THOMAS COLE'S POV
The morning sun in D.C. didn't rise; it interrogated. It cut through the heavy velvet curtains of the Saint Regis with a clinical, unforgiving brightness that made my head throb and my skin crawl with the memory of the night before.
I woke up before Enz, and it was a fucking was a reflex that the soldier in me never truly slept, even when the man had been thoroughly dismantled. I stayed still for a moment, listening to the synchronized rhythm of his breathing. It was a terrifyingly peaceful sound. In the dark, under the weight of his hands and the heat of the moment, I had convinced myself that this was a tactical necessity, a way to get close, to find the crack in the armor.
In the light, looking at the way his dark hair fell over his forehead and the lean, scarred muscles of his back, I knew that was a lie. I hadn't been an infiltrator. I had been a volunteer.
