Page 9 of Riggs (The Maddox BRAVO Team #2)

Riggs

Seattle wakes up gray and glassy. I wake up to Vanessa curled into my side like we were poured that way.

For one second I let it hold. Her knee is hooked over my thigh, her hand open against my ribs, the rain keeping time on the window.

I picture a dog at the foot of a bed, a coffee mug with a chip she refuses to throw out, her shoes kicked under a bench and not a flight case. It’s a clean, bright picture.

Then the second ends. Mission.

I ease away without breaking whatever thread lets her sleep hard for the first time in days. Sweep: wedge still in, slider locked, chair bracing the latch, alarm armed. I thumb updates.

Rae: Sponsor rep Caleb met with venue coordinator post-wrap. Shared a ride. Pulled plates.

Jaxson: Denver venue router is trash. I’ll drop a box ahead of you.

Hayes: Note paper from yesterday is big-box craft. Glue cheap. Store on Pine—cameras pulled.

Good.

By the time I've finished my first cup of coffee, she’s awake, sheet tangled at her waist, hair a dark mess she’ll make look intentional in five minutes. She blinks at me like the world landing makes sense because I’m standing there.

“You watching me sleep?” she rasps.

“Counting seconds between breaths,” I say.

Her smile is small and private. “Okay, that’s weird.”

“Protective,” I correct, because if I don’t keep up the line, it blurs. “Wheels-up in ninety. Side elevator, loading dock, service lane. We hold hands through the lobby.”

She stretches, cat-slow, and I look away on purpose. “Cover,” she says.

“Cover,” I echo, and it tastes like a lot of other things.

Lobby is a hive. Word got out like it always does.

A crowd pools near the rotating doors. Paparazzi hang back like carrion birds, long glass pointed at the desk.

A fan in a varsity jacket is already crying quietly into a phone.

The moment we clear the elevator, every head swivels like we tripped a switch.

I take her hand. It’s small and warm and fits like it’s been here awhile. “Eyes up,” I say. “Walk like you belong.”

“With my boyfriend,” she says, mouth curving into the sexiest smile I’ve ever seen.

I build us a lane with shoulders and silence.

Rae threads in my ear: “ Three cameras at eleven o’clock.

One guy on your six with a messenger bag—watch the hands.

” I angle us so messenger has no angle. People press in, smell like hairspray and coffee and want.

A girl shoves a phone at Vanessa and sputters, “I love you—is he?—?”

“Lucky,” Vanessa says with a little wink. I snort before I can stop it. The girl squeals and drops her phone. I catch it one-handed, hand it back, and don’t break stride. The crowd thinks it’s grace, I know it’s training.

The SUV doors close on adrenaline. I don’t let go of her hand until we’re rolling. When I do, I miss it like a piece of kit I left behind on a bad day.

“You’re getting good at this,” she says, studying me as if there’s a quiz later.

“At not getting trampled?” I check mirrors. “Practice.”

“At being my boyfriend,” she says. Heat curls low in me. I look back to the glass.

“It’s definitely easier than I thought it’d be.”

“You’ve thought about being my boyfriend?”

I smile like she’s just solved all my secrets in one shot. “Maybe,” I whisper.

She leans into her seat and looks at our hands like she can still feel it. “Maybe sounds like a yes.”

I give her a half-smile. “Maybe once or twice I’ve thought about what it would be like to be yours.”

Her breath catches, and her cheeks tinge pink. “Oh,” she says all sorts of breathless. “Maybe I’ve thought about it too.”

Pride swims through me at a rapid pace, and I smile, trying my best to think about the mission and nothing else.

But it’s nearly impossible with the most beautiful woman in the world sitting in the back of this SUV with me.

There’s more drizzle at the airport. Does it ever stop raining?

We take the staff lane to ticketing, cut behind a wall of advertising that sells things nobody needs, and hit PreCheck like ghosts with boarding passes.

Handholding reads like entitlement in an airport, which buys you a different kind of respect.

It also keeps people from stepping into your soft spots.

Rae: Lounge is quiet. Gate C5 has two long lenses. Gate C3 has one kid filming for clout.

Jaxson: Sent decoy posts to a burner that “you” forgot to delete. Enjoy the chaos.

My phone buzzes again.

Dean: Use the cover. Keep tight circles. Send me a plate if you see that white van’s cousin.

Copy.

We sit in a corner of the lounge with our backs to a wall disguised as Scandinavian wood.

She peels her sunglasses up into her hair, and orders a ginger ale.

I take coffee. A barista drops two cups on our low table with a smile too big for this hour.

I tip well enough that she’ll remember that and not my face.

Vanessa wraps both hands around her cup. Something in her shoulders drops a notch. “I forgot what boring felt like,” she says, almost to herself.

“Boring is underrated,” I tell her. “Boring gets you home.”

“And home is the point,” she says, eyes on mine. The space between us shortens without either of us moving. I let it. For a second.

She pulls the coffee sleeve down to check the logo and goes still. That hairline shift you learn to read if you live in rooms that can tilt. She doesn’t bolt. She slides the cup toward me with two fingers.

The sleeve has been cut and re-glued so clean most eyes wouldn’t see it. Underneath: a strip of paper with block letters glued on. WINDOW LEFT, GINGER ALE. SEE YOU OVER THE ROCKIES.

My body goes quiet in the good/bad way. I hold it up and snap a picture, and then slide off the sleeve to bag it. Vanessa’s voice is steady when she says, “Only one person calls me Ginger Ale.”

“Kellan?” I ask. She nods, not looking away from the table.

“Kellan Stevens,” she says, and the way she says the last name is like she’s trying to forget everything about him. “Photographer. Ex. On and off too long. Charming until he wasn’t. All the ways. He liked that I was ‘on’ all the time because he could live in the light without earning it.”

“How long ago?”

“Three months,” she says. “Final-final. I blocked him. He sent flowers to my building and left a playlist on my car. I moved my car to a garage. He…went quiet.” She swallows. “He knows I drink ginger ale if I’m anxious. He knows I like to sit in the window seats and count clouds.”

I’ve heard this story with different names and fewer syllables in places where playlists were the last nice thing a man did.

I key my mic. “Rae, spin up a full on Kellan Stevens. Former photog. Ties to brands. Pull travel, socials, purchases, associates, devices. Look for overlap with Caleb, our sponsor rep. Run him against yesterday’s Pine Street craft store pulls. ”

Rae doesn’t ask why. “On it,” she says. “Name’s familiar. Give me five.”

I watch Vanessa watch the cup. She’s not trembling. She’s not breathing right either. “Four by four,” I say, and we do it in silence. In, hold, out, hold. Four times. The buzz in my blood drops to a hum again. Hers does too.

“You okay?” I ask.

She nods. “I’m angry.”

“Good,” I say. “Anger we can work with.”

She nods again, jaw tight, then softens enough to give me a sideways look. “Are you jealous?” she asks, a thread of wicked in it.

“I’m focused,” I say. “Jealousy is a waste of a hand.” I lift mine. She threads her fingers through anyway. My focus tilts and finds new balance. “But if he’s our guy, he’s about to learn something about lines.”

“God, that’s hot,” she murmurs, which does nothing for my focus.

Rae is back, voice sharp. “ Kellan Stevens. Thirty-three. Freelance content shooter, occasional campaign consultant. Two harassment complaints last year—no charges. Shares two Slack workspaces and one Signal group with—ding ding—Caleb Lawson, your sponsor rep. Also used to shoot for Elodie four seasons ago—got fired for posting Behind-The-Scenes without clearance. Travel: Card hit at a coffee shop in Capitol Hill yesterday. Two blocks from your hotel. He posted an IG Story at midnight—cropped view of rain on glass with the caption ‘city that knows my name’. Tagged ‘#seeyousoon’ on a burner his friends follow. ”

“Pull his photo,” I say. “Push to Agent Turner. And alert hotel security to freeze footage from elevators, lounge, the side entrance we used.” I send the pic of the sleeve to Rae. “He got this under a barista, maybe a handoff. Check staff rosters.”

“ Already asking, ” Rae says. “ Jax? ”

Jaxson’s voice slides in. “ Grabbing MAC addresses from the lounge access points. If he touched Wi-Fi, I’ll shake him out. Also scraping the boarding-pass feed that shouldn’t be public but is because people love convenience. We’ll know if he’s booked to Denver within ten. ”

I ease the secure phone toward Vanessa with my free hand. “No posts until we’re in the air,” I remind her.

She nods. “Delayed. With an extra dollop of unbothered. ”

“Good.” I lower my voice because the thing is growing in my chest and I can’t fix it with a wedge. “You’re safe.”

Her brown eyes lift. Something eases behind them. “Because you’re here.”

“Because of the plan,” I correct, and she smiles like she knows which part I’m lying about.

Boarding. We move with the first wave—hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder.

Rae sends the gate manifest to my screen as we pass the scanner.

A name leaps. K. Stevens — B group. Jaxson murmurs, “ He bought late. Aisle seat, mid-cabin. If he boards, I’ll know the exact minute.

Turner’s team is also rolling to his last card hit. ”

“Copy,” I say. My voice feels thicker than usual. I put Vanessa in the window, take the aisle, plant my boots and my body where they belong. Passengers stream. Mothers, suits, a guy who smells like oranges, a girl with a ukulele I pray she won’t play.

B group starts. I sit forward, blocking the row, looking bored.

A man with a ball cap and the kind of beard that tries to hide pretty comes down the aisle, scanning numbers like he’s owned this cabin before.

Not Kellan. He sits. People shift bags. I watch a hundred hands without letting my eyes look like they’re working.

Jaxson: “ No show so far.” Rae: “Card just pinged at a newsstand on Concourse D. He’s not at your gate.”

I breathe out and keep the hypervigilance laced, not cinched.

We lift into the clouds. Vanessa’s fingers find mine under the armrest and stay.

I shouldn’t let them, but I do. We count the beats of the wheels clunking up and the way the plane puts its shoulder into the weather and wins.

When the cabin evens, I let go first and regret it. She doesn’t make it weird.

Two hours in, turbulence glances off us. She sips ginger ale. I look at the wing and the storm and think about a man who thinks he’s getting closer and how wrong he is.

She turns her head, voice low enough to be just mine. “Tell me something I don’t know about you.”

I consider giving her the safe version. But for some reason, I don’t. “I know how to braid hair,” I say. “Field hospital. Scared kid. No scissors.”

Her smile is slow and devastating. “God, you’re lethal.”

“Eat your pretzels,” I say, because if I don’t, I’ll kiss her in row 14 and we’ll have a different set of problems.

She eats two pretzels and puts the bag in my hand with streaks of her salt on my knuckles. And it feels like the most natural thing in the world. I don’t date. Not since I returned from the service. Never felt I deserved anyone, but Vanessa is making me change my mind about things.

And that’s dangerous.

Denver comes up brown and flat and full of angles. As we taxi, my phone buzzes.

Rae: Kellan’s phone just went dark on the D concourse. Turner’s team picked him up on camera buying the same brand of glue Hayes flagged. He’s wearing a cap and carrying a messenger bag. We’re pulling plates from the curb. He’s here.

“Good,” I say out loud. Vanessa doesn’t ask me to translate. She settles into the seat, the tension sliding off her in layers. I put my hand on her knee, brief, grounding. “We’re getting closer. Soon this will all be over.”

Her face falls a fraction, and mine does too. The thought of this being over does something to my chest I wasn’t prepared for. “Good,” is all she says in a hushed whisper, but I have to wonder if she thinks it’s good at all.

I know I sure fucking don’t.

“Remember, don’t act scared. Act light,” I say. “He hates that. That’s his problem.”

We disembark hand in hand. People stare. Some whisper. A kid in a brONCOS hoodie points and grins. I steer her with two fingers at the small of her back, a touch that does things it shouldn’t. She tilts her face up without breaking stride.

“Boyfriend lesson number two,” she says, eyes dancing. “Carry my bag so I can take selfies.”

“I’ll carry your bag,” I say, grabbing her carry-on and slipping it over my shoulder. “But no selfies.”

She laughs, bright enough to make three strangers smile without knowing why. “Worth a shot.”

Outside the jet bridge, Brice and Lina slot in, bright and prepared.

The driver texts the code for the side lane.

Jaxson pings me a route that dodges three clusters of cameras and two billboards that reflect too well.

Rae sends a still of Kellan from the concourse—cropped, grainy, smug. It makes a clean target.

“Rae,” I say, “flag Kellan Stevens to every venue coordinator, hotel security head, and driver on this leg. Turner gets an hour head start before we take our own run at him. And check for any contracts in his name with our sponsors. If Caleb and Kellan share more than a group chat, I want to know yesterday.”

“ Already peeling it, ” she says. “ Also… Vanessa’s reel? The gold lamé reel is at three million likes in two hours. ”

Hearing that does something to me. It shouldn’t, but it does. “Use it,” I say.

“ Copy, ” Rae says. “ Turning the algorithm into a net. ”

We move. Hands linked. Heads up. The cover buys us six feet of breathing room and a lot of pictures I’ll never see. The mission buys us time. Time buys us corners to own.

I tell myself the picture in my head—the dog, the mug, the stupid creak in a house that’s ours—is a trick the brain plays when it gets close to the end of something dangerous. Maybe. Or maybe it’s a plan.

“Hey, Beard Mountain,” she says as we cut left toward the private lane. “You look like you’re thinking about something.”

I can’t tell her that I’m picturing a simple life with her once this is all over. Nothing about Vanessa Mercado is simple.

And therein lies the problem.