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CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Fifteen hours had passed since Colin left Titan Group’s headquarters and tracked Adelia to a small town diner twenty minutes outside of Baltimore’s city limits. When he was certain of her location, relief was a throat punch. Not the feeling he expected. Then again, he was going on zero sleep and didn’t imagine she would’ve moved from her initial location. Damn, it wasfantastic to know she was okay.
The popular but nondescript diner was exactly where Colin would have told her to go if she needed a few minutes to grab some grub, hit the head, and snag a cell phone from an old lady’s purse to make a phone call, then drop it back in without anyone noticing.
Bacon and eggs sizzled and mixed with the clink of coffee cups as blue-haired Bettys talked about theirsuburban woes. Colin scanned the tables looking for Adelia. No one seemed out of place—except for a hoodie.
“Hey there, darlin’.” The hostess walked up with a grin that reached her honest eyes, without any idea who he was or that a Mayhem-hunted target sat in the restaurant. “Table for one?”
He gruffly shook his head, running a hand over the days-old scruff that had grown on his cheeks. “I thinkI see who I’m meeting.”
“Sure enough, sugar. I’ll just follow you with a menu—”
He waved her away. “Not needed.”
He was only staying long enough to grab Adelia, settle her bill, and get her in his vehicle. How had she traveled here from Baltimore? Hitchhiked? Waved down a friendly group of bikers? Colin didn’t want to know.
His relief-turned-worry morphed to frustration. If she had stayedput, he could have located her faster, fixed everything with Mayhem, and got back to HQ in time to join back on the Astor gig.
But nope, he’d crisscrossed all over the damn city while Parker used statistical probabilities to track down Adelia, reminding him every few minutes that Titan Group couldn’t get involved with his problem as much as they might want to because Titan and Delta had anagreementwith Mayhem.
The agreement was bullshit, but it was also brokered by the US government, so there wasn’t much Colin could say about it. Mayhem had certain rights to commit their crimes, like selling weapons, so that parts of the government, like the CIA could monitor and control the flow of weapons.
Colin had a problem with it to begin with, but now the agreement was screwing with his personallife, his reaction was far more emotional. Or, hell, maybe physical, because he was also going to give himself a headache if his jaw clenched any tighter. That thisagreementleft his girlfriend on the chopping block… Or, his friend that was a girl. Adelia. Whatever she was. The female friend he’d walked off his job for.
He grumbled and threaded among the tables as startled eyes broke free fromtheir conversations and wagging jaws hung mid-sentence. They likely hadn’t seen his type before—irked and tired, ready to get his woman out of harm’s way before some Mayhem asshole could blow her head to pieces and claim whatever prize they gave to motorcycle fucks. This room seemed more like the PTA meeting and garage sale crowd.
His pulse skipped before her table. For that second, he hatedshe was hiding and scared, and he forgot that she’d been running, however she’d chosen to travel. Colin reached for her hood and tugged it down as he slid around the two-top table. “Boo.”
Her dark hair fell loose around her neck, and those deep, soul-bending eyes widened for one heart-stealing second. “Colin?” Her gaze jolted behind him as if he might’ve issued a Harley-Davidson locater beamfor her, and she yanked her hood back up, scowling. “Where were you?”
“Wait. You’re pissed?” He sucked in his cheeks and caught the judgmental stare from the older ladies the next booth over. “Do you know how hard it was to find you?”
“Then maybe you should’ve showed up before I called my brother.”
Colin ran a hand over his face. “Give me a break.”
“How far away is Baltimore from your office?An hour? A couple?”
“Because I had nothing else going on,” he finally said.
“I should’ve just asked Javier to help me—”
“Maybe you should have.” How much did just walk away from? For this? “I don’t know what to say.”
“You’re pissed I called Javier? I didn’t have your phone number memorized. I didn’t even have a phone!”
“I’m pissed about all of that, Javier included.”
“You have no right!”She leaned over the small table. “Don’t act like a jealous when I wanted you to help me. You!”
“Adelia, how am I supposed to help you? You talk in code. Neither you nor Lenora will give me a straight answer about anything, and God knows how you got here from where I thought you were.”
“You don’t want to know.” She buried her face in her hands. “I wish Javier was here.”
Maybe he should’ve wishedthat too. It never occurred to him to send Javier. Not once did he want someone else to take that responsibility away from him, but hell if he’d tell her that. “Yeah, you should have just asked him.”
“Lesson learned,” she whispered.