Page 61 of Deep Cover

“Among others.”

“And you knew about this?”

“Oh.” Rorke glanced around the table. “You must not have clearance for it.”

The room went dead silent. Rorke taking a jab at their commanding officer was one thing. Cannon not firing back was another.

She slanted a look at Reid, who appeared just as stunned as she felt. O’s fingers froze on the keyboard.

Whatever was going on between Cannon and Rorke was big. But bigger was the fact that her case was finally fleshing out, built out of so many small fragments. Stolen faces and erased footage and a sailor on his honeymoon who had no idea his identity had been borrowed for a crime.

Even though the room was edged with tension, she felt the old, familiar hum under her skin, the one she got right before a case blew open.

But when that happened, her job here would end.

That meant her time with Reid would end too.

FOURTEEN

Rivers needed coffee. But what he wanted was Caryssa’s skin under his hands instead of a warm mug in them.

He found her alone at the kitchen table, both hands curled around her own coffee, and the sight stopped him.

It was so damn ordinary.

Caryssa. Morning coffee. A quiet kitchen.

“Morning,” he said, pouring his own.

“Morning.” Her soft voice made his chest squeeze.

He took the seat across from her instead of walking away. For a moment they just sipped in silence, and he let himself drink her in—not her wearing his Navy T-shirt with sleep-mussed hair from those mornings in Philly, but this version of her. Glossy waves over her shoulders and a blouse that made his fingers itch to undo every button one at a time.

He wanted to tell her this exact moment—the quiet, the ease, the way she still took her coffee black—was exactly what he used to lie awake thinking about.

He wanted to remind her what they’d been and what they could still be.

“Ryss.” Her name came out rougher than he meant it to. “I need to say something.”

She looked up, cup midway to her mouth, an expression that was both careful and hopeful all at once crossing her face.

“I know we haven’t talked about what happens when—”

Boots thundered down the concrete hall, cutting him off.

Rome’s head appeared in the doorway before Rivers could finish the sentence. “War room. Now.”

Rivers closed his mouth around whatever he’d been about to say, the words dying behind his teeth. Caryssa’s expression shuttered just as fast, and she slid her professional mask back into place.

“Right behind you,” Rivers said, and stepped aside to let her go first.

They walked to the war room together, coffees in hand, arms brushing with every other step, and he hated—genuinely hated—that the biggest thing he’d almost said to her in six years had just gotten swallowed by a hallway full of boots.

The team was already circling the table by the time they filed in. Chairs scraped back and the big screen flickered to life, split with Doyle on one side and Blackout Command on the other.

Rivers took his seat, jaw tight, part of his attention snagged on the unfinished sentence sitting in his chest.

They spent the first twenty minutes cataloguing what they had: more intel on the shell companies, Bill’s off-book trips, the origin of the bomb that nearly took out Rivers and Caryssa, and a lookalike matching a sailor with an airtight alibi.