“She’s still in Rome, you know.”
“I am aware.”
“Yeah?” Savage came over and racked his weapon too. The warrior stared, then positioned himself so that he was leaning against the wall and watching Trygg’s gaze. “Are you also aware that she’s here right now?”
“Here?” Trygg replied, hoping he misunderstood.
Savage nodded, looking far too intrigued. “I saw her in Lazaro’s office on my way down to spar with you.”
Shit. That was nearly an hour ago. “What the hell is Sia doing meeting with the commander?”
Savage arched a brow. “So, she’s Sia now, eh? Maybe the Atlantean icicle isn’t as chilly as we all thought.”
The warrior’s obvious amusement with the whole idea made Trygg want to wipe Savage’s smile away with another hard bout of combat practice. But he had bigger problems to contend with if Sia had taken it upon herself to contact Lazaro Archer. Especially after last night’s fiasco at her apartment.
What was she doing, lodging a formal complaint?
Trygg didn’t have to answer to his commander or his warrior brethren about who he chose to get naked with, but knowing that Sia was in the building had him stalking out of the weapons room at a swift clip. Savage strolled along at his heels.
Just as the warrior had claimed, Sia had been in a closed door meeting with Lazaro. The pair were exiting the room together when Trygg approached from the other end of the corridor.
“Ah, there he is now,” Lazaro said with a nod. “Trygg, I was just coming to find you.”
He couldn’t keep from glancing at Sia as the commander spoke. She looked even more beautiful, if that was possible. But while the expression on her face was indifferent, her blue eyes were glacial.
Lazaro gestured to her. “You remember Tamisia.”
It wasn’t a question. The commander had been informed about the attack on the woman at Sia’s shelter, and he was too observant to pretend he wasn’t at least peripherally aware of the awkward tension radiating off Trygg and the Atlantean as they faced each other now.
“Tamisia,” Trygg said, giving her a nod of greeting while trying to tune out Savage’s low snort behind him. Sia’s withering gaze was the harder response to ignore. He cleared his throat. “What’s going on, Lazaro?”
“This.” The commander held a tiny SD card between his fingers. “Thanks to Tamisia’s help, we may be back in the game on our hunt for Santino.”
“Holy shit.” Trygg took the card.
“It’s encrypted,” Lazaro said, “which only confirms to me that we’ve got something big here.”
Trygg swung his incredulous gaze to Sia. “Where did you get it?”
“Angelina’s baby blanket,” she answered flatly. “I found it sewn into the binding.”
“The one that was a gift from her father, Gianni Tiaggi?”
She gave him a grudging nod.
“Fuck. Of course, it was hidden in the blanket.”
Why hadn’t he thought of that last night? Because he was too busy thinking about getting Sia naked, that’s why. The fact that he was still reliving their time together now just served to fortify his decision to nip their attraction in the bud.
He shook his head as he considered the data card in his palm. “Tiaggi must’ve figured anyone going after information he might’ve passed along would never think to search the infant.”
Sia shrugged. “Or he didn’t care one way or the other. Who can say when it comes to how men think?”
The barb sliced into him, as intended. If her cool demeanor left any question, her flinty tone did not. Sia was pissed as hell. And there was an odd resignation in her eyes when she looked at him. As if she had already written him off and left last night behind in her mind.
And in her heart.
“Do you think you can crack her, Trygg?”
