Hidden Impact (Safeguard #1)(60)

He considered, sifting through old and bitter memories. The whole sharing thing was coming easier than he’d thought it would with her, but it still wasn’t what he’d call easy. “Somebody kept me because it was the right thing to do. And they gave me some good perspective on life. But I wouldn’t say there was more than that.”

His foster family hadn’t kept in touch once he’d turned eighteen. Not even letters during basic training.

“So this team is your family now. You watch out for them, make sure they all get out of danger before you do.” Maylin was still busy working with her batter, steaming those...things. Her other pot simmered and filled the kitchen with an incredibly delicious smell, some sort of soup. He wanted her to be a part of his life more than he’d ever wanted anything else. His team was family. She’d become more.

“Don’t tell them.” None of them were the sort to say that kind of thing. Part of the reason each of them functioned in the team was because, while they’d lay their lives down for each other, they also understood not to waste those lives. To go on if they had to. “But yeah, I guess so. We’re there for each other. Most people with actual families don’t fall into this kind of work.”

“Families by blood. You all are an actual family too, by choice.”

He didn’t argue with her because it resonated with him. Truth. Even if there were some complications in there.

“You’re all good people.” Maylin was setting out bowls and filling them with those white segments unraveled.

Well, shit, she’d made noodles from scratch.

*

“Whatever is going on in the kitchen, it smells like heaven!” Marc called from the front door.

Maylin met Gabe’s brooding gaze and smiled, hoping to lighten up the dark place he’d gone to. “Perfect timing.”

His answering lopsided grin tugged at her. “Yeah.”

She busied herself ladling clear broth from her pot into each bowl of noodles, making sure each of them had a good helping of the ground pork and vegetables she’d included. Ho fun soup was one of her favorite comforts, and considering the confused state she’d been in when she’d woken, comfort was definitely on the menu.

One phone call last night and their fortune had changed. All they needed to do was actually find An-mei and they could get her back. Nothing should’ve dampened that hope.

But she teetered back and forth between wanting to hug Gabe and to put as much distance between them as humanly possible.

When he’d brought her inside and told her about Harte’s call, he hadn’t expected everything to have been repaired between them. If he had, they would’ve been finished. But it was because he’d understood it didn’t erase her feelings, the break of trust, that she was struggling to decide what they were now.

He’d made his intent clear: he wanted to repair what was between them and explore even further once this nightmare was over.

And most of her wanted it too. There was a tiny part of her warning of betrayal and whispering about keeping secrets. She didn’t want to turn to someone she was supposed to be able to trust and have them turn away from her. Wasn’t sure she could survive Gabe turning away from her.

Coward.

Yup. She was.

“We have news and we are starving.” Marc came into the kitchen full of barely contained energy, giving Maylin a rakish grin. Victoria and Lizzy were barely a step behind.

Gabe had already closed his laptop and moved it out of the way, so Maylin started putting their bowls up on the breakfast counter for them.

“One of these days, perhaps we should use an actual table.” Victoria perched on a stool despite her words and leaned forward to take in the scent of the steam rising from her bowl.

“Do you ever have time?” Maylin placed spoons and forks across each bowl. “Normally we’d go with chopsticks, but there aren’t any here besides the ones I use for cooking.”

“With food this good, we should start making time.” Victoria sipped delicately and closed her eyes, uttering a hum of appreciation. After a moment she looked around again and nudged Marc. “We could stock chopsticks, couldn’t we?”

“There were way more kinds of chopsticks than I thought possible when I looked.” Marc set his fork and spoon aside in favor of picking up his bowl and sipping straight from the rim. Totally okay in Maylin’s opinion. She did the same when she was alone in her apartment. “Plastic ones, metal ones, wood ones. Some of them were pointed at the end. No clue which kind worked best and I wasn’t about to get the disposable ones we get from Chinese takeout places.”

Maylin warmed at the thought he’d put behind it. “I’m all about whatever works.”

Besides, she wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be here. Or if she’d be a regular visitor...after.

There would be time to think on it later, closer to when they’d gotten through it all. But now there were much more important things.

“What did you find out?” Maylin couldn’t touch her bowl, even though she’d mostly decided to make this dish for herself.

Marc glanced at Gabe before answering her. “Your sister isn’t in the California facility. We suspected as much the last time we checked in and this trip confirmed it.”

“But Phoenix Biotech had quite a few interdepartmental communications going by actual physical mail to locations throughout the US.” Victoria tossed the information out there between noodles. “It’s very likely she’s being kept at one of three of those, judging by the lengths taken to secure the envelopes and then make them look like normal mail.”