Page 47 of Iron Shield
Rome turned to Monk. “Bring in Jolie and Stina.”
He tried not to watch the doorway for the moment Stina entered. If he so much as blinked at her wrong, the guys would be all over it.
He fixed his stare on the laptop screen and tried to keep his face blank.
But the moment they entered, Rome’s head swung up automatically.
What they’d done hours ago—and he wanted to do again, dammit—wasn’t romance. It was pure, white-hot lust. Nothing more.
But the instant their gazes locked, he knew he couldn’t be more wrong.
For one brief heartbeat, neither of them looked away.
Then both of them found something far more interesting on the opposite side of the room.
Cannon motioned toward the screen. “Ladies, we need you to take a look at this image.”
Jolie and Stina stepped farther into the room, and Rome’s body swung toward her on its own.
Both women studied the image.
“Do you recognize the subject?” Cannon asked.
Jolie shook her head. “No.”
Stina studied the image longer. Finally, she turned to look at Cannon. “It’s too blurry to make out his face clearly, and there are a million men in the world with that build. I don’t recognize him.”
“You’ve never seen him in the restaurant?” Rome asked.
She didn’t look his way, as if she was trying not to. “I don’t think it’s the man in the restaurant, the one I dumped pizza on.”
“The image isn’t entirely clear, but I don’t believe it’s him,” Jolie agreed. “I remember his face.”
“Look again. It’s been a while,” Rome coaxed.
Stina gave that tip of her chin. “The man stood up and yelled at me in the middle of the restaurant. I remember everything about what he looked like. But I can’t tell from that image.”
Rome held her gaze for another beat, then nodded. He believed her. But believing her didn’t get them any closer to finding the man who killed the agent protecting her.
“I’ll work on the image,” O said. “Make it clearer.”
Cannon nodded. “You ladies can go. Thank you.”
Stina avoided glancing at Rome on her way out, and it took his mind a second to quit following her.
Cannon brought their focus back to the meeting. “All right. Then we move on.”
The image disappeared and O put the list of names they shared with all the Blackout teams onto the screen again, and they shifted from one op to another.
Cannon handed out jobs, splitting them into teams and assigning them targets to question. By the time he finished, everyone had a directive.
Cannon scanned the table. “Work your contacts. Follow the money. One of these people knows something.”
They fell quiet, because they all understood what he wasn’t saying.
On that list was a person connected to Echo’s weapons. And where Echo was concerned, every operator in Blackout had a score to settle.
“Let’s get to work,” Cannon said.
