Page 198 of Silver Elite

I laugh. Yet part of me is melting.

This is the most romantic thing a man has ever done for me.

I close the short distance between us. “I don’t need flowers.”

“I know you don’t. You have no expectations, and you always keep people at arm’s length. But that only makes me want to impress you.”

It’s uniquely vulnerable coming from Cross. And it’s becoming evident that this guy is not at all what I thought he was. He’s rough,but he’s also tender. He’s lethal, but he has compassion, even if he claims it’s a weakness.

“You want to impress me?”

“Yes.” His voice is thick.

He tugs me toward him, and his lips are millimeters from mine when his wrist vibrates, causing us to jump apart.

“Sorry,” he says, glancing down at his source. “Alert.” A frown instantly puckers his brow. “Give me a second.”

He walks several feet away, and I watch as he taps his ear. He’s rarely without an earpiece, I’ve noticed. I don’t think I’ve even seen him take it out at night when he’s sleeping.Whenhe sleeps. He rarely does that, either.

“Shit,” I hear him swear. “I’ll be right there.”

I frown at him when he rejoins me. “Is everything okay?”

Cross shakes his head, moving toward the entrance of the cavern. “We need to go.”

“What happened? Where are we going?”

“I have to go see my mother.”

—

He won’t drop me back at base. He says it’s an emergency, and so I’m strapped in the helo again, heading for his Sanctum Point estate.

The General’s house.

I feel queasy, but the sensation is accompanied by a burst of anticipation. This is the kind of access the network can only dream of. And there’s only a tiny twinge of guilt as I reach out to Adrienne in the car at the airfield. It feels wrong sitting beside Cross and using telepathy to report to his enemy, but I silence my conscience and capitalize on the moment.

“I’m about to go to the General’s mansion.”

“What?”I can hear her excitement.“How?”

“I’m with Cross.”

“And to think we didn’t want you at first.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

I’m still bitter that they left me to rot for three weeks. If Betima wasn’t killed and there’d been no hole to fill, they’d probably still be ignoring my SOSs.

“I assume I’m not going to be able to walk around freely, but…”

“Do what you can. Any intel is an asset. Anything you think might be important.”

“And if he’s there?”

“Assassinate him.”

“What?”

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