Opal didn’t move. Neither did he. They stared at each other across the small room, the truth waiting between them like a serpent.
He broke eye contact first. “Gotta go,” he told Ash and ended the call with a swipe of his finger.
He could almost see Opal’s muscles locked down tight, poised to run.
“Honey, you’re home.”
His joke fell flat.
He snatched up the phone and turned it so she could see the map on the screen, the little route of pins from her tracker like a connect-the-dots puzzle. “You made a dinosaur on your dog walk route,” he tried again.
Her mouth opened and closed. Her dark eyes were shielded as she closed the door as silently as she’d opened it. She turned to him. “What do you know about Project Lazarus?” Her whisper was hot and strained. Twisted and tortured.
He didn’t answer her at first. Her eyes narrowed to slits and she snatched up her bag she never moved from the spot by the door. She zipped it and was backing out of the room in what could only be two heartbeats.
“Opal, stop!” He rushed into her path, and she rocked on her heels before smashing into his chest.
She flattened her hand on his chest and shoved hard enough to rock him. He didn’t move. He wasn’t backing down now—or ever, he realized with a hard shift in his core.
She glared up at him, two splotches of deep red anger burning on each cheek. “I’ll ask you one more time, Sinclair,” she bit off through her clenched jaw. “What…do you know…about Project Lazarus?”
“I know we have it in common.” The words tasted like scorched metal on his tongue. Never in his life did he expect to speak them aloud.
The strap of her bag slipped off her shoulder. The duffel hit the floor with a dull thud.
She slowly pivoted, shuffled two steps and dropped down hard on the couch, eyes fixed on the boring artwork on the opposite wall.
Silence gathered between them, thick and unmoving.
Filling his lungs with air, he moved to sit beside her, careful not to crowd her.
“Opal, we need to talk.”
* * * * *
Opal didn’t look at him at first.
She couldn’t.
She stared at the bland artwork across the room, the kind chosen because it offended no one and meant nothing, and tried to slow her breathing. Her heart was beating too hard, too fast, like her body had decided something important was happening whether her mind was ready or not.
Sinner was checking into her background. She knew for a damn fact that Project Lazarus wasn’t in her file, let alone the very thin version the FBI provided to Blackout.
Lazarus always sounded like some code word she would never understand. Along with her training, Smith always drilled into her that if anything happened to him, she needed to go to the FBI and tell them “Lazarus.”
Only after that did she begin to see it was a group of people who were already ghosts in the world, and the government had a use for them.
When she found that tracking device glued to her boot this morning—and in her pocketandher handbag—she told herself he was only watching out for her in case of more trouble. Partners had to keep tabs.
But this…
Wasn’t that.
Con didn’t trust her not to work as a team, and Sinner was monitoring her to keep her in line.
It was finally happening—people saw she wasn’t good enough. No matter how hard she fought to earn her place and prove she deserved to be in her position, they knew she was a failure. Once the FBI knew she wasn’t good enough, she wouldn’t have anything.
Then there was the sex. She couldn’t believe she let herself be used that way.
