Page 105 of Love Undercover
She cried her way through the longest and hottest shower she’d probably ever taken in the dead of summer, continued to weep as she finally got dressed in her own clothes and braided her wet hair just to keep it out of her face.
Her eyes were puffy by the time she shuffled into her living room, squeezing a sigh out as she bent down to pick up her eviscerated pillows. At least the tears had stopped.
She went in search of her laptop to video chat with her dad to let him know she was all right. He was convinced he needed tomake the two-hour drive to be with her, but she assured him that she was fine and wasn’t in the mood for company.
Apparently, the FBI had been to his house when she’d gone missing and informed him that someone had gone through her apartment. It took her a long time to reassure him that she would be fine alone and hung up with a promise that she would ask Fiona to come over just to get him off her back.
She promised Fiona the same thing when she called her next, lying about her dad being on his way instead of asking her best friend to come over. It took a lot of convincing and half the story about what had happened to her—kidnapping by an undercover FBI agent and subsequent takedown of a major criminal, minus the sex part—before Fiona let it go. Sadie was too exhausted to go through every detail of the question mark that was her relationship with Chase, which she would have to do if Fiona was there. She could handle that tomorrow, after a good rest. And maybe—hopefully—after some clarity from him.
She shut her laptop with an increasing sense of uncertainty. He’d been clear about his feelings, but it was less clear what it all looked like from the perspective of his job. And what were they going to do from here on out? His cabin in the woods was his sanctuary away from chaos, but she lived here. She couldn’t very well abandon her students, and she’d never ask him to give up his solitude. The distance made it impractical during the school year for her.
But his remote cabin had begun to feel like her own refuge after everything that had happened. Summers there, then? School years here? She shook her head, getting ahead of herself. They had only decided to see how it went.
Going to the kitchen, she downed two full glasses of water to clear the sandpapery feeling from her mouth, then frowned at her sad sourdough starter after a week of neglect. Shecould probably revive it. But after she cleaned the rest of the apartment.
It took an hour to clean the broken things scattered across her living room floor and stuff everything into the trash bag leaning against the kitchen island. The place still felt dismal and out of sorts. But it was more than just the fact that her stuff had been messed with.Shewas out of sorts. Her home felt wrong, like an ill-fitting outfit. She’d been irrevocably altered by what had happened this week, and life as usual didn't seem within her grasp anymore.
She went through her fridge to see if there was anything to eat and deemed all of it either expired or unappealing. It was one of those rare occasions she decided it was worth just ordering something as unhealthy as she wanted. 80/20, right?
After ordering the biggest, most loaded pizza for delivery, she settled on her couch with a glass of wine. Even though she wasn’t a big wine drinker—or alcohol in general, for that matter— she decided it was a night for indulgence.
Her wine was half-gone by the time the knock came on the door. A little sooner than she’d expected, but she was ravenous and wouldn’t hate having her pizza sooner than anticipated. Plus, she felt the slightest bit loopy from her wine on an empty stomach.
Stopping at her purse on the way to the door, she grabbed her wallet to pull out her cash. Her smile was genuine as she opened the door, ready to compliment and tip extra for the fast service.
The smile turned brittle and shattered when her eyes landed on Greg with a gun in his hand.
“Honey, I’m home,” he murmured, shoving his way inside.
She dropped her wallet in her haste to back away from him. But a twinge of heat flashed through her. She was getting real tired of having guns pointed at her.
His eyes danced around her apartment as he shut the door, checking if she was alone. He craned his neck to look into the guest room, then jerked the gun for her to precede him toward her bedroom.
“What are you doing here, Greg?”
He tipped his head to the side, like he was trying to figure out why she sounded more pissed than scared. She wondered that herself. Maybe she’d been juiced on the fear for too long, and she had no energy to dredge it up again. Or it was the wine. Or it was just that someone as pathetic as Greg wasn’t all that scary.
“You have something I want,” he answered, waving the gun for her to sit on the end of her bed.
She obeyed because she wasn’t a fizzing idiot. Her eyes never strayed from the gun that was trained unwaveringly at her. “I already turned the flash drive over to the feds.”
He snorted. “That will keep them busy for a while. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
The first cold finger of fear trailed down her spine. This didn’t fit her image of Greg, nor did it match what she’d understood about his role in this whole fiasco. He was absolutely calm and collected. Downright cocky, if she had to name it.
She grew very still as she tried to understand what was happening. “I don’t have anything else.”
Greg smiled, his devilish grin that meant he was feeling pretty good about himself. “Yes, you do. You just don’t know it.”
Her breaths came in shallow spurts as the terror that started to manifest made his smile grow.
“What did you do?” she breathed.
He laughed. “What does it matter, Sadie? You didn’t want any part of this life I was building.”
“But you dragged me into it,” she said softly. “Why?”
His smile dropped away, and the first glint of anger flashed in his eyes. “You really want to ask me that question?”
