Chapter 5: Reid

My phone buzzed at 0612.

I didn’t need to know who it was. No one else in this compound texted before sunrise unless something was on fire.

EVAN:

Didn’t know midnight strolls to recruit doors were mandatory now. Should I start knocking on random rooms for bonding opportunities, or was that just a you thing?

I stared at the screen for a long second. Annoyed. At Evan. At myself.

REID:

You have thirty seconds to delete that, or I revoke your internet privileges for a month.

Three dots appeared as soon as I pressed send.

EVAN:

Worth it! Also, she’s cute when she’s half asleep. Just sayin’.

I didn’t respond. I didn’t need to. He’d feel it later. Evan always did.

By the time I walked into the briefing room, caffeine burning through my veins and irritation riding shotgun, the team was already there.

Marcus had his boots hooked around the chair legs, posture relaxed but eyes sharp.

Luke sat with a mug in both hands, calm as a monastery.

Jonah was leaning against the wall, quiet, present, watching everything without seeming to. When I recruited him, I thought that was creepy, but we’re all used to it now.

And Alexis was sitting at the table beside Evan. Her back is facing me. I don’t think she heard me come in, so I had a chance to look at her without risking any of the awkwardness.

Too close.

Evan had his chair sideways toward her, one arm slung casually along the backrest. Too familiar, Evan.

Then I saw where his other arm was.

It was resting on her thigh.

Casual. Like it belonged there.

Something in my chest went tight and hot, sharp enough that I had to stop walking for half a second just to keep my face neutral.

I didn’t fucking like that.

Evan looked at Alexis and me, and following his gaze, finally noticed me. Her head tilted slightly as if confused—or maybe curious, I can’t tell—and my irritation tangled with something darker. She wasn’t flustered or apologetic. She looked… awake. Aware.

She stood up and sat down on the empty chair beside Evan. Her posture was relaxed, but her eyes were sharp. Her eyes not leaving mine, reading me, and something in her expression shifted.

Evan, noticing this, grinned at his tablet as if it had whispered a secret.

“Morning, Boss. Sleep well?”

I ignored him and pulled Lisbon up on the screen. I didn’t dare look at how Alexis reacted to that comment, but I can still feel her eyes on me.

“Focus up,” I said. Flat. Controlled.

The city bloomed across the display. Routes. Entry points. Civilian density. Places where the shadows behaved badly.

I started laying out the plan of how we were going to infiltrate Adrian Kovac’s warehouses in Lisbon.

Routes. Timelines. Entry points. Contingencies.

Alexis was honed in. Her eyes tracked the map, the data feeds, and the casualty reports stacked along the right side of the display. She wasn’t just listening. She was processing.

Then, she tilted her head. Just slightly. Like she was confused. Or concerned. I couldn’t tell.

Fuck! The way that made my knees almost buckle.

Get your shit together, Reid!

“Um—if I may interject,” she said quietly.

Not timid. Not hesitant. Controlled. I didn’t like how my attention snapped at her instantly. Too fucking quick.

“You’ve tried this strategy before,” she continued, eyes flicking to the archived mission failures scrolling beside the map. “Correct?”

“Yes,” I said. “And?” I didn’t bother softening it. She didn’t need kid gloves.

“And every time,” she went on unbothered, “Kovac shuts it all down before you can make actual progress?”

The room shifted

Marcus leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “He’s got the warehouses rigged on a suicide switch. Every time we get close, he blows them up.”

Alexis nodded once. Absorbing. Calculating.

“He conducts business through social events,” she said. “Charity galas. Private parties. Places where force looks out of place.”

I already knew where she was going with this, and I hated it.

“So why not go undercover?” She finished, like the answer had been sitting in front of us the whole time.

Marcus snorted. “Because none of us exactly scream high society.”

Alexis smiled.

“I can,” she said.

Silence.

Every single man in the room went still.

Evan’s grin froze halfway across his face. Luke’s brows knit, and then he looked at me. Jonah’s focus sharpened to a blade.

Sato, who had been quietly observing from near the door, lifted his gaze.

My blood went hot.

“Out of the fucking question!” I snapped.

Too fast. Too loud. The room snapped to attention and looked at me.

“We do not send people into operations we can’t extract them from,” I continued, jaw tight. “That is not a fucking option. I am not gambling with your life.”

Marcus and Evan exchanged a look, then looked back at me with smiles on their faces. I knew they caught what I just said. Damn it!

Alexis didn’t seem to have caught it. Good. But she didn’t back down. She just tilted her head again.

That goddamn tilt.

“You’ve already been gambling,” she said calmly. “You just prefer the odds when it’s buildings blowing up instead of people watching. And you have lost that bet every single time.”

The words landed clean. Almost surgical.

Marcus sucked in a breath. Evan’s eyes flicked between us like he was watching a tennis match he desperately wanted to record.

I stood up straight and started to move closer to her. “You don’t understand what Kovac does to people who get close.”

She stood her ground. “I understand exactly what he does,” she replied. “I understand what men like him do. How they operate. How they think. That’s why I’m suggesting it.”

She stepped closer. Her voice didn’t rise.

But mine did. I didn’t bother stopping it.

I took another step closer. I was getting heated.

“No, Harper,” I said. “There are too many blind spots. Too many variables. Absolutely fucking not.”

She took another step.

Now we were close enough that the room leaned in, every breath suddenly audible.

“It’s your only chance, Commander.” She said quietly.

I could feel her breath on my chest. The smell of her shampoo. Roses and citrus.

“That’s what I was brought here to do,” she continued. Then, without looking away from me, “Director Sato.”

She stepped back and finally turned toward him.

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath the entire time. And apparently, so was the rest of the team. I heard them collectively exhale when Alexis stepped back.

Sato didn’t speak right away. He was assessing the situation and, likely, trying to choose the most bureaucratic direction.

Then he stepped forward, hands still clasped behind his back, posture calm in that infuriating way men with real authority always have.

“Ms. Harper is correct,” he said.

Not one of the other four men in the room was surprised by Sato’s declaration. They knew that he was right. I knew he was right. But I wasn’t just about to give Alexis the satisfaction of saying, “I told you so.”

I turned my head slowly. “Jeremy—”

“You know she’s right, Reid,” he said sternly, cutting me off without raising his voice. “Your team has attempted direct disruption on Kovac six times. Each attempt has ended the same way. Warehouses destroyed. Evidence lost. Kovac untouched. What else have you got to lose?”

Marcus grimaced. Evan stopped grinning entirely, his head darting around as if to see if everyone else was seeing what he was seeing.

Sato’s gaze moved back to Alexis. “You were brought here precisely for this purpose. Your track record for undercover work is what stood out to the department.”

Then his eyes came back to me.

“And you,” he continued evenly, “were chosen to lead a unit because you know how to adapt without losing control.”

That was the line. Not ‘Reid, stand down.’ but ‘Reid, prove yourself.’

“I am obviously not authorizing a solo mission,” Sato added. “And I am not taking over Commander Calder. He will still make the calls. And ultimately, this is his mission to run.”

My jaw tightened.

He looks at Alexis.

“Is that understood, Miss Harper?” His voice was soft but stern.

Alexis nodded.

“This mission,” Sato continued, “will move forward only if Calder signs off on the parameters, contingencies, abort criteria, and extraction windows. He retains absolute authority. Is that understood?”

The room stayed quiet.

Alexis had her eyes trained on me, and mine on hers.

“Harper. Is that understood?” Sato repeated.

She nodded once. “Yes, sir.”

“Calder?” Sato looked at me. I didn’t dare take my eyes off Alexis.

“Understood,” I said quietly.

“Good.” Sato left after that.

The room stayed frozen for half a second after Sato left.

Then everything started moving again. Chairs scraped. Screens dimmed. Marcus muttered something under his breath. Evan let out a low whistle as if he had just watched a car crash he enjoyed a little too much.

Alexis didn’t move. She was still looking at me.

That somehow made it worse.

“Alright,” Marcus said finally, clapping his hands once. “This has been sufficiently awkward. I’m going to go be anywhere else but here.”

Evan leaned back in his chair, spinning it once. “For the record, boss, I had ten bucks on you losing your shit before coffee. You held out longer than expected.”

“Get out,” I said.

One by one they started leaving.

Marcus patted me on the back with a stifled smile, head shaking.

Evan looked at Alexis, took her hand and gave it a kiss. “Come on, cherie,” he said, quickly glancing at me. “Let’s get some breakfast.”

My jaw tightened some more. If I wasn’t careful, my jaw would probably break.

“Right behind you,” she replied.

Luke gave me a once over, and just like Marcus, had a quiet smile and was shaking his head.

I didn’t even see Jonah left but I knew he wasn’t in the room anymore.

Alexis lingered, her eyes still focused on me. She looked as if she was about to say something.

I wanted to grab her right then and there, bend her over, and show her just how frustrated she makes me.

The way she makes me want to kill anyone that touched her, even if it is Evan.

I wanted to punish her and then worship her entire being.

The crippling fear that I now have because she just volunteered herself to go undercover in the den of the most despicable man on the face of the planet. I have never felt this kind of fear before, and I have been face to face with a lot of evil fucking people.

She had literally rearranged my whole world the moment I saw her in that hallway.

Of course, I can’t fucking do any of those things.

Instead, I just stood there, fists clenched, jaw tight, and control fraying.

She took a deep breath and picked up her tablet.

“Reid,” she said.

My name sounded so fucking good on her lips.

She turned around and left. The door slid shut behind her.

Silence.

I stood there for a long moment, staring at the space she had occupied, my pulse still too fast, my jaw aching from being clenched too long.

“What the fuck?” I thought to myself.

I left the briefing room and walked straight back to my office.

The door sealed behind me. The hum of the computers, low and waiting.

I pulled up the mission framework. Kovac. Lisbon. Access points.

Then I pulled up Alexis Harper.

Personnel file. Clearance tree. Biometric permissions.

I stared at her name longer than I wanted to. Then an idea popped into my head.

“That’s an invasion of privacy, you idiot,” I muttered.

I hovered on the three little dots enclosed in a box beside her name.

ACCESS MANAGER

I clicked on it and started adding a secondary layer of code using my personal coding program so Evan can’t trace anything back to me—a shadow protocol tied directly to my credentials.

Live biometric monitoring.

Location tracking.

Audio proximity alerts.

Not full surveillance.

Just… enough to keep me satisfied that she’s safe. Enough to know where she was at all times. Enough to know if something went wrong. Enough to get to her before anyone else could.

I was fully aware that this was some next-level stalker shit. And if anyone found out, especially Alexis, I was fairly certain I would get fired, or worse.

My cursor hovered over the confirmation button.

I thought of her standing in front of me, calm and collected, telling me that this was what she had been brought here to do.

I thought of Kovac. Of men like him. Of what they can take and never give back.

I hit confirm, and the system accepted the command without hesitation.

Green check mark. Protocol active.

I leaned back in my chair, exhaled slowly, and stared at the screen as her status indicator showed me that she was in the kitchen.

I have the security cameras on a separate monitor, and I looked at the live footage of her by the stove, making something. I also saw Evan sitting on a barstool, watching her intently.

I didn’t feel guilty for what I just did. On the contrary, I felt relieved.

And as I sat there watching her interact with my team. Her smile was warm and comforting even through the camera.

I wanted her to smile at me like that.

I wanted to be able to touch her without any repercussions.

I wanted only her. All of her.