Disavowed(38)

She lowered her gaze. “I know.” A long silence filled the room before she looked at him again. “I didn’t kill those assets. No matter what evidence they think they have against me, I’m innocent.”

Matt nodded once. “I believe you.” She might be a trained killer, but she played by the rules. He’d seen enough to convince him of that. And she’d seemed truly stricken by the news that her own agency had turned on her.

Surprise and relief flashed in her eyes. “Thank you.”

Matt inclined his head, then hesitated, trying to figure out the best course of action from here. “Is there anyone else you can contact? Someone else you can trust?”

“Just Trinity and I never know when she’ll be online so it’s kind of pointless to reach out to her now. But maybe…” Her gaze strayed to the door.

“What?”

She looked up at him. “Georgia could contact her handler, see if they know anything about my case or Janaia.”

“You mean, call the same person who sent her to kill you?” he said, disdain dripping from every word.

Her eyes flashed with anger and her expression closed up. “The handler will be on top of the situation and know what’s going on a hell of a lot better than the rest of us. And now that Georgia knows who I really am, knows I’m one of us, she won’t sell me out.”

He raised an eyebrow, incredulous. “You willing to bet your life on that?”

Her chin came up, conviction and defiance written on her face. Strong, proud and deadly in her own right. He would never have thought that combination would work for him but Christ, she was so fucking gorgeous when she looked like that, it made him crazy. “Yes. We’d never turn on one of our own. Never. We take an oath.”

“So do the people you worked for.”

Her eyes clouded over for a second at his use of the past tense. “There must have been a mistake. Whatever evidence they have, it’s all a misunderstanding.” She said it as though she was trying to convince herself of that.

He held her gaze for another few seconds, debating her words, then nodded at the phone on the desk. “Is that a burner phone?” When she nodded, he continued, all his protective instincts burning hot. “Georgia makes a single call to her handler, finds out what she can and then we leave here together. Immediately.” They’d go on foot until they could find a vehicle. “I don’t care how much you think you can trust her, I was tasked with protecting you, and I don’t trust her as far as I can fucking throw her. So she stays in my custody until you and I part ways with her, and that’s gonna be real soon. Got it?”

Briar nodded. Matt turned and reached for the doorknob but her voice stopped him. “You asked me if there was anyone else I can trust.”

He turned back to her, waited.

Looking straight into his eyes, she gave him a nod that was full of respect. “I trust you.”

The simple statement slammed into Matt’s chest like a punch. He knew what a rarity it was, for her to believe in someone else, to trust them, and how much it took for her to say it.

Her trust in him was his undoing.

He took a step toward her, then another, closing the small space between them, unable to keep his distance a moment longer. The danger she’d unwittingly dragged him into didn’t matter. The twelve year age gap between them didn’t matter. All that mattered was now, and this primal need to touch her. To show her that he cared, that he wanted her.

Briar never moved, never backed away or tried to avoid what was coming. He stopped in front of her, only inches separating them. Reaching up to cup her cheek with one hand, he swept his thumb gently over the blue-tinged bruise forming on her cheek.

She drew in a swift breath. Her pupils expanded as she stared up at him, skin like warm velvet, silky soft.

“I’m glad you do,” he murmured.

In the stillness Briar’s gaze flicked to his mouth before moving back to his eyes. The pulse point in her throat beat faster. An electric current seemed to crackle between them in the taut silence. Desire shot through him followed by an intense possessiveness, fed by the answering heat in her gaze and the trust she had in him.

In that moment he realized he would do fucking anything to protect her.

They were the same in so many ways, she and him. Trained by the best in the world to take a life with a single pull of the trigger, and driven to protect the innocent. They’d both known the brutal pain of loss and found the strength to keep on living. They were warriors with a strong moral compass. Both loners.

Until now.

He curved his palm around the side of her face, driven by the need to protect, to imprint his touch on her body. “You don’t have to do this on your own anymore,” he murmured.