Page 84 of Liam
There was a quick intake of breath from the screen, so quiet that Liam almost didn’t hear it. He turned to see the FBI agent suddenly looking pale.
Liam frowned. “Steve?”
He cleared his throat and shook his head. “Sorry, one of my guys just informed me of a fire I need to put out. I’ll call back soon.” Then the screen turned black.
CHAPTER24
They couldn’t get through to anyone in the goddamn intelligence department. The second Steve ended the call, Liam’s team became alarmed. They’d been trying unsuccessfully to get him back on the phone. They wanted to know why he’d gone so pale. Why he’d ended the call so abruptly. Liam didn’t believe for a second that an emergency had popped up.
Over the last hour, they’d talked to one low-level agent after another at the Idaho field offices, trying to connect with Steve, or hell,anyonein intelligence. So far, no one had been willing to help.
Fuck. What was going on? He was so goddamn sick of not having answers. Was Steve part of this? Was that why he’d signed off in a rush? Did he know the guy? Was he friends with him?
Liam shot to his feet. He couldn’t sit anymore. He had to move. Go.Do something.
He left the conference room and walked down the hall to his office. His team would keep working on making contact, but he needed a few minutes to calm the hell down.
He slammed his office door closed and ran his hands through his hair, almost pulling the strands out by the roots.
He leaned his palms onto his desk and was still working on controlling his breaths, trying to calm his damn heart rate, when soft steps sounded from the hall outside his office. Then the quiet creak of the door opening. He didn’t have to look up to know it was Nylah. He knew her heart.Felther presence.
She’d been sitting with Cassie and Emerson. The second Steve had ended the call, the team had begun trying to re-establish contact. Nylah and Emerson, clearly aware something was going on, had gone to sit at the front desk.
He wanted her to go back to the other women. For the first time, he wanted her to stay away—because no part of him wanted her to witness him unravelling, threatening to come apart altogether.
Two hands touched his back. Small, warm hands that were so familiar. Then the heat of her forehead pressed to his back. “I’m sorry you don’t know what’s happening with Steve right now.”
Whispered words that twisted his insides. Pulled him back from the brink and anchored him.
He swallowed, forcing his voice to work. “Why areyousorry?”
“Because everyone you love is in danger, and you’ve been working overtime to solve this. But every time we take a step forward, it feels like we also move two steps back.”
She was right. Fuck, she was so right. He was scared shitless of losing one of his friends, and now, he was forced to doubt one of their few allies.
Slowly, he turned and looked down into his woman’s eyes, letting her ice-blue gaze calm some of the storm inside him. “We need to know why he ended the call like that. Why he looked so shocked at the sight of that sketch.”
She cupped his cheek, her touch spreading over his skin like wildfire. “We will. We’ll connect with him or another member of intelligence, and we’ll find out what’s going on.”
He let those words settle, begging them to drown out the other voices in his head. The ones that told him she was wrong. That their enemy would remain a step ahead of them until he got everything he wanted.
“Liam…your team’s got this. I know they do.”
When her breath brushed his face, he lowered his head and touched his forehead to hers. “God, I love you.”
“I love you too.”
He lowered his mouth and kissed her. Let the softness of her lips, the warmth of her touch, sweep inside him. And there it was…the peace he’d lost an hour ago.
Her hands slid up his chest, fingers wrapping around his shoulders, holding him together.
The minutes ran into one another as the dust of his anger began to settle. When they finally came up for air, he didn’t let her go. He couldn’t. He felt chained to this woman. Desperate to have her in his arms. “Thank you.”
A new set of footsteps sounded in the hall. Then a knock.
He lifted his head, arms still wrapped around Nylah. “Yeah?”
Tyler popped his head in. “We’re finally being put through to Steve.”
