The air between them crackled.
And just like that, she knew. Hehadwanted to kiss her. It hadn’t been her imagination.
Yes, please,she wanted him to ask. The thought had invaded her dreams more than once.
You should keep moving.
Yes. No…Shoot—what did she want?
Before she could respond, something caught her eye.
Her bus door hung slightly ajar.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She sprinted toward it, Liam’s footsteps pounding behind her. She flung the door wide, and her breath lodged in her throat.
Chaos. Papers scattered, her chair overturned, one monitor spiderwebbed with cracks. A glass shattered in lethal shards on the floor.
Her stomach lurched.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Liam’s growl filled the space as he stepped inside. “Who would do this?”
Her gaze locked on the counter where a small brown box sat untouched amid the destruction. Sealed shut, Liam’s name sprawled across it in black Sharpie.
“I bet it’s those teens.” Liam moved toward it. “They probably figured out you gave me the photos. I’ll?—”
“Wait.” She grabbed his arm, nearly tackling him. Trackers. Coco’s warning. If that package connected to the files…“Don’t touch it.”
Confusion flickered in his blue eyes before his expression went blank, reading her panic. “What aren’t you telling me, Nim?”
Words lodged in her throat. The weight of everything—her past, the files, her feelings for him, the life she’d been running from—crashed down, smothering her. For the first time in years, she had no idea how to keep moving forward.
“Nim?”
Her name snapped her back. She turned, started collecting some of the glass shards, her hands trembling. She didn’t look at him. “Could be nothing. But I’ve been hiding here because I ticked off some Russians.”
A pause from the man behind her.
So maybe moving on would have been the better choice.
“Russians? Like Putin?”
She looked over at him, nodded. “Can you hand me that trash bag?”
He picked it up and started shaking it out.
“Not government. More like organized crime.”
“The Russianmobis after you?” His eyes widened.
“No…Yes…It’s complicated.” She moved to drop glass into his bag when a shard sliced across her palm.
She jerked her hand back. “Ah, shoot!” Blood pooled in the gash, then dripped onto one of the cushions.
She reached for a towel, but Liam scooped it up and took her hand. He inspected it, then pressed the towel against the blood. “You need stitches.”
He was right, but butterfly bandages and superglue would have to suffice. “I can’t have my name in any digital system. TheRussians can hack anything. Which is why I should probably”—she swallowed, then managed the words, somehow—“move on.”
Liam looked at her. Really looked at her. The kind of look that reached in and grabbed hold of her, stilled the terrible, lonely trembling inside. His eyes were a wash of blue and heat and strength.