Page 281 of Vicious Temptation

“Call me when this is over, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I love you.”

I manage a frail smile. “I love you too.”

Sixty-Nine

thiago

The Helios building rises from the Philadelphia skyline, looking like every other federal office in the city. Behind its walls, an entire global operation hides in plain sight while everyone outside remains oblivious. The sun is already high, traffic moves through the streets below, and people go about their lives as though mine didn’t fall apart last night.

I haven’t allowed myself to think about what happened with Remi beyond cleaning the blood from my skin and doing what I could to close the wound in my abdomen. I couldn’t risk going to a hospital, so a needle, surgical thread, and enough gauze to stop the bleeding had to be good enough.

It wasn’t.

Every movement pulls at the stitches beneath my shirt, and my ribs still burn where her knife sliced my skin. My lip is split, two of my fingers are bandaged, and the cut beneath my brow opens whenever I forget and touch my face.

There’s no escaping what happened, even when I refuse to think about it. If I let myself remember the way she looked at me when I told her I loved her, I won’t make it through those doors. I owe it to her to make sure she’s no longer a target.

As I pull into the parking garage, Ryan’s contact lights up the dashboard.

“Ryan, I really can’t talk right now.” I reach for the door handle.

“Braga, the commander’s missing.”

I freeze. “What do you mean she’s missing?”

“Exactly that. She didn’t report for a callout last night, didn’t show this morning, and she won’t answer her phone. Grey is conducting a welfare check as we speak.”

The pain in my abdomen becomes irrelevant.

Elena disappeared hours after handing Remi that file.

“Fuck.”

“Thiago...”

Ryan and I have gotten close since I arrived at the precinct, close enough that I know the usual lightness in his voice, even when things get serious, and there’s none of it now.

“You don’t, um...know what could’ve happened to her, do you?”

There it is.

He thinks I had something to do with her disappearance. I understand why. Emotions were high in her office that day, then came my confrontation with Grey, followed by the small detail that Elena fired me.

The accusation still catches me all wrong. Ryan should know me, except he doesn’t. None of them do.

“No, I don’t. I haven’t seen or spoken to her since I left her office.”

The line stays quiet for too long, long enough for me to wonder whether he believes me, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is where Elena is now and whether Remi is the reason she disappeared.

“I have to go,” I say.

“Wait. Braga, talk to me.”

I squeeze the steering wheel. “Listen, I already told you I don’t know...”