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)
“Good.” I stand, smoothing my hands over my hips one last time. The silk ripples under my palms, cool and slippery. “Any updates on the Prometheus data?”
“Still decrypting the restricted files, but what we’ve got so far…” He pauses. “It’s ugly, Mia. Whatever they’re doing, it’s not just enhancement anymore. And there’s a reference to something called Phase Five—dated 2038. Same year Vanguard went public.”
“Keep digging,” I say. “I’ll see what I can find tonight.”
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. I cross the room to check it, my heels sinking into the plush carpet with each step.
Vanguard’s texted me. Downstairs. Take your time.
Despite everything—the mission, the intel, the growing certainty that my feelings for Vanguard are borderline inappropriate—I can’t help but smile. Can’t help that my stomach flutters like a net full of butterflies.
“Vanguard’s here,” I tell Bayo. “Going dark on receive.”
“Copy that. We’ll be listening. And Mia?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful. There will be a lot of monsters at this event. They often wear the most expensive suits.”
“Got it.” I twist my left earring to the right. From now on, he can hear me, but I can’t hear him—not until I find somewhere private enough and far enough from Vanguard’s ears to risk opening the channel again.
I grab my clutch, check my reflection one last time, and head for the elevator.
The Meridian is waiting at the curb when I step outside, sleek and impossible, hovering three feet above the pavement in a feat of gravity manipulation. The night air is crisp against my bare shoulders, raising goosebumps along my arms, and I’m suddenly very aware of how much skin I’m showing. The doorman stares as I walk past. A woman on the sidewalk actually stops mid-stride to gawk. I have to fake my confidence, but it seems to be working.
Danny, Vanguard’s handler, stands beside the car in a chauffeur’s uniform, and his eyebrows shoot up when he sees me.
“Holy shit,” he says.
“That a good shit or that a bad shit?”
“That’s a holy shit.” He opens the rear door with a flourish and gives me a wicked grin. “Boss is gonna lose his mind.”
I hope so.
I duck into the back seat, careful not to snag the silk, and there he is.
The boss.
Vanguard.
I slide in next to him, his wide, imposing frame taking up most of the spacious car, and suddenly, it’s like all the air has been knocked from my lungs, like he’s too close, and it’s all closing in on me.
Doesn’t help that he looks sexy as sin.
The tuxedo fits like it’s been sewn directly onto his body—black fabric straining across those ridiculous shoulders, the white shirt crisp against his throat, a black bow tie that somehow makes him look both elegant and dangerous. His dark hair is swept back from his face, his beard trimmed close, and when his eyes land on me, they go wide for just a moment before darkening into something that makes heat pool low in my belly.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathes.
“Is that a compliment or a prayer?”
“Both,” he says, his voice thickening. His gaze travels down my body slowly, deliberately, lingering on the neckline in a way that makes my nipples tighten beneath the silk. I watch him swallow, watch his jaw clench, watch the way his hands flex against his thighs like he’s physically restraining himself from reaching for me. “I thought you were a journalist, but it turns out, you’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”
“If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.”
The words come out sharp—and too close to the truth—but he just laughs, low and rough, as Danny climbs into the driver’s seat and lifts us smoothly into the sky.
The sensation is still strange—that moment of weightlessness, the city dropping away beneath us like a dream. I grip the edge of the leather seat as Manhattan sprawls out below. The Empire State Building slides past on our right, close enough that I can see tourists on the observation deck, pointing at us.
“I could’ve flown you myself,” Vanguard says. “Would’ve been faster.”
“And ruined my hair? No thank you.”
“Your hair looks…” He trails off, his eyes catching on my exposed neck, the hollow of my throat. I watch his tongue dart out to wet his lips. “Yeah. Let’s not ruin it.”
The car hums around us, a cocoon of leather and quiet luxury. The seats are warm beneath my thighs, heated to ward off the autumn chill. Through the tinted windows, the city lights paint shifting patterns across Vanguard’s face—gold, then blue, then red.
“You’re quiet,” he says after a moment, though it doesn’t do much to break up the tension, at least not on my end.
“Just thinking.”
“About?”
About the data Bayo’s decrypting. About Kapoor’s restricted file. About whether you know what your creators are really doing, or if you’re just another victim of whatever nightmare they’re running.