Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
“Nate—” I say, though I’m trying to figure out the best way out of this, out of here. When shit went down at the warehouse, part of me wondered if it had been him—it had been too chaotic to tell and I ran at the first opportunity. And if that was the case then my cover was already blown. But seeing him with my notebook means it’s not just blown, it’s absolutely imploded.
“Don’t you even try that,” he says, his voice like steel. “Don’t say my name like that. Like we’re still—” He laughs, and the sound makes my blood run cold. It’s borderline manic. “Like any of it was real.”
My back hits the wall. Nowhere left to go.
God, I hope Bayo is listening right now.
Vanguard closes the distance between us, planting one hand beside my head, leaning in close. Close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his body, smell wind and ozone and something darker underneath.
Something like violence, barely contained.
I have to think my way out of this before it’s too late and yet I can’t remember any contingency plans, can’t remember much of anything because the anger and the hurt and the million emotions that are tearing at him in front of my eyes are stealing my ability to be rational, to be the agent I need to be.
“I was at the warehouse tonight,” he says quietly.
Well, that confirms it.
“Watched the whole thing,” he says. “You’re quite the little killer, aren’t you? Maybe that should be your new nickname, huh? I mean, that knife work was impressive. Professional. You didn’t feel a thing, did you? Not a moral bone in that body.”
My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat. “Let me explain—”
“Explain what?” He picks up the notebook and waves it at me before he tosses it onto the bed. “How you seduced me for information? How every confession I gave you went straight back to, what, British intelligence?” He’s shaking now, tremors running through his massive frame, like a volcano about to erupt. “How you were evaluating me? Deciding whether I needed to be eliminated?”
Oh god, oh god.
“It wasn’t—”
“I. Heard. Everything.” His other hand comes up, caging me completely. “At your little safehouse. Your friends, your fellow spies, whatever they are. I heard what you are. What you were sent to do.” His face twists. “If London decides he’s a threat, you know what you might have to do. That’s a direct quote, sweetheart. From the woman you work with.”
I can feel the blood drain from my face. He was there. Invisible, listening to everything. He heard Kat’s warning, heard me defend him, followed me from Red Hook.
“I killed a dozen men for you tonight,” he goes on, eyes boring holes into me. “Tore them apart with my bare hands. And the whole time, you were lying to me. The whole time, you were planning how to kill me if your masters gave the order.”
“That’s not—”
“Emotional attachment forming despite countermeasures.” He throws my own words back at me, quoted from the notebook. “Countermeasures. You had countermeasures in place to keep yourself from caring about me. Like I was a disease you were trying not to catch.”
“Most of those notes were from the beginning!” The words tumble out, desperate. “Before I really knew you, before I—”
“Before what?” He leans closer, his lips nearly brushing my ear. “Before you realized I was useful? Before you figured out how to manipulate me for maximum intel extraction?”
“Before I fell for you, you bloody idiot!”
The words ring in the silence between us.
His expression falters for a second. A crack in that fiery ice that lets something raw and wounded peek through before it’s sealed back up again.
“Fucking lies,” he seethes, but there’s less certainty in his voice now. “Everything you told me was a lie.”
“Not everything.” I hold his gaze, willing him to see past the spy to the woman underneath. “The mission was real. The cover was real. But what I felt—what I feel—that’s real too.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that?” he says that with an acidic huff.
“I don’t know.” My voice cracks. “I don’t know what you’re supposed to believe or what you want to believe. But I’m telling you the truth.”
He stares at me for a long moment, something unreadable moving behind his eyes.
Then his hand shoots out and closes around my throat, squeezing ever so slightly. A reminder of what he can do.
Of what he has done.
Suddenly I hear Bayo in my ear. “Uh, Mia I just caught the end of that. Are you okay?”
I freeze.
Nate freezes. His nostrils flare.
He fucking heard that.
He fucking heard Bayo!
“What is that?” Vanguard growls, his laser focus going to my earrings as Bayo calls out my name again.
“Mia, do you copy?”
The realization that my earrings are comms, that people have been listening every time I wear them, dawns on Vanguard’s face. His expression turns uglier than I ever thought possible. It’s like he transforms into someone else entirely.