Page 54 of Todd
“Sip the water,” Todd instructed, watching as she swallowed the medication with a desperate expression. “Your body needs hydration to process everything they’ve been forcing on you.”
Her gaze held his, and he wanted to drown in her eyes. “Together,” he said, the word carrying weight beyond their immediate tactical situation. “We do this together, and then we go home.”
“I can’t wait to get back to Montana,” she agreed with a smile.
He started to tell her that the home in Montana was going to move beyond the bunkhouse for them. But there was more to say before he broached that concept. But the idea of home held promise, so he simply nodded.
But first, they had to survive the next few hours in a place where wealthy women went to rejuvenate, and the ones that didn’t… disappeared. Together, they would expose Dr. Selinski’s operation.
As they moved through the shadows toward Serenity Dunes’s administrative wing, Todd felt the familiar calm of operational focus settling over him. This was what he’d been trainedfor and spent years perfecting. He could move through any hostile territory, even those that were coated in luxury. He was fighting for the woman whose hand anchored him to hope, whose courage inspired him to be better than he’d ever thought possible.
He let go of her hand, nodding for her to move behind him, ready for whatever it took to complete the mission as they approached the building that held the secrets they needed.
27
The moment Todd’s arms closed around her, months of restraint shattered. His embrace was warm, solid, and infinitely precious after days of pretending to be someone she wasn’t. Sadie pressed her face against the hollow of his throat, breathing in the familiar scent of his skin beneath tactical gear, and for the first time since arriving at Serenity Dunes, she felt truly safe.
I’ve wanted to do this for so long, she thought, her arms tightening around his neck as if she could anchor herself to his strength. Every team meeting, every casual encounter in the bunkhouse, every moment when she had to pretend she was only interested in friendship.
The drugs coursing through her system made her emotions feel simultaneously muffled and intensely sharp, like experiencing the world through water while being hypersensitive to every sensation. But Todd’s embrace cut through the pharmaceutical fog, telling her body it was held by someone who would die before letting harm come to her.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured against her hair, his voice rough with emotions that seemed to match her own desperate relief. “I’m here now. I’ve got you.”
She pulled back reluctantly, knowing that every second of delay increased their chances of discovery.Focus. Just focus on the mission and ignore how much my body wants to sleep… or throw up… or curl up with him.
He pulled a small packet from one of the pockets in his cargo pants and handed it to her. “Here are the earpieces for the comms device.” He waited until she had them in place, and then he handed her gloves, a face mask, another bag containing the computer drives needed, and last, a gun.
Her hands shook slightly, and he assisted her with the holster. Once she was ready, she leaned forward until their foreheads touched.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready,” she replied.
The administrative building loomed before them, its windows dark and silent. Somewhere inside those walls lay the evidence that could expose Dr. Selinski’s operation and allow them to discover what happened to Natalia and Melinda.And God knows how many others.
They approached the rear entrance, and Sadie wished she could say that her movements with Todd were choreographed, but while he moved with certainty and caution, she worried she would hold him back. His tactical experience complemented her analytical skills. While he could follow Casper’s directions if she was unable to perform, the mission would go faster if she could use her cyber expertise to unlock the digital secrets they needed. Thank God his physical presence provided security because she wasn’t sure she could multitask the way she normally worked.
The lock yielded to Todd’s electronic picks with barely a whisper of sound, the door swinging open to reveal a corridor illuminated only by emergency lighting. The spa’s public areas, covered in flowing fabrics and warm tiles and wood, carried over to the leader’s workspace. Cream and red floor tiles with tanwalls covered in Southwestern tapestries continued the Serenity Dunes’s carefully manufactured tranquility.
“Casper, we’re inside,” Todd whispered into his comms device, his voice barely audible even to Sadie standing inches away.
“Copy that.” The familiar reply came through their earpieces. “Security feeds are stable, but I’m showing some motion sensors in the east wing. Maintenance staff, most likely, but stay alert.”
Sadie’s compromised nervous system processed the information with frustrating sluggishness, her brain requiring extra seconds to translate Casper’s words into actionable intelligence. The delay terrified her more than any physical threat. Without her analytical capabilities, she was deadweight rather than an asset.Don’t think about it. Just move.
The corridor stretched before them, marked with brass name plates indicating the Serenity Dunes’s inner circle. Dr. Selinski’s office occupied the corner position, with Dr. Patel’s adjacent space sharing what appeared to be a common wall.
“We can cover more ground if we split up,” Sadie suggested, though the words felt thick and clumsy on her tongue. “You take Selinski’s office, and I’ll handle Patel’s systems.”
Todd’s response was immediate and nonnegotiable. “No. We stay together.”
She could see the protective fury in his eyes and the way his jaw clenched with barely contained emotion. He’d watched the evidence of pharmaceutical manipulation in her unsteady movements and slurred speech, and obviously, the thought of leaving her alone, even for minutes, clearly violated every protective instinct he possessed.
“Todd, we have limited time?—”
“We have limited time, and I’m not losing more of it because I let you wander off alone while you’re compromised,” he replied, his voice carrying the authority of someone who’d madecommand decisions in life-and-death situations. He stepped closer, lifting his gloved hand to cup her cheek. “We do this together or not at all.”
The finality in his tone was mixed with the emotion in his words. Truthfully, Sadie felt relief at not having to navigate the mission alone. Her coordination was wobbly, her reaction time slower than her usually sharp mind, and her ability to process multiple streams of information simultaneously felt unreliable. She nodded. “Got it.”
