“Just making sure you’re okay,” Caroline said. “I’m glad you’re not alone.”
“Our heroine,” Grey said.
Sydney smiled. “I’m okay. Tank has been super supportive, amazing really.”
Grey nodded. “Sounds like my brother. Tank’s our rock. Caroline and I are gonna make dinner.”
“You don’t have to stay,” Tank said.
“We’re gonna work,” Caroline said. “We’ve got to put together a strategy?—”
“We’re not safe,” Grey said. “The terror cell is making good on their promise. I thought they’d be coming after me or Tank first, but they’re attacking all of us. The team is on lockdown at home. Caroline and I are gonna crash here for the night.”
“How’s Slash?” Sydney asked.
“Still in surgery,” Caroline replied.
“Tank, thanks for being there for me,” Sydney said. “I’m gonna take a quick shower, then help with dinner.”
She ushered everyone out, including Tank, and shut the door.
After stripping down, she turned on the shower faucet and entered the stall. While she waited for the water to heat, she went through her mental health checklist.
I’m okay.
Those I need to protect are safe.
I can’t control everything. I can do my best to control my own actions and my own words.
I’m doing the best I can.
She continued reciting all the mantras she’d used over the years, but as she moved to stand under the hot spray of water, her thoughts drifted to Tank.
She was falling in love with him. Getting close to someone terrified her. After Bree had died, she’d kept others at a safe distance. Though Naomi had been her closest work friend,she’d never shared her trauma with her. Keeping it to herself allowed her to keep her emotions in check. It allowed her to keep others at arm’s length too.
By letting Tank in, she’d made herself vulnerable. And that had unleashed her innermost feelings.
Yes, she was human, but she was an assassin. Like Tank, it was a job. But it was also a way of changing the narrative in her own life. By taking out these bad guys, maybe she was saving innocent women from the clutches of death by a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
At the end of the day, that’s what Bree’s dad had been.
A shudder ran though her as she shampooed her hair. She closed her eyes and the demons came racing toward her. And just like in her nightmares, she imagined raising her weapon and firing.
TEDDY
Teddy wantedto be there for Sydney, but not smother her. He also wanted to make everything okay, but that was something he couldnotdo for her.
Growing up, he’d been the peacemaker. He was the one who would tell his brothers to stop fighting. Even as a child, he would insert himself into the many arguments between his parents and threaten to run away if they didn’t stop.
For reasons he now understood, they’d stop screaming long enough to laugh at him. Relieved the yelling had stopped, he never once realized that his threat didn’t affect them one iota. They were each too mired in their own lives—their own petty bullshit—to be concerned about their youngest. Truth was, if Teddyhadrun away, his parents probably wouldn’t have noticed.
And might not have cared.
Even so, Teddy was the one who desperately wanted their family to get along, to be a family that played board games, had movie nights, took fun family vacations.
The one constant in his life was the Sunday dinners at his grandparents’ house. There, attention was heaped on him, by both Elsa and his grandfather. There, he was special. But most importantly, he watched his grandfather treating his grandmother like a queen. He watched two adults who loved each other fiercely, who respected each other, and genuinely liked being together. They were the calm in the center of every whirling, raging hurricane that ripped through the Santini family.
So, when it came to Sydney, he needed to take his foot off the gas. To offer her support, let her know he cared, but not push. Pushing might shove her away.
