Page 169 of Override

Right.

I pull it from my pocket and silence the alarm, but the second I see the notification on the screen, the warmth inside me disappears.

BULLET:

They know. Sorry.

That's it. Three words.

I close my eyes. Of course they know.

Bullet would have tried to cover for me, but there are limits to what even he can do when I show up unannounced at a safe house no one is supposed to know exists with the missing wife of a man connected to the Irish mob.

I had a window. Apparently, it just closed. My fingers find my thigh. Tap. Tap. I breathe in slowly through my nose. Hold it. Release. Again. Air fills my lungs, but it does nothing to loosen the pressure building behind my ribs.

I can already see the next several hours. Matt arriving. Matt being angry. Wheels asking questions. Rachel asking worse questions because hers usually involve feelings. Bullet wanting to know how I found his house.

That one, at least, will be fun. None of that is the problem. Maeve is. Not Maeve. What happens to Maeve now.

I should've—

Warm hands settle against my face. Every thought in my head stops. Completely. I open my eyes. Maeve is standing directly in front of me. I didn't hear her move. Didn't notice her cross the space between us. Didn't realize she'd gotten close enough to touch me until her palms were already resting against my cheeks.

My brain, which has successfully processed several million lines of code at once, offers me absolutely nothing useful.

Her hands are warm. That's the first thought. The second is that her left thumb is resting near the corner of my mouth. The third is that I need to stop thinking about where her thumb is. Immediately.

"What's wrong?" Her voice is soft.

I stare up at her. She's touching me exactly the way I touched her. The realization does something strange to my chest. Something I don't have time to examine because her fingers shift slightly against my skin, and suddenly I can't remember why I was panicking in the first place.

This isn't normal. People touch me. Rachel hugs me every time she sees me. Wheels has absolutely no concept of personal space. Sloane once fell asleep with her feet in my lap during a movie and threatened to break my fingers when I tried to move them.

Touch has never bothered me. It's also never felt like this. Maeve's hands don't feel like hands. They feel like...I close my eyes again. I don't know. I fucking hate not knowing. Except I don't hate this. That's the problem.

For one second, I let myself sit there. I feel the warmth of her palms. The slight movement of her thumb against my cheek. The way my pulse has somehow slowed even though Bullet's text should have sent it in the opposite direction. I take another breath. This one comes easier.

When I open my eyes, she's still there. Still watching me. Still waiting.

"My team knows." The words leave me before I consider how little sense they'll make to her.

Her hands still against my face. "Your... team?"

Right. I close my eyes again. Not because of the tapping this time. Because I'm an idiot. When I open them, Maeve has already taken a small step backward, her hands falling from my face.

The loss of her touch is immediate. So is the suspicion slowly replacing the concern in her expression. "What team?"

I stand carefully, making sure not to move too quickly. Less than an hour ago, she'd believed I worked for Ronan. Before that, she'd known me as nothing more than words appearing on her phone and a person who could somehow reach into her life without ever being seen.

Apparently, my team knows where I took you isn't the reassuring statement I'd intended it to be.

"I work with three other men."

Her eyes narrow. "Doing what?"

"Depends on the day."

"That is not an answer."