Page 81 of The Savior

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Liam ached. He raged. He wanted to fucking cry.

A tornado of confusion and sorrow beat against his chest because he’d enjoyed the night with Chelsea.

Breath racing, he floored the Explorer out of the condo complex. If only he could think—

His cell phone rang. The Bluetooth speakers surrounded him with the repetitive tones, needling his chest. He declined the call without looking to see if it was Chelsea or Linda.

For entirely different reasons, he couldn’t speak to either woman.

The phone rang again. He rejected the call, and again the third time.

“God!” He landed a fist on the center console.Don’t they understand?He had witnessed them tearing apart what had been his life too. It just wasn’t anymore…

He deflated. Regret pinched, and his guilt grew. Julia would’ve expected him to be a pillar of strength. Liam had buried his mother, his teammates, and a friend or two. But he’d never walked in to see their existence being dismantled as he had in Julia’s condo.

A lump formed in Liam’s throat, and he tried to picture Julia’s bedroom. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t picture what decorated the furniture or exactly what the bed looked like.

His heart dropped, then the phone rang again. He gave up avoiding the women and pressed the accept button on his steering wheel.

“Finally.” Senator Sorenson’s brittle coldness poured through his car speakers. “I don’t call you for my health.”

Can this day get any worse?

“When the phone rings, you answer it,” she snapped. “Are we on the same page?”

He didn’t have a fight in him, and a headache pounded. “Roger that, ma’am.”

The callous senator had been the furthest thing from his mind. If his head didn’t ache, he might wonder how she’d crowned herself capable of military orders without a leash, but Liam couldn’t muster the desire to give a fuck about her unmitigated power. All he knew was the future didn’t look good if he stepped out of line. Sorenson had made that much clear.

“You have one time to answer truthfully.”

Man, he didn’t want to play games. “What’s the question?”

“Have you shared the circumstances of our conversations?”

He cringed and exited the highway. “I have not.”

Though have I?Circumstances sounded too vague, like a trap. And why was she asking on his cell phone? Even if her line was secure, his wasn’t.

Liam ran through the mental hopscotch and couldn’t come up with a reason for her phone call. Sorenson hadn’t risen to her high-reaching position with an ignorance of intelligence rules. Even a newbie analyst could point out what she’d done wrong—unless the call was less for him and more to feed their words to someone who might be listening.

Disinformation to Tran Pham, perhaps?Or maybe it served only to ping his location. Liam glanced in his mirrors, monitoring for tail cars. Nothing jumped out as out of place.

“Are you working any other assignments?” she asked.

“No.” She’d been clear about that, so perhaps she was testing him. Hell, he didn’t know. His level of political and power gamesmanship had always been low. But given his day, he didn’t have the patience. “With all due respect, Senator, you wanted me to do nothing, and I’m doing nothing.”

Except for Chance, Chelsea, and the surveillance equipment. But other than that… nothing. Chance and Chelsea were smart enough to cover their tracks, and honestly, they didn’t have information they shouldn’t. So technically, he wasn’t doing nothing when his druthers had been to lock the Nymans in a bunker. He was doing as close to nothing as he could, as allowed. Sorenson’s plan, which should be called Operation Grin and Deal, was still intact.

“If that’s all…” He flipped on his turn signal.

“Has Mr. Westin contacted you?”

Liam arched an eyebrow. Maybe the senior senator was paranoid. Sorenson and Westin didn’t always see eye to eye, but Liam couldn’t fathom getting a phone call from that mean-mugging hard-ass.What would we discuss? The glass room they liked to hold me in? Or maybe how Sorenson’s bracelets clink when her aggravation grows?“No, ma’am.”

“If he contacts you, you let me know. Immediately.”

“Are we all on the same team?” he asked. “Or not?”

“I won’t allow anyone to ruin this operation,” she said, ignoring his question. “There’s too much on the line.”

Yeah, the terrorist that some people didn’t believe existed who murdered Julia, might harm the Nymans, and abductedsomeone, though no one would read Liam into that situation. “I get it.”

“Our focus is to draw out Pham andnothingelse.”

She was preaching to the choir. “Senator…” Liam gritted his teeth as he pulled into his apartment’s parking lot and jerked into a space. “There’s no one on earth who wants that fucker as badly as I do.”

Sorenson snorted. “It’s safer for all if you don’t underestimate me.”

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