“Then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Don’t borrow trouble.”
She pushed up on one elbow, refusing the easy reassurance. “I don’t want to wait to cross that bridge, Blake. What if they never clear me? What if someone decides I’m more useful as a fugitive than a journalist?”
He sighed, fingers tightening lightly in her hair. “You’re not a fugitive. You’re a witness. Guardian is working it.”
“That’s not an answer.” Her voice sharpened, frustration from somewhere deep inside her spilling through. “What happens if this doesn’t resolve? What happens to me then?”
Blake’s jaw flexed, and he didn’t speak for a moment. She knew he was weighing what to tell her, as he always did, considering the truth against what he could say without violating some company policy. Finally, he met her eyes. “Then we disappear. Off grid. New names. New lives. Guardian can do it, and I can make it stick. They’ll be looking in the wrong places while we live in the right one.”
Her chest tightened at the certainty in his voice. He wasn’t offering comfort. He was offering a plan. He was offering her a future with him.
“You’d give all of this up? You’d walk away from Guardian?” she whispered.
Blake’s hand framed her jaw, his thumb pressing lightly beneath her chin until she held his gaze. “I told you not to borrow trouble. But if trouble comes, Elise … I won’t let you fight alone.”
Her breath hitched. The truth of it wrapped around her ribs and squeezed until she couldn’t breathe. He meant it. Every word.
When his eyes finally slid closed, exhaustion dragging him under, Elise lay awake, staring at the rafters. The sound of his heartbeat still pulsed under her ear, strong and steady.
He said not to borrow trouble. But she already had. Trouble was lying in her bed, holding her as if she belonged to him. Andthe worst part wasn’t the warrant or the danger or the shadows that seemed to surround them.
The worst part was the terrifying realization that not only had she borrowed trouble, but he was lying beside her, and she might also be falling in love with him.
CHAPTER 17
Rook tapped him on the arm, which pulled his attention from Elise, and Blake glanced at him. “Sorry, what?”
Rook chuckled. “You’ve got it bad for her, don’t you?”
Blake considered the question, then nodded once as he stared at Elise. “Seems I do.” She was walking slowly along the tree line, kicking through fallen leaves. Every so often, she’d stop and pick up another leaf. She held a small bouquet of yellow, orange, and brown leaves in one hand, which seemed to grow as she walked.
“You want to go through your plan with me? I’ll see if I can poke any holes in it," Rook asked.
“Can’t hurt,” Blake said, keeping his eyes on Elise.
“Okay, entry and approach.” Rook turned around and leaned against the trunk of the car.
“I can’t do a frontal assault. The extra guards and patrols at the driveway gate nix that idea. The service entrance is where I’ll go in.”
Rook turned around to look at the map. “That’s … here, right?” He tapped the map, and Blake glanced back.
“Correct. The safest insertion point is going in through the supply corridor while a delivery is staged upfront. CCS is handling the deliveries, multiple to arrive at the same time. That will draw attention. Then the power will flux. CCS has been making it flicker since the outage they did for me last night. The cameras have been flickering at random times due to the disrupters I planted. The generator gap is seventeen seconds. That gives me sixteen seconds to breach the cleared area between the compound and the hedge line to the west, pick the lock, and enter the compound.”
“At which time they’ll loop the outside security cams?” Rook looked at him.
Blake nodded. “I’ll have a series of small jammers that I’ll set as CCS tells me to, and they’ll loop the feed as I go.” He could move with that flow. It would be good to have eyes in front of him, too.
“Okay, what about timing?” Rook crossed his arms and gazed out toward where Elise was walking.
“His doctors leave at five thirty, according to his appointment book, which is shared online with his second in command. He has an appointment with the chief of the national law enforcement agency and the chief of police of Budapest at 9:30. I’ll strike ten minutes before they arrive. That’ll give me time to slip out of the compound before he’s notified of their arrival.”
“And if they’re early?” Rook glanced over at him.
“As I told Bengal, then there will be three dead assholes. If they’re meeting with Zajac, they’re dirty.”
“An assumption.”
“Educated, but true, an assumption.” Blake tapped his ear. “Can you get any proof that those two are on the take?”
