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“No,” Dev said. “Quentin Gaines, the guy from Last Light Security who upgraded our security in the penthouse, did the same downstairs. Right now, its fingerprint enabled, and if we need more than that, we can go from there.”

That much security would have seemed like overkill, even to a cop like her, but given recent events, it seemed pretty damn warranted.

She disconnected and changed out of her leggings and T-shirt and into what she considered her SMS uniform: slacks with a T-shirt topped by a blazer. She’d always thought it made her look like a homicide detective, especially the Rockports that didn’t look quite as tactical as what they wore on the street, and headed for the door.

Crosstown traffic was light, and she made it to the Strip quickly, left her car in the parking complex, then took the short walk to the Zephyr. The mixed-use casino, hotel, and condo tower was fancy, but she’d grown used to it with as much time as they’d spent there of late.

Her phone pinged with an incoming text from Dev. She fished it out and looked at his words with dismay.

When you get a second, can you check on Benny? Beth and Tate are up there now, but they may want a break. Hell, he may want a break from them.

She took a deep breath, let it out. I’m strong enough to handle this.

She shot him back a thumbs-up, then groaned when the three dots indicated another incoming text.

Why don’t you work from up there? While we’re figuring out a plan, someone needs to be with him. Until your IA investigation is resolved, this seems like the best of both worlds.

Jordan suppressed a sharp laugh as she entered the posh lobby. Yeah, he would think that. She was at loose ends, and Benny needed watching. To him, it was the model of efficiency, and the man did like to control everything.

Of course, Devin had no idea that before Benny “died,” he’d proposed to Jordan, and they’d agreed to get hitched in a chapel down the street, married by an Elvis impersonator, no less. They thought it would be funny to spring their relationship on the whole group by inviting them out for a drink and then detour them to the chapel. She’d even bought the dress.

Now Benny didn’t remember a damn thing of it. Yeah, this was going to be easy. Not.

Jordan stepped into the elevator and activated the penthouse suite with her thumbprint. They were going to have to do better than that, she thought, as she wondered idly whether the people behind all of this nanotech stuff had considered whether someone could grow back a finger. Because it would be damn handy to cut off someone’s thumb, use it to gain entry and know they’d sprout a new one. But, she mused as she rode up at what felt like warp speed, theoretically the thumbprint would be different.

Which was a really disgusting way to divert her attention from the fact that she was going to have to face Benny again, less than twelve hours after she’d left the first time. She had no idea what to do. She had even less of an idea how to feel about it. Her cry from earlier in the day had wrung her out, and now she was just resigned.

Avoiding Benny forever wasn’t an option, but she’d hoped to have a bit more time to process before she interacted with him again. Before she had to put her game face on and pretend that everything was normal. That she was just now starting to feel more than heart-shredding grief and a dull haze of whatever for everything but her job after his ‘death.’

Pretending to be merely happy that he was back in her life, in all their lives, was going to be a bitch of a thing to do, but until he remembered what they’d been to each other, she was going to have to.

She’d never, ever thought herself a coward, but in this instance, with the possibility of having her heart shredded again so soon after she’d begun to finally heal, she totally was.

Normally she was more of a fighter than that, but in this case she just couldn’t lose again. Not at that level.

The doors swished open with a barely audible hiss, and she stepped into the foyer, then pushed through the double doors into the penthouse. Benny, Beth, and Tate were all sitting at the breakfast bar, sipping iced tea and chatting.

“Hey, Jordan,” Tate said. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

“Dev sent me up. With the investigation, I’m pretty much dead in the water when it comes to work, so I’m going to vet job requests that have come in, see if anything’s worth our time and effort. If you guys need a break, I can hang out with Benny.” There. That hadn’t sounded at all forced, had it?

“Oh, we’re fine,” Beth said, but Tate nodded in agreement with Jordan’s suggestion.

“Thanks,” he said. “If nothing else, we’ll catch a bit more sleep in the back room. I don’t think Beth is quite ready to leave yet.”

Beth started to protest, but it faded out when Tate reached out and ran one big hand down her arm. “This is a marathon, babe, not a sprint. You grabbed a few hours earlier, now let’s go top that off. He’s not going anywhere, and we’ll need our rest if the past few weeks have been any indication.”

The fact that they were staying seemed to win her over, and so she nodded, stood, and dropped a kiss on her brother’s cheek, then walked down the hallway with Tate.

Jordan forced herself to assess Benny. He looked better than when he’d shown up that morning. His color was good, his eyes troubled, but bright.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, propping a hip against the breakfast bar, carefully keeping a good six feet of distance between them. It was that or she would throw herself into his arms and beg him to remember. And Jordan Gonzalez was not a begging kind of woman.

He assessed her right back, his gaze darting over her features, his expression perturbed. But he answered her question readily enough. “I’m feeling fine. Obviously better than I have any right to. Beth said she was having twin pains so bad she thought she was dying.” He sat in silence for a moment, then continued. “I didn’t want to say it in front of her, but I think they killed me. And I think they did it more than once.”

~

Why in the hell had he opened up to her like that? That was something he should have told Tate before Beth joined them. But somehow the words had just been there, waiting to be said. So why had they come out with Jordan, and why was he fighting the urge to reach out and pull her into his arms?