She paced two steps and stopped. He could see the quiver of effort it took her to remain still.
She took off again. “I’m going to get fired. I’ll end up in a homeless shelter for the rest of my now much shorter and more miserable life,” she muttered as she swept past Sinner. “No food. No healthcare. I’ll die of tuberculosis.”
He propped the phone on the counter and touched her arm. “Sweetheart. This isn’t 1900—you won’t get tuberculosis. And none of that is going to happen—I won’t let it.”
Her eyes didn’t focus on him and darted around the room as if she expected her handler to burst in and fire her. Just as he suspected, she was checked out. Still doom-narrating her future, she paced to the far end of the room and back.
Stepping into her path, Sinner blocked her in with his body. “Opal, look at me.” She flicked her eyes up to his but still wasn’t registering anything but the things going on in her mind.
He cupped her face. “Look at me.” His firmer tone made her eyes clear, the black depths glittering. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You can come live at the mansion.”
Before she could respond, the call connected and Con’s face filled the screen, his expression already grim.
“Report,” he commanded.
Opal snapped back into boss mode, spine straight and her voice steady. She told Con she had no luck connecting with a drug dealer at lunch, so after work, she took off into part of town that was less safe.
Even though Sinner knew it already—he’d watched her tracker until that little dot was burned into his retinas—he still felt his jaw pop with the force of clenching it.
“I got a new task alert,” Opal continued. “Not dog walking this time, a real accounting job preparing taxes for a small business. At that point, I wasn’t far away so I went on foot.”
Sinner knew this too. But he still wanted to toss Opal over his shoulder and carry her away to someplace safe.
Con was locked in. “Walk me through it. Start from the arrival.”
She didn’t shift her focus from Con’s face on the screen as she barreled on, words coming faster.
Opal stood rigid with her arms at her sides, her posture straight and formal.
“It was a warehouse off a side street. No active businesses nearby. The exterior sign was faded so I couldn’t read what the business used to be. It looked abandoned but was maintained. There was newer wood siding.”
The scene played out in Sinner’s mind. Fuck—he didn’t like what was coming.
“Any vehicles around?” Con asked.
“No. The street was clear. No delivery vans or personal vehicles. No license plates to memorize.”
She’d walked in there alone, knowing she had no backup. She’d been a robot for government agencies for so long, she had no sense of self-preservation.
Sinner gripped the edge of the counter hard enough his knuckles whitened.
“Entrance?” Con prompted.
“Side door. Industrial gray. Manual lock. No keypad. No visible cameras in the vicinity. I was about to knock when a guy walked out of the shadows.”
He was fucking watching her.Anger made the edges of Sinner’s vision blink red and black, red and black.
“White male. Mid-thirties to early forties. Approximately six feet. Lean build. Narrow shoulders. No limp.”
Sinner turned slightly away, one hand braced on the counter for support.
“Hair?”
“Medium brown. Short. Neat but not military. No hat.”
“Facial hair?”
“Clean-shaven.”
