My phone is eerily silent. No texts. No calls. At least, not from Edwin or the other gray suits. It feels like the calm before a storm. Or maybe the eye of the hurricane.
Freedom. Sweet, easy. It won’t last.
The front door swings wide, and Maverick steps back through, silently grabbing his button-down shirt from the couch and shrugging into it.
I devour his rugged frame before it vanishes beneath fabric, missing the intimacy of last night. Like it’s already fractured. I wonder if I’ll ever feel it with this man again. Or if I was chasing a dust devil all along.
“Did he call?” I ask breathlessly.
“You mean, Crowe?” the stern-faced cowboy asks, jaw muscle twitching. “Things have escalated.”
“What do you mean?”
“Probably better to hear it straight from Grayson. Still above my pay grade.”
“Are you in trouble?”
He shrugs. “Don’t worry about me.”
“But, Maverick…”
The grandfather clock still ticks, and now I know, the clock on all of this has only just begun.
“Will you stay?” I ask, raising my chin.
“Yes, Mia,” he answers.
“For how long?”
“Long as you want me,” he answers, buttoning the top of his collar and then tucking in his shirt.
My cell phone lights up next to me: unknown caller. My hand hovers over it, tempted to answer, but I don’t.
Last night, I mistook the silence for dread.
Today, I understand it was the last moment before everything learned how to scream.
Chapter
Seventeen
MAVERICK
What if the bravest thing a man can do is not save a woman—but stand beside her while she burns down the cage?
I side-eye Mia as we drive in silence toward headquarters. Her face is a passive shield. But her hands work in her lap again, twisting, trembling, carrying everything bottled up inside.
She asked if I’d stay.
The one thing I can’t guarantee. Only I said I would. And I mean to.
I don’t know what the hell I’m thinking.
Her phone vibrates, and she pulls it out of her purse, holding it like it could sting her. The look on her face tells me it does.
“That Crowe?” I ask, already knowing.
“Unknown number.” She sniffs.
