Cipher’s grip on her tightened—and then pain seared across her collarbone, the blade slicing through skin and muscle in one vicious stroke. Hot blood welled up immediately to soak her shirt and run down her chest in warm rivulets.
She gasped in shock, her free hand flying up to press against the wound.
Sinner’s weapon didn’t waver, but his eyes—god, his eyes—went black with murderous intent. “Let. Her. Go.” Each word was as sharp and precise as the blade in Cipher’s grip.“Now.”
Without warning, Cipher shoved her forward. She stumbled, legs refusing to cooperate and bile rushing up her throat.
Sinner caught her before she hit the ground, his arm locking around her waist protectively. Shouts sounded all around them, booming through the neighborhood.
And Cipher…was gone.
Opal sagged against Sinner, blood seeping between her fingers.
“Damn it,” she bit off. “That’s gonna leave a scar.”
Fury vibrated through his body, but she felt a tremor too as he swept her up in his arms. “I’ll cover it with a tattoo,” he rumbled.
“Caius…”
“Christ, Opal.” He pulled her tighter against his chest and took off around the house, passing Steele and Chickie racing toward the dilapidated fence that Cipher had obviously managed to scale and get away.
Cradled in Sinner’s strong arms, Opal’s mind cleared enough to know she didn’t give a damn about scars—they were the proof she survived something that tried to kill her.
She cared that she was alive. That Sinner was alive. That they’d both made it out and nothing—not Cipher or the FBI, Project Lazarus or the whole damn world—was going to tear them apart.
SEVENTEEN
The war room at the Charlie base felt like a pressure cooker about to blow. The air was thick with tension and the weight of a mission gone sideways.
Sinner sat at the table between Ash and Mason, arms crossed over his chest and his gaze fixed on Con. Their CO ran through the debrief with the same precision he brought to every op, though it came down to one truth no one wanted to admit to having a part in.
Cipher had escaped. Again.
This refrain was getting old. The bastard had slipped through their fingers like smoke, leaving nothing behind but Opal’s blood soaking into the porch boards and a trail that went cold three blocks from that dilapidated house.
Sinner’s jaw flexed at the memory of that blood running down her chest. He couldn’t quit hearing the gasp she made when the blade sliced across her collarbone.
He’d been mere millimeters away from losing her, and the thought threatened to gut him if he let himself dwell on it too long.
A voice rose outside the war room, high and sharp.
“Why am I not in the war room? I was kidnapped. Shouldn’t I be part of the debrief?” Opal’s voice pitched higher with each word as she started losing her grip. “Am I fired? I am, aren’t I?”
Sinner’s chest tightened as he listened to her spiral, and he could practically see her mind racing through every worst-case scenario like it always did when she felt the ground shifting beneath her feet.
She’d be thinking about losing her job and ending up on the streets with nothing but a go-bag and a knife, digging through dumpsters for her next meal because she had no safety net or family to fall back on. She’d be convincing herself that contracting tuberculosis from living on the streets was definitely in her future.
Opal had lived with so much lack growing up, and nothing that was truly hers—even her name—for so long, so he understood her panic when something slipped a little.
He caught Con’s eye across the table, and a silent message passed between them.
“We need to wrap this up before Opal talks herself into a full-blown panic attack and starts making contingency plans that involve living in a cardboard box.”
Beside him, Ash shifted in his seat. “I hear the panic in her voice.”
All eyes snapped to him. Maybe it was his gritty tone or the hint of pain behind the words, like he’d heard true panic before—and never quite shook it off.
Silence throbbed in the war room for a long moment.
