She was starting to trust him, and he had to trust her too. He’d spent his whole life in the background—watching, supporting, staying invisible because that was what ghosts did.
The guys always joked, asking what Sinner did. They never got that what Sinner did was hide in plain sight. What Sinner did was what no one else could. What no one else would.
Or that Opal was the first thing that made him want to step into the light.
* * * * *
Opal checked her phone and walked out of the building without slowing her stride.
It’s a done deal.
Their code that meant they were nearing the end of the op. Cipher was circling.
Strange that her first reaction wasn’t relief. It was a tightening low in her belly that didn’t belong to the mission at all, and had her staring at the screen as if there was some hidden meaning behind Sinner’s words.
She locked those emotions down. Emotions had no business bleeding into an op. And what good were they, anyway? They wouldn’t stop her from going through with her plan.
At noon, she walked out of the building with the same measured pace as her coworkers. The bench where she ate was uncomfortable, but it was warmed by the sun and positioned where she could see the corner and the flow of foot traffic without appearing to be looking.
She sat and unwrapped her sandwich. Turkey. Dry bread.
She ate slowly, scanning the street with her peripheral vision. There were a handful of office workers on break. A guy in a reflective vest dragging a trash bin. A woman talking on her phone.
She needed to make herself visible, even as she had no clue how Cipher would approach her. It might be through a drug dealer, or an email or as one of her coworkers.
Sinner was probably losing it right now.
Sinner. She was too close to him, and not just physically. In a very short time, she’d grown…to care about him.
It was more than Sinner’s skill in bed. It was more than the passion he brought to every single task he set his mind to, whether it was making pizza, kissing her senseless…or protecting her.
He sawher.
She swept another look around but noted nothing out of the ordinary even though Cipher’s people were apparently watching.
She finished the sandwich and sat there a few minutes longer, letting herself be seen.
When her break ended, she returned to her cubicle and more budgets. Occasionally, she paused to scour her inbox and spam folders for anything that could be from Cipher.
There was nothing. The day dragged, and by the time the last hour hit, she felt edgy as hell. She needed movement. Needed purpose. Needed something to happen.
After work, she didn’t go back to the hotel. She walked to the corner where she met the drug dealer.
She stood there longer than she should have. But her instincts told her not to go home yet.
She pulled out her phone and shot a reply to Sinner just to make a connection. She texted a single word:Copy.
After that, she pocketed her phone and continued down several streets. She was no quitter, and she refused to end up fired from her only job option and sleeping on a park bench.
As she reached another corner, her phone chimed with a notification for a side job. She didn’t glance at it immediately, assuming it was just another request to walk Goliath.
But after a moment, she took out her phone and skimmed the message board. She stilled. There was a new job alert, accounting work needed for a local small business doing last-minute tax preparation.
And it was right around the corner.
Last-minute. Around the corner. After business hours.
This could be it.
