Page 23 of Taking Savannah
I close my eyes and all I see is her.
Chapter Eight: Savannah
Emilioisgonefortwo nights, and I hate every second of it.
Not because I miss him. I don't miss people after a few days of knowing them. That's not how I work. It’s more that I miss the routine of him, the gym in the morning, the coffee he brings without being asked, the way the corridor feels less empty when he's three doors down and I can hear his music through the wall at midnight because the man has no concept of volume or consideration for others.
I miss the noise of him. The compound without Emilio is quieter in a way that makes me feel lonely.
Last night he left with four men in a black van. He didn't tell me he was going, which pissed me off, and then Claudio told me the next morning over coffee, which pissed me off more because getting mission updates from my not-boyfriend's twin brother was not how I planned to spend my Wednesday.
"He's fine," Claudio said, not looking up from the gun he was cleaning at the kitchen counter because apparently that's where people clean guns in this building, right next to the fruit bowl and Charlotte's cookie tray.
"I didn't ask."
"You were about to."
"I was about to ask where the sugar is."
"It's in the cabinet where it's been every morning since you arrived. You were about to ask about Emilio."
I grabbed the sugar and didn't respond because Claudio is a smug bastard, and arguing with him is pointless because he's always right and he knows it and he doesn't even have the decency to be an asshole about it. He's just always right, which is way fucking worse.
Thursday morning Emilio comes back. I know because I hear his boots in the corridor at five a.m. and his door opening and closing and the shower turning on, and I lie in my bed staring at the ceiling and listening to the pipes and feeling relief.
I don't go to him. He doesn't come to me. We meet in the kitchen at seven like we always do. He's got dark circles under his eyes, and his hair is still damp and he looks tired in a way that goes past sleep and into something heavier.
"Hey," he says.
"Hey."
"Miss me?"
"Not even a little."
"Yeah, me neither, little vixen, me neither." He grins, but it's at half power. Something happened at the marina that took the voltage out of him, and I don't push because I’ve learned that pushing Emilio when he's low is the wrong move. You wait. You let him fill the space when he's ready.
So, I pour him coffee. Black, no sugar, the way he drinks it when he's working instead of socializing. He takes it and drinks half in one go and then sets it down and looks at me.
"Leone's calling a briefing at nine. Full room. He wants you there."
"Me?"
"Your intel started this. He wants you in the room when we talk about what we found."
"What did you find?"
He doesn't answer. He picks up the coffee again and drinks the rest of it and the silence between us is the first one we've hadthat feels heavy instead of comfortable. Whatever he saw at that marina put something behind his eyes that wasn't there when he left, and I don't like it.
Nine a.m. and Leone starts with the surveillance results. Tuesday night, the Meridian Star arrived at the marina at ten-fifteen. Two men boarded, matching the descriptions I gave from the waterfront club. Vidal arrived separately at ten-forty in a sedan, boarded the boat, stayed forty minutes, left with a briefcase. All photographed, all documented.
Thursday night, same pattern. Different men boarding, same boat, same briefcase exchange. Vidal didn't appear Thursday, but the operation ran without him, which means he's not essential to the handoff itself. He's a pickup man, not the operator.
"We've got enough to move on Vidal whenever we want," Leone says. "But that's not the priority anymore."
He nods at Alexandra. She stands and turns the laptop toward the room.
"The Meridian Star is registered to Apex Meridian Holdings. Same parent entity as the Apex Meridian tech company that built the backdoors into our security systems." She pauses. "But the Holdings division isn't a tech company. It's registered as acommercial warehousing and logistics firm. They operate a port facility twelve miles south of the marina."
