Page 48 of Deadly Hope
Griff’s slight nod carried weight. “I’ll go.”
Ronan shot Axel a look. “How about you and Deke and I stay on guard duty. Griff could use Zara and Izzy and Kenji to cover his six.”
“I should go,” Olivia insisted.
Exactly as he would have guessed. “Not necessary.”
Her face twisted in that stubborn look he was coming to know, but he cut her off before she could protest. “Every time you’re in public, you’re at risk. And you put my team at risk.” He hated dumping the guilt trip on her, but it was only the truth.
Which she immediately realized. She ducked her chin. “Of course. Sorry. That’s an excellent point.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s fun sitting out the action,” Griff said.
Axel watched the team prep through practiced eyes, but his attention kept drifting to Olivia. She was observing them all with that careful therapist’s focus, but something else played across her features now—a softness that hadn’t been there before.
He should back off. He knew the signs in himself: the hypervigilance that kept him positioning between her and potential threats, the way his hand kept finding his weapon, how his body oriented to her presence like a compass finding true north. Classic PTSD behavior patterns. She’d probably already noted them all.
“Just saying,” Kenji’s voice cut through his thoughts, “Code Crackers has a certain panache?—”
A paper clip sailed across the room with deadly accuracy, catching the man right above the ear. Zara continued her weapons check as if she hadn’t moved.
“Better than STEAM Team,” Deke muttered, doing his final gear check.
The familiar banter settled something in Axel’s chest, even as he caught Olivia’s expression—that mix ofprofessional observation and personal warmth that kept blurring lines he knew should stay clear.
26
Olivia staredat the pile of sandwiches Ronan had thrown together while Zara and the others hit the library, thick slabs of sourdough stuffed with turkey and avocado that would normally have her mouth watering. But food seemed irrelevant as she watched three brilliant minds attack the code from James’s message.
Three identical copies of the colorful book were spread out on the dining room table. The familiar illustrations sent a fresh jolt of grief through Olivia’s heart.
“If we assume the page numbers correlate to the numbers in the message somehow …” Zara muttered, typing on her tablet while Kenji and Izzy bounced possibilities back and forth. They spoke a language of algorithms and patterns that made Olivia’s head spin. Even Axel, though quiet, was clearly following their logic, his sharp focus evident in the slight furrow between his brows.
That furrow. She shouldn’t find it so endearing, shouldn’t want to smooth it away with her fingertip.
While the others worked, she let her mind drift. The sunlight streaming through the safe house windows feltsurreal, too normal for a day spent chasing her dead brother’s breadcrumbs. James would probably laugh at her right now, getting moony over a man while knee-deep in international intrigue. He always teased her for being the practical one, the steady one, the one who made five and ten and fifteen-year plans and stuck to them.
But there was nothing steady about the way her heart kicked whenever Axel looked at her. This wasn’t just gratitude for his protection or attraction to those broad shoulders. This was something deeper, something that scared her with its intensity.
Guilt pricked at her—here she was, daydreaming while they worked to unravel the mystery of James’s death. But even that guilt couldn’t squash the warm flutter in her chest when Axel glanced her way, his expression softening for just a moment before returning to the task at hand.
She was falling for him. Hard and fast and completely outside her careful control. And the scariest part wasn’t the falling itself—it was how right it felt, even in the middle of all this chaos.
“Wait,” Izzy said suddenly, “what if we cross-reference the word count with?—”
Olivia pulled her focus back to the present, trying to follow their rapid-fire exchange.
“Got it!” Izzy’s triumphant voice cut through the tension. “It’s not the page numbers—it’s the word positions combined with?—”
“Exactly,” Kenji breathed, leaning over her shoulder. His usually playful expression hardened as he read. “Stay away from Driscoll.”
Zara’s tablet clattered to the table. “Well, that explains why James had that photo of Driscoll in the safety deposit box.”
Olivia’s stomach clenched. The image of that photo—herbrother and Driscoll at some military function—flashed through her mind.
Izzy read the rest. “‘Connected to Operation Cerberus. Knowledge of Cerberus is dangerous. If he approaches you, run.’”
“Operation Cerberus.” Axel’s voice was dangerously quiet, his jaw clenched tight enough that she could see the muscle jumping.
