Sage murmured. She felt his statement at the pit of her stomach.
He simply nodded and allowed silence to linger between them for a while.
“No cousins and extended family?” She waited, understanding how saying it out loud and admitting that you were basically orphaned in the world was very different than just knowing it.
“I have some people in Arkansas … lotta folks I never got to know real well on my father’s side. My mother’s family was small and tight out of Chicago, but most of them are gone now. Nobody the enemy can make a direct link to.” He lifted his chin and spread his massive hands around the steering wheel again as though resettling himself. “My unit is my family.”
“Then we have that in common,” she said, fully appreciating where he was coming from. Her team members would be the only ones to attend her funeral, would be the only ones to lift a beer in her honor and maybe shed a tear or two when they ultimately lowered her casket into the ground.
Silence became a third passenger in the van as they exited the highway and entered South Beach’s main thoroughfare. Yet, Captain Davis kept glancing up to his rearview mirror, his intense gaze seeming haunted.
“It’s not my place to say this, but … are you sure this is a good idea, ma’am?”
“Camille, remember? Ma’am makes me sound old, by the way.” She offered him a smile, sat forward, and placed a supportive hand on his shoulder as he turned into a covered parking garage.
The moment he navigated into a space, he turned around in his seat to fully face her. “Does your team have a GPS locator on you? Do you have enough artillery? If this guy gets pissed off—”
“I’m going to have to let him slap me around a bit for going off without his consent,” she said as calmly as possible. “And, no … I’ve never allowed the government to put a chip in me. I’ll be fine.”
“Unacceptable. You already have a concussion and don’t need to be reinjured.”
“I know, Captain … but rest assured, as soon as we get the word, I will kick his ass for the trouble.”
She smiled, Captain Davis didn’t.
“Juan, remember.”
His surly reminder made her smile wider. “It’s going to be all right, Juan, ” she said.
“I don’t want you to have to do anything in there that you don’t want to.” His statement was blunt and delivered with crisp military diction, but his intense dark gaze was definitely haunted. “You’ve given enough. We have all the intel we need. Whatever we don’t know yet, we can gain through other methods. You shouldn’t have to deal with that shit, no matter how badly we all want to bring these bastards down.”
They sat in the dim parking lot staring at each other. It was a standoff where no one would mention the unmentionable, and yet this man whom she’d just met was trying his best to ask her to not go back in and put her body on the line.
Men had come and gone in both her personal and professional space; she’d had suitors, lovers, crushes, mentors, but had never truly allowed herself to become vested in the hopes and dreams of having anything that resembled a normal relationship. She could tell that this undercover scenario had to be unfathomable for a man like Captain Anthony Davis, someone who seemed to have a very straight-arrow, black-and-white view of the world. This was a man, she guessed, who had probably experienced normal relationships all his life. Her assignment undoubtedly contradicted everything he believed to be right with the world. She could only imagine that to him, she might as well have been an alien … and as she stared at his handsome face and deeply troubled eyes, for some reason now that made her very sad.
“I only have to be there for maybe another forty-eight to seventy-two hours.… That’s when the delivery will probably go down, if they solidify the deal. My goal is to find out exactly when and where, then I’m out.”
She slowly removed her
He simply nodded and allowed silence to linger between them for a while.
“No cousins and extended family?” She waited, understanding how saying it out loud and admitting that you were basically orphaned in the world was very different than just knowing it.
“I have some people in Arkansas … lotta folks I never got to know real well on my father’s side. My mother’s family was small and tight out of Chicago, but most of them are gone now. Nobody the enemy can make a direct link to.” He lifted his chin and spread his massive hands around the steering wheel again as though resettling himself. “My unit is my family.”
“Then we have that in common,” she said, fully appreciating where he was coming from. Her team members would be the only ones to attend her funeral, would be the only ones to lift a beer in her honor and maybe shed a tear or two when they ultimately lowered her casket into the ground.
Silence became a third passenger in the van as they exited the highway and entered South Beach’s main thoroughfare. Yet, Captain Davis kept glancing up to his rearview mirror, his intense gaze seeming haunted.
“It’s not my place to say this, but … are you sure this is a good idea, ma’am?”
“Camille, remember? Ma’am makes me sound old, by the way.” She offered him a smile, sat forward, and placed a supportive hand on his shoulder as he turned into a covered parking garage.
The moment he navigated into a space, he turned around in his seat to fully face her. “Does your team have a GPS locator on you? Do you have enough artillery? If this guy gets pissed off—”
“I’m going to have to let him slap me around a bit for going off without his consent,” she said as calmly as possible. “And, no … I’ve never allowed the government to put a chip in me. I’ll be fine.”
“Unacceptable. You already have a concussion and don’t need to be reinjured.”
“I know, Captain … but rest assured, as soon as we get the word, I will kick his ass for the trouble.”
She smiled, Captain Davis didn’t.
“Juan, remember.”
His surly reminder made her smile wider. “It’s going to be all right, Juan, ” she said.
“I don’t want you to have to do anything in there that you don’t want to.” His statement was blunt and delivered with crisp military diction, but his intense dark gaze was definitely haunted. “You’ve given enough. We have all the intel we need. Whatever we don’t know yet, we can gain through other methods. You shouldn’t have to deal with that shit, no matter how badly we all want to bring these bastards down.”
They sat in the dim parking lot staring at each other. It was a standoff where no one would mention the unmentionable, and yet this man whom she’d just met was trying his best to ask her to not go back in and put her body on the line.
Men had come and gone in both her personal and professional space; she’d had suitors, lovers, crushes, mentors, but had never truly allowed herself to become vested in the hopes and dreams of having anything that resembled a normal relationship. She could tell that this undercover scenario had to be unfathomable for a man like Captain Anthony Davis, someone who seemed to have a very straight-arrow, black-and-white view of the world. This was a man, she guessed, who had probably experienced normal relationships all his life. Her assignment undoubtedly contradicted everything he believed to be right with the world. She could only imagine that to him, she might as well have been an alien … and as she stared at his handsome face and deeply troubled eyes, for some reason now that made her very sad.
“I only have to be there for maybe another forty-eight to seventy-two hours.… That’s when the delivery will probably go down, if they solidify the deal. My goal is to find out exactly when and where, then I’m out.”
She slowly removed her
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