“Because he only sees me come and go,” I answered the rhetorical question once my heart was beating normally again. “He hasn’t seen me take down any infuriatingly attractive SEALs yet.”
His smile slipped into a smirk that was downright sinful. “Peach,” he began, his voice low and doing unfair things to the heart I’d just tamed, “you have yet to take me down.”
“I’m aware,” I said, pretending to be unaffected. “I was talking about Rush.”
Gray’s attention shifted to me and darted over my face, taking in the small twitches of amusement I was fighting. “We’ll be having a conversation about that,” he informed me carefully.
“We’re having a conversation now.”
“When I’m not imagining punching one of my closest friends,” he argued, then shifted his white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel to one hand so he could drag the other through his hair. His voice dropped to a murmur when he added, “And when I’m not struggling to remember why I can’t take you back to your condo and make you forget that you ever thought Rush wasinfuriatingly attractive.”
I lost the battle on keeping my expression neutral and let the corners of my mouth creep upward.
This . . . this is what I’d needed.
To get away from the thoughts and emotions overwhelming me and threatening to drown me. To just talk with Gray in a way that had nothing to do with what was going on. To forget about the shocking and horrifying reality waiting for me to acknowledge it.
At just the thought, invisible hands gripped at my lungs until it felt like I couldn’t breathe.
No, no, no.
This can’t happen. I can’t be—I won’t—no.
Straightening my spine, I begged, “So, walk me through the call again.”
Since this morning’s meeting had been canceled, Briggs had called one as soon as Gray and I had arrived at the office. Not that I’d minded, considering it’d be another thing to keep my mind occupied.
Until he’d started talking . . .
Safe to say, only Gray was happy with the news waiting for us.
“Neither of you are going into the club,” Briggs repeated in a tone that left no room to argue, which meant, I argued.
“Briggs, you can’t?—”
“Monroe, even if you weren’t pregnant, I couldn’t let you go in,” he ground out unapologetically, not seeming to notice or care that I fell into a spiral of denial and trying not to panic at the way he confidently and casually saidpregnant,like that hadn’t always been a death sentence for me.
Or, at least, my career.
“Tessa doesn’t just know Gray, she knows you too,” he continued. “Which means, you’ll be found out before you can get any useful information. At the very least, you’ll be gravely injured.”
“So, who’s going in?” Gray asked in a straightforward tone that didn’t match the relief flooding his features.
Briggs studied his tablet for a moment before sighing when he glanced at Gray. “No one.”
“So, let me go,” I said through the emotions trying to suffocate me, and sent a scathing glare at Gray when he joined every other member of our teams’ emphatic refusals.
“If anything, it’s most dangerous for you or Gray to go,” Briggs added. “If the Wreckersarebacking this, Rush and I can’t go because we’ve been on their list for years and just saw all of them last fall. Evans is too well-known from his family being part of them. Thatch would be the only one they wouldn’t immediately clock, but...” His head slanted as he loosed a heavy sigh. “I dunno. This feels wrong now. Like we’d be sending someone into a trap.”
“Then how are we going to find out where they’re keeping the women?” Thatch asked before hurrying to add, “I agree with you—I don’t think we should send anyone in. Just wondering what the new plan is.”
“Keep searching everything about them,” Briggs mumbled on a sigh that almost sounded defeated. “See if something comes up. A warehouse, a storage unit, something...” His brow furrowed as he looked between Rush and Gray. “The apartment...Tessa’s apartment, where is it?”
“Just outside of Amber,” Gray answered as he leaned forward in his seat.
“When was the last time you went there?”
It didn’t matter that I already knew the answer, my stomach still twisted at Briggs’ question. Like, even though I’d fully believed Gray when he’d told me in Aruba, and even though a part of me believed him now, that guarded part of me was afraid of when he’d hurt me next.
