Page 7 of Fatal Love
From whom? From what?
Fuck on a stick. Connor dropped the handset into its cradle, his guts turning over on themselves.
Emit, Rory, Jax, and Colton were all still in Chicago, opening the new Central Division Rock Star headquarters. Obviously, Cal, Beatrice, and Trace Hunter were back, but the rest of the Rock Stars and SFI operatives were working, many of them out of the country.
RS bodyguards couldn’t simply leave their clients. Ditto for the SFI operatives who were undercover on assignments at all four corners of the earth.
Connor started to lift the handset again and call Miles, but no, Miles was in San Diego, once more running the West Coast SFI office.
Which meant he was out of options.
Zeb. Yeah, he’d call the old spymaster…
His out-of-options list grew. Zeb had gone to Chicago with Beatrice. Connor hadn’t heard from him. Had he come back with Cal and the others or stayed in Chicago?
A burning sensation started in his gut while icy pinpricks attacked the base of his spine. Both spread like blood from a gunshot wound, making his body tremble and his breathing come in short, barely-there intakes.
Beatrice was in danger. Real danger if Cal was ignoring protocol and callinghimfor backup. Callan Reese was a former SEAL who’d saved the president in front of the entire world.
Beatrice’s personal bodyguard was Trace Hunter. Another former SEAL with superhuman powers. The guy belonged in a Marvel comic bookfor realz.
If both of them couldn’t handle whatever trouble Beatrice was in, well, then… How the hell washesupposed to?
His hand shook as he jammed his fingers through his hair.Get up, he told himself, but he couldn’t make his legs move. They were frozen stiff.
Not now!He couldn’t let his PTSD handcuff him.
But then PTSD was a righteous wanker, as Miles’s fiancee, Charlotte, always said. It particularly liked to hit when you needed a clear head the most.
Breathe. Beatrice was always telling him to take a deep breath and focus on one thing. A trick she’d learned from Hunter.
It didn’t always work, especially when Connor woke in the middle of the night sweating and gasping for air after one of his night terrors. The only thing that worked then was a bottle of Smirnoff and losing himself in his secret investigation into 12 September.
Grabbing the handset, he dialed Zeb, hoping against hope the old man was back in DC. Waiting for the call to connect, he tapped his foot under the desk. SFI headquarters was dark beyond the bubble of pale yellow his desk lamp threw off. Even his computer had gone dark after he’d fallen asleep.
Bracing the handset between his ear and shoulder, he woke up the computer and started shutdown procedures. He’d never had to do it before and another moment of indecision and self-doubt caught him with his fingers hovering over the keyboard.
He never left the office unless his backup, usually Rory or the new lab tech, Sabrina, was available to answer phones and handle emergencies.
Zeb’s phone rang three times. Voicemail answered. Connor left a quick SOS and asked Zeb to call him back.
What now? Should he gear up and head to Cal and Beatrice’s?
What about the baby?
If anything happened to any one of them…
The icy sensation attacked his toes again, spread up to his calves.
Breathe…
Maggie whimpered, drawing his gaze. She sat beside the desk, tail rapping the floor and stuck her head in his lap.
There was no time to pet the dog, but his hand had a mind of its own, naturally going to Maggie’s head and rubbing her sleek, soft fur. His breathing resumed a semi-normal in-out rhythm after a moment and his mind re-engaged.
Grasping at straws, he dialed the lab extension, hoping against hope that Sabrina might somehow still be in the building. He’d never seen her leave—one of the reasons he routinely stayed at the desk so late every night was for that very reason. He enjoyed watching her sexy legs in those righteous high-heeled boots walk past his desk every evening. He loved her red hair and the way she teased him about being a camo-wearing receptionist, even though the term ‘receptionist’ made his ego smart.
From big, tough, badass SEAL to a useless receptionist. His life had gone to hell, thanks to 12 September.
