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When she disappeared down the hallway, a subtle clearing of a throat pulled me back to reality. I turned to find Zeke watching me, his hands still busy with his plants, but his eyes seeing far too much.

“She seems different this morning,” Zeke observed quietly, snipping dead blooms from what looked like lavender.

“Different how?”

He paused, considering the plant rather than looking at me. “Lighter,” he finally said. “Like she set something down that she’s been carrying too long.”

I moved closer to his garden area, drawn by the peaceful energy. “You’ve been with the crew a long time?”

“Two years, give or take.” Zeke’s fingers were gentle as they assessed new growth, but his eyes held something deeper when he glanced at me. “Long enough to know Annabella doesn’t usually let her guard down like she did last night. Not with anyone.”

“Is that a bad thing?” I kept my tone casual, though my wolf was suddenly very interested in the answer.

“Not bad. Just… rare.” He glanced toward the hallway where Annabella had disappeared. “She carries a lot of weight. Sometimes, I think she forgets she’s allowed to be happy.”

Happy. I wasn’t sure I remembered what that felt like, either. Not since the Milton Pack… No. I couldn’t allow myself to think about that, not while I was on an operation.

“This place,” I said, gesturing around the loft. “It feels like…”

“Home?” Zeke finished, a knowing smile softening his features. “I know. Took me months to stop waiting for it to be taken away.”

“For what to be taken away?” Annabella’s voice made us both turn. She’d changed into dark-wash jeans that hugged her curves and a forest-green sweater that made her eyes look more gold than brown. Her hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail, revealing the graceful line of her neck.

“My heart, darlin’,” Zeke replied with an exaggerated wink. “I was just telling Felix how all the ladies fall for my irresistible plant-whisperer charm.”

Annabella’s snort was inelegant and completely genuine. “Right. Because nothing says ‘catch of the day’ like a man who has hour-long conversations with his basil plant.”

“Hey, they talk back,” Zeke protested with mock offense. “Much better conversationalists than most people. Less judgy, too.”

“That, I can believe.” She grabbed a set of keys from the counter. “I’m heading out for the day,” she announced.

“Want backup?” I asked.

“No.” The word came out sharp. “I mean, it’s nothing dangerous. Just… Stuff I have to catch up on.”

The sudden evasiveness set off every instinct I had. My wolf came fully alert, hackles raised with protective interest that had nothing to do with my mission parameters.

“You’ll be back when?” Lydia materialized in her doorway like an apparition, somehow looking runway-ready at six in the morning. Not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle in her silk blouse.

“Late afternoon. Maybe evening.”

“I hear you’re going out?” Duke stepped out of his room.

Annabella inhaled deeply, her expression cycling through annoyance, affection, and resignation in rapid succession.

“I love you all dearly, but I’m the team leader. I’m going out; I don’t need to tell you where or for how long, and no, I do not need backup.” She fixed me and then Duke with a pointed look that would have withered lesser men. “Stay out of trouble for one day. Think you can manage that?”

“Of course,” Duke said, but there was a hint of hurt in his voice.

Annabella headed for the elevator, then paused at the doors. For a moment, she looked back at us—at me—with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Vulnerability, maybe. Or uncertainty.

“Just…” she started, then shook her head. “Never mind. I’ll see you tonight.”

The elevator doors slid shut with a soft mechanical hiss, leaving the rest of us suspended in awkward silence. No one moved, as if waiting for someone else to acknowledge what had just happened.

I’d been here six weeks, and Annabella had never taken off for the day. I stood there feeling like I’d somehow missed an important memo when Mira’s door flew open with a bang that made us all jump.

“Morning, sunshines!” she announced cheerfully, bouncing into the main area wearing blindingly pink pajama pants covered in smiling tacos and a shirt that read, “I’m not arguing.

I’m just explaining why I’m right.” Her rainbow hair stuck up at impossible angles, and she had what looked like keyboard marks pressed into her left cheek.

She looked around at our faces: Duke scowling from his doorway, Lydia’s arched eyebrow of disapproval, Zeke’s studied fascination with his basil plant, and whatever the hell was showing on my face.

“Wow, who died? And—” Her eyes swept the room with increasing alarm.

“Where’s Annabella? Please tell me there is coffee because I will literally die without caffeine, and my brain is already operating at like seventeen percent capacity and—” Her gaze locked onto the mug in my hands like a heat-seeking missile.

“Oh, bless you, Felix, you beautiful caffeinated angel; please tell me there’s more where that came from. ”

I jerked my head toward the espresso machine. “Annabella went out for the day.”

“Cool, cool. Personal business or mission stuff?” Mira was already rummaging through the cabinet for her favorite mug—a massive ceramic unicorn head with a rainbow horn that doubled as the handle.

“I’m guessing personal,” Zeke said diplomatically.

“And she didn’t say where?” Mira pressed, filling her unicorn with enough espresso to power a small city.

“She doesn’t have to,” Duke growled, though his tone suggested he thought otherwise.

“Hmm.” Mira dumped three heaping spoons of sugar into her coffee, transforming it into something that barely qualified as a liquid.

“Not like Annabella to go off-grid without intel sharing. But okay! So, we’re having a lazy day?

” Her eyes lit up with a manic gleam that promised nothing about the day would be remotely lazy.

“Because I found this super interesting back door into the Kansas City municipal database last night, and I’ve been dying to poke around their internal security protocols since—”

“Mira,” I interrupted before she could finish what was undoubtedly a confession to multiple federal offenses. “Maybe save the criminal activities for after breakfast?”

She grinned, unrepentant. “You say criminal; I say civic improvement through ethical vulnerability exposure.” She hoisted her unicorn mug in a toast. “Potato, po-tah-to.”

I couldn’t help the smile tugging at my lips. For an undercover operation, this team was dangerously close to making me forget why I was there.