Dead No More. L. R. Nicolello

but shit nonetheless, and the aftermath of it was lasting. Derek would never change the path he’d walked, but it took a long time—if ever—to get the smell of blood out of his nostrils.

      It never escaped his mind.

      She stared at him for what felt like an eternity, searching. For what, Derek didn’t know. But as far as he was concerned, she could search for as long as she wanted—he had nothing to hide.

      Well...Derek swallowed hard.

      Her lips curved slightly as a small, sad laugh escaped. “No, you can’t. So you smile and support it, especially after they’ve given up so much to support you.”

      “But how did you get here?” Derek gestured to the open space. They could have plucked her penthouse loft straight from a designer magazine. It was spectacular, with its dark espresso hardwood, floor-to-ceiling white sheers draping the windows of walls and the black baby grand piano sitting in the corner.

      The gourmet kitchen opened up to the main living area and the granite that made up the kitchen island, with its deep veins of gray and specks of blue, looked as though it had been flown in from Italy. Instead of the typical backsplash, old exposed brick covered most of the kitchen wall, only adding to the “industrial meets glamour” look Lily’s place boasted. The various apartments of fellow agents he’d seen—including his own—had nothing on this place. It was huge and perfectly designed.

      “This place...” she motioned around her “...has been our family’s safe house for as long as I can remember.”

      “Remarkable.”

      He was sure the things he couldn’t see far outweighed the things he could. He scanned the walls and the room, looking for anything he could use as a tell—a painting hung too far from the wall, a misplaced seam, a piece of the wooden floor that gave too much—to pinpoint where she kept her gear, because he knew she had it. Somewhere.

      He got nothing. Impressive.

      “Okay. Better question. How have you managed the prolonged flight under the radar? You don’t just walk away from 67.”

      She got up and paced.

      “How did you do it?”

      Lily took another sip of wine. What was she trying to hide? It was a simple question, so why had it spun her up? Operatives retired all the time for multiple reasons. Age. Mental health. But to just up and leave? No way in hell.

      “Lily...”

      She chewed on her lip, then let out a long, exasperated breath, pushing a stray hair off her face. “The director is my godfather.”

      Derek whistled. Holy shit. Another vital piece of information conveniently left out of her file—whoever put that thing together needed to be booted from the Unit.

      “So you’re the one everyone whispers about. I honestly thought that was 67 folklore.”

      She tipped her head and frowned. “Not following.”

      “You’re company royalty.”

      A nervous laugh escaped her lips. “Hardly.”

      “Says the woman who all but flipped them off, quit and is still breathing.”

      “I didn’t quit.” Spots of pink kissed her cheeks.

      “Easy.” He held up his hands. “Sorry. You didn’t quit. Why did you go to ground? Why’d you go quiet?”

      “I had my reasons.”

      “I read your file, Lily. Afghanistan. Korea. Iran. Shit, you’ve been in more countries in the past twelve years than most agents see in a lifetime. You speak seven different languages. Someone like you doesn’t just turn her back on the very thing that makes her tick.” A shadow passed across her face. “No matter how much shit hits the fan.”

      “I walked because I couldn’t get past the last case, okay?” Her voice caught as she shook her head. “Still can’t. And no matter how much I might’ve loved the job, or been the best, or whatever the hell people say about me, I’m stuck in that moment.”

      “Lil—”

      “No one wants an operative with that mind-set.” She locked eyes with Derek, almost daring him to disagree. “That’s when people get killed.”

      “Fair enough. But—” The shrill sound of his phone interrupted him. Pulling it out of his pocket, he glanced at the number and frowned. Alexis. She was late. She was never late. Every muscle fiber in his shoulders knotted as he answered on the second ring. “Well?”

      “It’ll hold,” Alexis reported, all business now. “It’ll better than hold—I couldn’t crack it, no matter how many different approaches I took, and I tried them all. Hence why I’m late—which, for the record, I hate.”

      “Excellent.” The tension evaporated. “Thanks, sweetheart. That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear.”

      “Whoever put that file together is a genius, like, my kind of genius. I’m impressed.”

      Derek looked over at Lily and smiled.

      Yes, so was he.

       CHAPTER TEN

      Saturday, September 20, 4:30 p.m.

      LILY FIELDSTRIPPED HER GLOCK. Her mind wandered as she removed the magazine and racked the slide to eject the round from the chamber. Saying yes to this mission was ludicrous. As much as she wanted to dismiss that ugly fact, it was unchanging: this mission was unsanctioned until Lily called the director. She checked the chamber, pointed the gun toward the exposed brick on the far side of her loft and dry fired.

      Hell would freeze over before she did that.

      Not until she was good and ready. And she wasn’t. Thirteen months later, and she was still too angry—or, if she was being honest, proud—to call him.

      Disassembling the gun into its four main component parts quieted her. Lily took a deep breath and glanced at the box of files Derek had left behind. Her heart hammered against her rib cage.

       Derek.

      Sweet-talking, unwavering, solid-as-rock and hotter-than-hell Derek.

      She grabbed the barrel and pushed the cleaning rod into the breech end of it. She knew she walked a tightrope with him. Agreeing to work with him was one thing, but there was no way she’d go to his place to prep, no matter how much she trusted him.

      She grabbed the slide and vigorously scrubbed the slide rail cuts. In the few days they’d spent together, she’d started to trust him. His probing, though direct and persistent, was never hard. Curious? Yes. Demanding? No.

      That alone eased the tension permanently residing in her back. They’d easily, and almost instantaneously, fallen into a natural rhythm that coaxed her further and further from her hiding place.

      But it was his eyes that chipped away at her suspicious guard, made her trust.

      Jackson’s eyes had been calculating. She’d been mesmerized by what they saw and computed, but she’d always felt their shrewd stare on her.

      Watching. Evaluating. Assessing.

      Derek’s eyes were gentle, yet alert. Try as she might to fight it, they drew her in with their softness and away from her self-made shelter.

      Bottom line, her bullshit meter hadn’t pinged once, and Lily had to trust that. If she couldn’t, if she’d lost confidence in herself, she’d lost it all.

      Still...she wasn’t the naive agent she’d been. Lily insisted on always meeting here, at her home, on her ground. When she’d moved in, she’d updated and installed cameras, audio and heat sensors in the lobby and the landing