Page 74 of Deadfall

“Don’t tempt me,” I snarled.

“You wouldn’t last a minute out there alone,” Riggs said snidely.

I didn’t reply, because well, he was probably right. We faced off for another long minute before he growled in irritation and stalked out the door. I took a deep breath, gathered my things and followed after him. It was going to be a long night.

I twisted the knob to turn the heat down on the small portable heater between us for the millionth time, conscious of Riggs’ glare. We’d been battling it out for hours and at this point, I was convinced he was doing it just to be a dick. There was no way he was actually cold.

“It’s like a fucking sauna in here,” I muttered.

Riggs shook his head. “Are you just going to complain the entire time?”

“I’m not complaining,” I said. “I’ve literally only brought it up twice.”

“I should have known—”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped.

“Your inexperience is showing, Syn,” he said snidely.

I crossed my arms and scowled out the front windshield. I refused to be baited. We’d been at it for four hours and the warehouse in front of us was still dark. We hadn’t seen a single person.

“Are we even at the right place?” I asked suspiciously. “Why haven’t we seen anyone?”

“This is what we’re up against,” he said, a hint of condescension in his tone. “This is what you wanted. In order to take down an organization, you have to know as much as possible about it. It starts here. In the trenches.”

“Thanks for mansplaning that,” I said sarcastically. “Really helpful.”

“Watch your tone,” he growled.

I wanted to turn the heater down even more, but knew it would just provoke him further, so I wrestled my sweatshirt off instead. When my head popped free, I looked over to see him hungrily staring at the small strip of bare skin on my stomach that had been exposed when my tank top snagged on the sweater. Riggs’ eyes jumped up to mine with an angry glare.

“What now?” I tugged the shirt back down.

“Don’t dress like that in front of the team,” Riggs muttered. “They might think you’re asking for it.”

My mouth dropped open. I was wearing a modest tank top under a sweatshirt. Sure, it was a little tight, but I wasn’t what I would classify as anything more than modestly endowed in the breast department anyway, so I had no idea what he could be talking about. And the tank top wasn’t a crop top; it sat at my belt just like any other shirt.

I finally found my voice. “What are you talking about?”

Riggs shrugged. “The men aren’t used to having a girl around—” Girl—not woman. I had a feeling that was intentionally worded. “Might want to cover up more.”

“Or, what?” I asked incredulously.

Riggs sighed condescendingly. “You know what, Syn.” His eyes raked down my body and chills raced across my skin at the heat in his eyes. “Don’t tell me you can’t see what you do to men.”

The shock was so palpable, I literally was at a loss for words. Sure, I didn’t have much experience being around men—in fact, so far my track record with them was fifty-fifty on whether or not they’d hurt me, but up until Riggs’ comment, I’d never even contemplated that I’d provoked that harm. I hadn’t been dressed any sort of revealing way when the hunters raped me, but had I unknowingly done something to make them act the way they had?

The remaining hours of our surveillance shift passed in silence and I remained lost in my spiraling thoughts. Once it was obvious nothing was happening at that location, Riggs started the car and we drove back to the safe house. I headed to my room to sleep for a few hours and until my door closed behind me, I felt Riggs’ attention. It made me wonder—I didn’t think the rest of the team would touch without permission, but what about Riggs? Did I trust him? I answered my own question when I quietly locked the door behind me—I just hoped I was wrong.

33

EMERSYN

Age 19

I threw open the door and stormed into the safe house, not caring that I left bloody footprints in the entry way. The job had been a disaster. Over the last few months, we’d gone from doing solely surveillance, to actually moving on various targets. We’d taken out warehouses, intercepted shipments and sometimes carried out specific assassinations of major players, but through it all, Riggs continued to make things difficult. When he wasn’t confining me to the surveillance van with Lev, he was on my heels shadowing my every move to the point I had yet to make my first kill.

Bottom line: he was a raging, suffocating, overbearing asshole.