Page 79 of The Silent Hour

“Gone.”

“Are you sure?” Rafa’s voice rose, threatening to crack.

“Yeah,” I said evenly.

“ I’m about two seconds from tearing this place apart, office by office.”

“Sit down,” I said, gesturing to the chair I’d pulled out.

“I’m not sitting shit,” he snapped. “Did you throw her ass through a window?”

My jaw clenched. “No.”

The fluorescent lights above us flickered, and for a heartbeat the air in the conference room went stale. Eric’s pale eyes narrowed to slits—those jagged shards of intelligence I both hated and envied. Fuck him for being the smartest bastard in the room. I felt Rafa catch the tension, his own brow arching as he watched me stiffen.

“Ethan.” His voice was low, a velvet blade slicing through my thoughts.

I forced my gaze to the window.

“Ethan,” he repeated, each syllable rumbling across the spread of case files on the table.

My shoulders sagged. “She caught me off guard,” I admitted, even as the memory of her startled blue eyes flickered behind my lids.

“That’s not what I asked.” Rafa’s tone scraped against the wood grain, rough and unyielding.

I finally met his gaze. The overhead light caught the fine lines around his eyes. “It lasted a few seconds.” My voice cracked.

Rafa stared at me, disbelief unraveling his features until his jaw dropped. “You kissed her back?” The question landed like a fist.

I ran a hand through my hair. “For a second.”

Rafa’s expletive tore through the stillness. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“I pulled away.” My words floated across the cluttered tabletop—mug rings, scattered pens, and sheets covered in Cortez’s file notes.

Rafa threw both hands behind his head, fingers tangled in dark curls. He leaned back so hard his chair creaked. Eric, by contrast, held remarkably still, cradling his mug of coffee as if it were a fragile artifact. His silence grated on me more than if he’d launched into a lecture.

Finally Eric spoke, his tone deceptively calm: “Are you telling her?”

I shot him a glare. “Of course I’m fucking telling her.”

“When?”

I folded my arms. “As soon as I get home.”

Rafa whirled, chair scraping on the carpet. “You should’ve gone home five minutes ago.”

I glanced down at the chaotic spread of Cortez’s files and exhibits. “We have his entire case sprawled across this table.”

“Fuck Cortez,” Rafa muttered. His finger jabbed at my chest. “You have a wife at home—Julia—who you claimed specifically promised you wouldn’t get caught alone with this woman. And within forty-eight hours, you managed to do exactly that.”

“Thank you for the recap,” I said flatly.

He wasn’t done. “You’re about to be.”

Eric lifted his coffee cup, took a deliberate sip, then set it back down without a sound. “Let him finish. This is entertaining.”

“Fuck you too,” Rafa snarled.