She didn’t wait for him to respond before disappearing into the bathroom. She shut and locked the door behind her, leaving him standing alone in the middle of the room.
Alice.
The badass computer genius who had quite literally saved his and his teammates’ lives more times than he could count was named…Alice.
It was simple. Normal. So innocent and sweet.
Slade had always wondered about the fiery woman’s name. He and the team had their best guesses. But not once in all the time he’d known her—albeit from afar—had he ever once considered “Alice” as a plausible contender.
What surprised him even more was just howmuchhe liked it…as well as how much he liked her.
CHAPTER3
“We’ll be landingin about ten minutes.”
Shadow’s attention was pulled away from the private jet’s small, oval window to the man lowering himself into the empty seat at her left. Leather the color of thick, rich cream folded in beneath Digger’s chiseled form.
The scent of warm, spicy teakwood and something uniquely his own swirled in the air around her. Doing her best to ignore how awesome the former SEAL smelled, she returned her attention to the endless sea of clouds.
“Okay,” she responded, her tone uncaring despite the tightening in her chest. Because everything in her world was about to change.
The minute the jet’s wheels made contact with the ground, there’d be no going back. Her anonymity would be shattered, and she’d be forever seen as the boss’s daughter, rather than one of the team.
“I’m sorry about what happened to Evie,” she said, referencing Bones’ fiancée being kidnapped and nearly killed shortly after she’d vanished from the face of the earth. “I never would have gone to Columbus when I did if I’d thought she was still in danger.”
“I know.” His deep voice rumbled over the sound of the jet’s whirling engines.
“She’s okay, though, right?” Shadow turned to him, envisioning the adorable elementary teacher she’d once helped the team rescue from a cave in the Middle East. “Baker said?—”
“Evie’s fine.” He dipped his scruff-covered chin. “Thanks to you making sure Rawlins was available for overwatch assistance after you left.”
“I’d never leave you guys high and dry. I hope you know that.”
“I do.” Another dip. “Still don’t understand why you didn’t come to us for help. Especially given who and what Michael Stanton is.”
She pictured the man as he looked today. Tall. Handsome. Slicked back salt and pepper hair. But then her mind became filled with the man’s frozen image from that night.
Black ski mask, shirt, jacket, and pants. Black leather gloves and that big, black gun. To a six-year-old, the gun had seemed big. Especially with the suppressor attached to the barrel’s tip.
It was the eyes, though. Those cold, beady eyes. That’s what she remembered the most.
And it was those same eyes she’d started seeing again in her dreams a few months back. The same ones she recognized out of the blue while watching the news.
“Like I said, this isn’t your fight.” She turned away once more.
Several seconds of uncomfortable silence ticked by before Digger spoke up again.
“I have to ask,” he started before clearing his throat. “How do you know Stanton’s the one who pulled the trigger?”
Aaaand…there it was. The doubt she’d always known would come. But rather than bite off his handsome head, she kept herself cool as a cucumber, giving her shoulder a casual shrug.
“I just know.”
“Come on, Shadow. You want me on your side in this, you’re gonna have to give me more.”
Did she, though? Want him on her side, that is. She had to admit, the thought was tempting…
You’re going to have to trust someone at some point, baby girl.
