Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 60768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 304(@200wpm)___ 243(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 304(@200wpm)___ 243(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Maddox’s expression doesn’t change, but I see the slight shift in his posture. “Complicated how?”
I look down at the table for a moment, then back up at him. There’s no point in hiding it now. “I care about him. More than I should. Things happened. Real things. I wasn’t using him. Not the way you think. I was trying to protect him while still doing my job. I didn’t know Marlo would turn on me like this.”
The door opens again. One of Maddox’s men leans in and murmurs something to him. Dean nods once and stands.
“We’ll continue this later,” he says. “For now, you stay here. We’re verifying your story.”
He leaves without another word, the door clicking shut behind him with finality. I’m alone again in the small, sterile room. The silence presses in on me. My mind races back to Poe. Is he okay? Is he hurt? Does he hate me now that he knows the truth? The thought of him believing I was just using him makes my chest tighten painfully.
I drop my head into my hands, the cuffs clinking against the table. Everything feels like it’s crumbling. Marlo’s betrayal. Serafina’s operation. The way I let myself fall for Poe in the middle of all this chaos. I was supposed to be the one in control. The undercover agent playing the long game. Instead I’m sitting here in cuffs, wondering if the man I care about is safe and whether he’ll ever look at me the same way again.
The minutes stretch into what feels like hours. I replay every conversation with Marlo, every instruction, every moment I trusted her. How did I miss the signs? How did I not see that she was playing her own game?
The door opens again. This time it’s not Dean Maddox. It’s one of his men, carrying a bottle of water. He sets it in front of me without a word and leaves. I don’t touch it. I just sit there, staring at the gray wall, waiting.
Waiting for answers.
Waiting for Poe.
Waiting to see if anything I built over the last year was real, or if it was all just another layer of the same lie.
And in the quiet of the interrogation room, with my wrists cuffed and my heart aching, I make a silent promise to myself.
If I get out of this, I’m going to expose Marlo.
I’m going to finish what I started.
And I’m going to find a way to make things right with Poe.
No matter what it costs me.
THIRTY-ONE
POE
The interrogation room feels smaller with every passing second, the gray concrete walls pressing in like they are slowly squeezing the air out of my lungs. I sit at the metal table, wrists still faintly red and stinging from the zip-ties they cut off when they brought me in, and my mind is a complete storm. I can’t stop replaying the warehouse in my head: the explosion, Ozzy’s voice cutting through the smoke, the way Orchid’s eyes locked on mine as Maddox’s men pulled her away. She looked shocked. Scared. But not for herself. For me. For us. I need to know she’s okay. I need to know what Dean Maddox thinks of her story. Most of all, I need to know if the team believes her, because if they don’t, I don’t know how I’m going to convince them that the woman I’ve fallen for isn’t the enemy.
I care about her. Deeply. More than I ever expected to in the middle of this nightmare. It started as something physical, something raw and desperate in that safehouse, but it’s grown into something else. The way she took control, the way she called me her good boy and made me feel seen and wanted for the first time in years, the way she looked at me like I was more than just a tool to be used. She’s not Serafina’s loyal enforcer. She’s something more complicated, something trapped in the same web I’ve been fighting against. I saw the cracks in her armor. The hesitation when I refused the hack. The softness in her voice when she talked about her grandmother. The genuine shock in her eyes when Marlo walked into that warehouse like she owned it. She’s not the villain here. She never was.
The door finally opens with a quiet electronic beep. Dean Maddox steps inside, closing it behind him with a firm click. He looks exactly like the man I have always respected: tall, composed, carrying the weight of an entire empire on his shoulders without showing a single crack. He pulls out the chair across from me and sits down, placing a thin folder on the table between us. His eyes meet mine, patient but direct, the kind of gaze that makes you want to confess everything before he even asks a question.