Page 75 of Caught in the Crossfire

As far as I knew, none of us had pushed touch further than hand holding, hugs, cuddles, or the occasional kiss. We didn’t know what would trigger her, and we’d agreed to take the cautious approach just in case. I didn’t want to push her or make her feel like I wanted more than she was ready for.

“I thought you were my boss.” She stood in front of me, head tilted so she could look me in the eye. “Bosses should hear the complaints of their underlings.”

I swallowed. She was flirting. This was good news. Progress.Keep it going, Ciel. “In that case, your boss is telling you to get to work.”

Her little laugh was like the crisp touch of snowfall against my skin. Magical and invigorating.

“Yes, sir,” she responded, giving me a little salute.

I wanted to kiss her so fucking badly. But was it too soon? Would I upset her? Make everything worse when she was finally smiling again?

I stepped back. “I’ll meet you in my room?”

Her eyebrows creased as her smile faltered. “Okay.”

Her tone threw me off. All the teasing was gone. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah.” Her tone was flat as she stepped around me. “Just let me get dressed and dry my hair.”

“Don’t take too long,” I teased, but she didn’t respond.

Shit. I rubbed the back of my neck. Maybe inviting her to work with me was a bad idea.

We gotto work organizing the data and looking for patterns on how Orik Vokshi disappeared, where he went, how they might move their product, and where they could hold the victims. There had to be answers in all this data, and I knew the two of us could figure it out.

She didn’t bring up whatever happened in the bathroom, and neither did I. She sat down in her chair next to mine.

“How’s your hand?”

I flexed my fingers and rubbed my injured palm. It was stiff, but useable. “It’s all right. Sometimes it’s hard to type, but that’s why I have a trainee.”

I hated, though, that any chance he got, Wynn stared at my hand like it was proof that he’d fucked up, and therefore I’d hate him. He’d take on this pained, desperate look that felt like a dagger to my chest rather than my hand. He had asked me a few times if it was getting closer to normal, and I’d told him yes, but I was so much slower at working than I used to be and I wasn’t sure if I would get my old speed or agility back.

I honestly didn’t even care. I cared abouthim,and Leona, and our family. Nothing else mattered.

She smirked. “So what are we doing, boss?”

“I’m looking at mountains of information and struggling to process it. Thought our brains could team up for a mind meld.”

“Let’s do it.”

I walked her through everything I had.

The Albanians had exploded in footholds within the city and surrounding area. They’d bought up dozens of businesses, expanding into multiple different industries. They had legitimatebusiness functions, but how were they managing the criminal side?

It was too much to target one by one, like Wynn used to. We had to make a bigger move that disrupted them.

They were also only one side of this problem. Trafficking only existed because of customers willing to buy. We needed to make our stance clear to everyone. Trafficking was a no-go under our watch, and there would be consequences for anyone who didn’t get on board.

The more answers we had, the better. It had to be enough to keep us all from losing our minds.

That’s all I was trying to do. Hold us together.

My foot tapped as I read page after page of data. Leona did the same beside me, and I barely noticed the minutes ticking by.

Locations. Dates. Sightings. Street skirmishes Giulio reported. There had to be something I was missing. How they kept slipping past us. Some way Lucchese and Sandrini were connected. We knew they were using boats for transportation, but what else? Who was helping them?

“Ciel,” she whispered so softly I did a double take whether I had heard her.