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)
“I checked in with you before I went,” I remind him, keeping my voice level. “I called you from my hotel, like a responsible adult.”
He eyes briefly seek the ceiling. “And then you turned everything off and disappeared for fourteen hours.”
“I was maintaining my cover. The journalist cover. Which requires me to actually do journalism things, like conduct extended interviews and write shit.” I meet his eyes without flinching. “I got more intel in one night than we’ve gathered in two weeks of surveillance.”
This is technically true. Between rounds of, erm, other activities, Vanguard talked about a lot of things, including Global Dynamix. Combine that with everything Julia told and showed me during my tour, and we were slowly starting to get the picture. What the picture is forming, I still don’t know.
Anyway, I shared the relevant parts with Bayo and Kat an hour ago. The parts that matter to the mission.
The other parts…the way he held me after, the tears I couldn’t stop, the way he licked the salt from my cheeks like my sorrow was something priceless? Well, those, I kept to myself. None of their business, and all NOCs are on a need-to-know basis.
“She’s not wrong,” Kat says from her perch by the window. She’s been quiet through most of the debrief, watching me with those steely eyes that miss nothing. “The intel on the neural implant alone is worth the risk. If they really have a kill switch built into him…”
“Then he’s even more dangerous than we thought,” Bayo finishes. “Or more controlled. Depending on how you look at it.”
“Both,” I say. “He’s both.”
Silence settles over the safehouse. The afternoon light slants through the grimy windows, catching the dust motes floating in the air. Somewhere outside, a siren wails and fades, and I wonder if Vanguard is getting into his suit, responding to a call. He can’t be everywhere at once.
“You slept with him,” Kat suddenly says.
I thought that was pretty obvious. “So?”
“And?”
“And what? It’s done. It happened. Hooray, Mia is no longer a virgin. Look, I’m not going to apologize for using every tool at my disposal to complete this mission.”
“Tool.” Kat’s mouth twists while Bayo snickers. “Is that what we’re calling it these days?”
I feel picked on, and I’m not finding the humor in it.
“What do you want me to say, Kat?” I stand, suddenly restless, and move to the window, glancing out at the city, the rain from earlier turning to a drizzle. “That it was a mistake? Fine. It was a mistake. That I should have kept my distance? Maybe. That I’m compromised?” I turn to face her. “I’m not. And I’m also closer to the truth than anyone’s ever been. So you tell me—what’s the play here?”
Kat studies me for a long moment, calculating and weighing options.
“The play,” she says slowly, “is that you keep your head on straight and remember what you’re doing here. You’re not his girlfriend. You’re not his lover. You’re an operative gathering intelligence on a potential threat to national security.” She pauses. “Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Can you look him in the eye and lie to him? Use what he’s told you against him? Walk away when the mission’s done and never look back?”
The questions land like arrows, each one finding a soft spot I didn’t know I had.
I open my mouth to answer, and nothing comes out.
For a split second, I’m back in his bed. The grey morning light through the penthouse windows. His hand tracing idle patterns on my hip while I pretended to sleep because I didn’t know how to be awake with someone, didn’t know what my face was supposed to do when I wasn’t performing.
He’d kissed my shoulder. Soft. Almost absent. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.
And I’d felt something shift inside me. Not pain, exactly, but the ache of a door opening after being sealed shut for years. The terror of light reaching places that had learned to survive in the dark.
“Yes,” I say, and my voice doesn’t waver, because I mean it.
I just wish meaning it didn’t feel like shit.
Kat holds my gaze for another beat. Then, she nods, seeing the truth. That despite getting my back blown out for the last twenty-four hours by a living god, I am still a ruthless spy underneath it all. I am still an SOE agent, reporting for duty.
Doesn’t mean I like it, though.
“Then we continue as planned. But Mia…” She steps closer, lowering her voice. “Whatever you’re feeling, whatever you think is happening between you and this man that goes beyond sex—bury it. Bury it fucking deep. Because when this is over, one of two things will happen: either he’s innocent, and you’ll have to live with what you did to him, or he’s guilty, and someone will have to put him down. And that someone should be you.” Her eyes bore into mine. “Either way, feelings will only make it harder.”