Breakneck felt heat surge through him. “They grabbed him?”
Blair nodded. “He cooperated with you for your cover. It was a warranted move.”
Carver cursed. “Christ. He doesn’t know a goddamned thing. We spoke to his supervisor, and he was the one who spoke to Marques.”
“He’ll give him up,” Ice said.
Blair pressed her palms to the table. “We need to find him before that happens and secure Marques’s supervisor, Inspector Leo Tremblay.”
Breakneck stood. Every bruise screamed. Every muscle protested. He didn’t care.
“I’m going,” he said.
Blair looked up sharply. “You can barely breathe.”
“I can breathe fine.”
“You were strung up and beaten two hours ago?—”
“And I’m still a Tier 1 operator.” Breakneck’s voice dropped, low and uncompromising. “The team will have to be split. We have two snipers, and I’m one of them.”
Ice opened his mouth, likely to shut that down, but Blair moved before he could. She stepped closer. Close enough, Breakneck could feel her heat. Close enough, he caught the clean scent of magnolia and leather on her skin. Close enough that every bone in his body strained toward her without permission.
“You’re not going alone,” she said quietly.
Breakneck’s heartbeat kicked hard against his ribs. “What are you saying?” he asked.
Her gaze didn’t waver. “I’m going with you, and Beef and Tyler. They’re my best constables.”
The room fell dead silent.
Ice blinked. “Sergeant?—”
“My terrain,” Blair said. “My people. My jurisdiction. My missing man.” Her voice softened, deadly calm. “My operation.”
Breakneck stared at her, breath caught in his bruised lungs. She stared right back, and in that impossible, dangerous moment, he realized something inescapable.
He wasn’t just fucked.
He was gone.
12
Harada Coastal Beach House, Annapolis, Maryland
Mei had just finished slipping into a short peek-a-boo sexy, white lace nightie, everything bare underneath, when she heard the car.
Headlights swept briefly across the front windows of her parents’ beach house, the sound of tires crunching over the gravel drive cutting cleanly through the hush of the night. Her heart stuttered, then leaped. She crossed the room barefoot, pulse loud in her ears, and pushed the door open before she could second-guess herself.
Than was already stepping out of the car with a bag slung over his shoulder.
He paid the driver quickly, a few words exchanged she didn’t hear, and the car pulled away, taillights disappearing down the road as if the world itself had politely looked the other way. He turned toward the house, toward her, and the night seemed to draw tighter around him.
Moonlight washed over his shoulders, the planes of his face, the dark fall of his hair. The ocean breathed behind him, a steady rhythm that matched the pounding in her chest. His voice rasped out as his eyes raked over her. "Fuck me," he whispered. "Mei, you're killing me."
She stepped quietly out onto the path, closing the distance slowly, deliberately, letting herself take him in. Her hands found him as he reached her, palms sliding over his chest, his shoulders, the solid warmth of him beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. She traced the line of his jaw, the familiar strength there made new by the way his breath caught under her touch.
Every part of him felt alive beneath her hands. Real. Chosen.
