Tears cloud my eyes. I always thought I was cold, detached. I had to be to survive and it kind of blows my mind that Oz doesn’t see me like that. He’s captured a light I didn’t know existed.
The next photo flickers on the ceiling. I’m dancing on the coffee table as Jude, Eli, and River grin up at me. It shifts to another image of the same scene, but this time Oz has turned the camera around and captured himself in the photo as well. All five of us smile at the camera and my heart bursts. Fireworks in my chest.
Oz rolls over so he’s holding himself above me, love playing in his eyes. “So much of what I use my skills for walks the line of right and wrong. I see the darkest of the dark but you, Freya, you give me a reason to find the light. To create something that is undeniablygood.”
I curl my hand in his hair and draw him into a kiss, his beard rough against my face. My heart aches for Oz and everything he has to deal with on the dark web but I love that I can give him this.
He relaxes back down onto the bed and we fall asleep to photos of our time together.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt more at peace but when I wake up in the early hours of the morning, anxiety presses at my skin. I slip out from between Oz and Eli. Nerves for the con we’re about to pull jitter in my fingers so I sneak into my old room and take out my backpack, checking through everything one last time.
The plan will work. Zach will show. Oz will track him. We’ll find Harley.
The plan will work.
It has to work.
43
OZ
Ihave cameras covering every angle of the apartment and I watch the screen as Allie paces back and forth next to Jude’s supposedly dead body. Blood spills out in a pool around his chest and I have to keep reminding myself it’s fake.
We’re in an FBI safehouse because we’re working under the guise that Allie was being held here under witness protection. The location also gives us good oversight and access. While Allie and a dead Jude wait for Zach to appear, Eli, River, Freya, and I are set up in the apartment next door.
If anything goes wrong, if Zach goes to hurt Allie, we can be in there in seconds. But yeah, I’m aware it would take less than that for him to put a bullet through her head. We really are relying on the con to work.
“He should be here by now,” Freya says. “She sent the message almost two hours ago.”
Said message included a photo of Jude lying seemingly dead followed by a plea for help. “We don’t know where he’s coming from,” I say, making a mental note that the length of time it takes him to arrive could help us narrow down where he’s keeping Harley.
We have two separate teams stationed outside, Alpha and Beta. They’re ready to follow Zach when he leaves but having a rough idea of where he’s heading would be useful. We had to take off Allie’s tracker anklet in case Zach saw it or scanned for bugs so we need the patrol teams to keep a close tail.
I watch Allie on the screen. It’s coming up to her next check in and my shoulders relax a little when she taps her fingers three times against her thigh.
Freya keeps pacing the room behind the kitchen table I’ve set up the surveillance kit on, but other than that we’re all pretty quiet as we wait.
The air thickens the more time that passes and when Alpha team radios to say Zach’s on his way into the building, my heart rate picks up. I’m uncomfortably aware that the last time I was watching an op go down it ended with River and Eli being caught in an explosion.
Eli walks over to the adjoining wall and knocks once to let Allie know Zach’s on his way up.
Her gaze darts to the wall before she kneels down beside Jude.
I sit forward in my chair as Allie reaches for the gun holstered at his hip and unclips it.
Freya grips the back of my chair. “What is she doing? That’s not part of the plan.”
My grip tightens on the mouse. “I don’t know.” She wasn’t supposed to take his gun.
“Can we get it off her?” Eli asks.
River shakes his head. “Zach’s already on his way up. There’s no time.”
I stare at the screen, trying to calm my racing heart. She’s probably just scared.
Allie sits down on the couch, rests her elbows on her knees and grips her hair, Jude’s gun still grasped in one hand. She’ssupposed to be torn up over the fact that she’s killed Jude. Either she’s a very good actor or she really is fucking terrified to see Zach.
Freya stiffens at my shoulder when Zach appears in the corridor. He’s wearing the same duffle coat he wore at the park when he met Freya, black to match the leather gloves that cover his hands.
