Georgia nodded. “They’ve got evidence against you for the murder of two Company assets who died after meeting you.”
Briar’s jaw flexed. “Let me guess—one in Baton Rouge and the other in Boulder, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of evidence have they got?”
“I don’t know.”
That Matt believed. The rest of this scenario? He didn’t know what to think. This changed everything though. If it was true that she’d been officially disavowed, Briar was technically no longer under his protection. His superiors would want him to bring her in.
He couldn’t do that. Not if she was innocent and someone was truly setting her up. Her life would still be in danger.
Briar glanced over and met Matt’s gaze. “They’re setting me up.” She swallowed, looking scared for the first time since he’d met her. He felt his own heart rate kick up in response. “Why are they setting me up?”
To take the fall for someone else’s shit.
His gut said she was innocent. Protocol dictated he take her into custody and contact his superiors. Or he could let her go.
Matt wasn’t ready to do either.
“You need to break radio silence and get hold of Janaia,” he said. “Now.” Hell, there might be teams already dispatched to come after her. Possibly his own guys, since they had the training for this type of op and were still in the vicinity. Wouldn’t that be fucking ironic? The one time he’d gone dark and they had no way to contact him. And until he knew more about the so-called evidence against her, he wasn’t risking calling them.
Briar nodded and turned her attention back to Georgia. “So The Company hired you on a contract for this?”
“Yes.”
She set her hands on her hips. “Do you still have a handler?”
A slight hesitation. “I still keep in touch with my former handler. He contacted me about the job.”
Briar walked away, disappearing into an adjoining room that he knew was an office before shutting the door. Matt turned to face Georgia with a hard stare. “What the hell is going on?”
She shook her head. “I truly don’t know.”
“How do you two know each other?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
He raised an eyebrow and withheld a snort. She had to know who he was, or at least that he was with HRT. She’d know about his security clearance. “It’s classified?” he mocked.
Rather than answer she looked away, toward the office door. “God, I can’t believe I almost killed one of us…”
One of us? His patience snapped. “Enough with the fucking riddles and non-answers. You’re coming with me,” he said, grabbing her by the upper arm to yank her off the couch and towing her to a corner where a pipe emerged from the wall. He tied her ankles together and secured her bound hands, still behind her, to the pipe before straightening. “I’ve got no ties to you, no loyalty. You do anything to endanger her or me, and I won’t hesitate to take you out.” He didn’t need to explain further. “We clear?”
Glaring up at him through cool blue eyes, she snorted. “I’m not a threat to her anymore, and I’m only one to you if you try to hurt her.”
Nice line, sweetheart. He wasn’t buying it. “Don’t move.”
Chapter Ten
Matt stalked over to the office and opened the door without knocking. A small lamp shone in the corner of the room. Briar turned to look at him, a cell phone he assumed was a burner to her ear. He shut the door part way to allow him to maintain a visual of Georgia and still give them some privacy. Then he waited.
A few moments later Briar ended the call and lowered the phone, a worried frown on her face. “She’s not picking up. I don’t want to call her house because someone’s probably monitoring the number and I don’t want to worry Barry. But something’s wrong. Really wrong. I feel it.”
Matt nodded, searching her eyes. For an instant she let her guard down enough for him to see uncertainty there, as though she felt lost. Then it was gone and she was back to unreadable again. He hated the damn shields she kept putting up around him. Hadn’t he proven himself to her by this point, that she could trust him?
She had a bruise forming on her cheek from when she’d tussled with Georgia. His fingers itched to touch it, soothe both the mark and the worry in her dark eyes. He kept his voice low so Georgia wouldn’t overhear. “What the hell was that all about back there?” He nodded toward the great room.
Rather than dodge the question Briar blew out a breath and looked down at the surface of the desk. Then her shoulders seemed to sag a little as she set the phone down and perched on the corner of the desk. “We were both trained together.”