
Blue eyes looked down at me. Dark hair falling across a forehead creased with worry. A strong jaw covered in days of stubble, more than I’d ever seen on him.
Coop.
Chapter 22
Coop
I found Mia asleep at Travis’s conference table, surrounded by composite faces.
The drive from the FBI field office in Billings had taken three hours, and I’d broken every speed limit. Nearly thirty hours of interrogation, bad coffee, and agents explaining in excruciating detail how I’d complicated their operation. The only thing that kept me from losing my mind was knowing Mia was safe.
Now I stood in Travis’s doorway, watching her breathe.
She was slumped over the massive table, her head pillowed on her folded arms, blonde hair spilling across the polished surface. Printouts surrounded her—composite faces scattered everywhere, some crumpled and discarded, others marked with handwritten notes in her neat script.
She’d worked herself to exhaustion. Knowing Mia, she couldn’t sit still and do nothing—had to feel useful, had to keep her hands busy and her mind occupied.
Travis appeared from behind his bank of screens, energy drink in hand, dark hair falling past his collar. He crossed the floor without a sound—CIA training that never switched off. His eyes held something I hadn’t seen before. Something that might have been approval.
“She’s been at it for hours.” His voice was quiet. “Wouldn’t stop until her body made the choice for her.”
I crossed the room, boots too loud on the wood floor. She didn’t stir. The exhaustion went bone-deep—I recognized it because I felt it in my own marrow.
I lifted her from the chair as carefully as I could, gathering her against my chest. She weighed next to nothing.
