Page 63 of Deep Cover

“Say it now.” She finally tilted her head to meet his gaze, her eyes bright and completely unguarded. “Before the warehouse. Before whatever comes after. Say it now, while there’s still time to say it.”

* * * * *

Caryssa’s heart crowded her throat, each beat making it harder to breathe.

Seconds after urging Reid to tell her what he had been about to say, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it.

She couldn’t bear to look at him, and he hovered close, waiting for her to meet his eyes. After several heavy heartbeats, he dropped into a crouch beside her chair.

That made it nearly impossible to avoid his stare. Every part of her wanted to close the distance and fall into his arms.

He scuffed a knuckle over his upper lip, creating a rasping noise from his five o’clock shadow. “I know we haven’t talked about what happens when this ends. When you leave.” His voice splintered, but he kept going. His gaze burned into the side of her face as if staring at her would provide the push to finish.

“I don’t have an answer for what’s going to happen, Ryss. I don’t know how any of this works once the case is closed. But I love you.”

Her heart gave a wild flip, clogging her throat more.

He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. He swept his thumb over her knuckles in that tender way that used to shatter her and shattered her now.

“I never stopped, Ryss. Not for one day of the six years I spent pretending I had to.”

It was all too much. Too painful, too confusing, too…everything.

“Don’t,” she said hotly, tears salty on her tongue. She pulled her hand out of his grasp and threw it up between them, trying to stop his words from flowing. More than anything, she regretted asking him to say them. “Don’t say that if you can’t tell me what happens after.”

He didn’t respond, which left a silent weight between them that couldn’t be shifted.

“I can’t do this right now,” she whispered. She shoved away from the table and shot to her feet, twisting to go. She needed to run from the impossibility of a life with the man she loved.

A wail rose in her chest, and she bottled it up as she strode to the door. She didn’t look back—she couldn’t stand to see his face fall.

She rushed down the corridor and turned the corner into another, praying no one stopped her because she didn’t want them to see her on the verge of breaking.

Her jaw trembled, and she firmed her lips. As she reached her borrowed room, she threw herself inside and slammed the door. She pressed her back against it, fist balled against her lips to trap the cries so close to bursting out. Her chest heaved several times before she got control.

She stayed there for long minutes, digging deep inside herself to find the woman who survived losing the man she thought she’d spend the rest of her life with. That woman seemed to have vanished the moment she set eyes on Reid again, but she needed to find her.

She glanced around the room, her few personal belongings scattered among the sixties retro furniture. The women had added a cozy throw and pillow to the bed, small touches that made the space feel a little less temporary.

Even that small gesture made her throat thicken all over again. Jolie and Stina had very unexpectedly…become her friends.

She tore her gaze from the bed and it landed on her board. Strings crossed between index cards and names were circled in red. A case built from a dead man’s laptops and a stolen shipment.

She pushed off the wall and crossed the room to the board, almost desperate to redirect her energy to a task that had clean, rigid edges.

A case had rules. It was solvable. Unlike whatever just happened in that war room with Reid.

Sucking in a deep breath through her nose, she picked up her marker and stared at the board until the ache in her chest faded enough to think.

Doyle was counting on her. So was Blackout Command. If the team didn’t have the full picture, their lives would be at risk.

Reid would be at risk.

She shoved that to the back of her mind and uncapped the marker. She drew a new line between two cards but had to force her focus back to the case two more times. Her mind wanted to wander again and again to his words.

I love you. I never stopped, Ryss.

After she found the location of the West Coast warehouse, her job here would be done.