Page 30 of Covert Temptation (SEAL Team Blackout Charlie #4)

Cipher. She didn’t need confirmation. The fact that this man hadn’t snapped her neck outright meant this was personal. Psychological.

Cipher wanted her to break before she died.

“How long are we waiting?” she asked.

The man shrugged. “Until I get the text.”

She frowned. “You’ve seen him before?”

“Nope.” He tossed another nail, striking the wall next to her shoulder, and let out a little laugh. “It’s always a text. Drop point, target, instructions.”

“So you’re not the one who…” She stopped herself, couldn’t finish the sentence. Not when her voice threatened to crack.

He glanced at her again, taking a thoughtful drag on his cigarette. Smoke fogged around his head. “Nope. I just deliver the package. And you, sweetheart, are priority mail.”

Her stomach turned.

He stood, cracked his neck and walked toward her in slow, casual steps.

She refused to cower. She’d done that enough in her life—in her childhood home, and again that night in college when a guy cornered her outside the dancers’ dressing room.

She learned to shove her fear deep—something that Dante’s team didn’t like.

Because she didn’t crack, their suspicions about her grew.

The man crouched in front of her, eyes trailing down her face, to her bound wrists…to her body. “You know,” he said slowly, “you don’t look like much.”

“Thanks.”

“But I get it. The guy likes his girls smart. Fragile. Wounded.” His smile turned mean. “Also, he told me what you used to do.”

Kennedy’s blood turned to ice. “What?”

“Stripper. Back in college, right? Little VIP room action.” He snorted and took another drag of his cigarette. Smoke wisped from his flared nostrils and turned her stomach. “That’s what paid for that pretty Wellesley College degree?”

He even knew where she went to college? Her mouth went dry.

Only one person in the world should’ve known about her dancing days—the hacker she’d paid to erase them.

He’d wiped every trace of her questionable employment history from databases and even buried club employment rosters. She’d found him years ago in an anonymous chat room deep in the web while desperately searching for a way to erase the truth.

She hadn’t spoken to him in years.

Except…

Oh god. There was a message three months back.

It had popped up in the middle of a whirlwind trip with Alyssa—twenty-four hours in Vancouver for a UN side-conference.

She’d been exhausted, boarding the plane when she saw the message.

It said he’d changed emails and that if anything from her past resurfaced, she needed to click the link to stay connected so he could fix it.

At the time, it had seemed reasonable. She was in a rush, the gate was closing, and she’d clicked before her mind could argue.

Afterward, the memory blurred by lack of sleep, became fuzzy, like her mind had been scrubbed too.

But that was what he promised—peace of mind, no trails, no fear.

And she’d paid him a month’s worth of tips for it.

Now, she realized—with a sick twist in her gut—that she hadn’t paid a faceless hacker for safety.

It was a dumb move. The stupidest thing she’d ever done, and the biggest mistake she’d ever made.

Because now she knew that she’d been used by Cipher.

He was the one she trusted to bury her secrets…

And now he was using them to bury her.

Her mind reeled. Her stomach pitched again, but there was nothing in it to expel. Still, she bowed her head, panting with nausea and despair.

“Yes, little stripper. He told me that too.”

Her stomach heaved. “Told you what?”

His lips quirked in a hideous smile. “That you paid him to wipe out your work history.”

This man was being paid to tear her apart piece by piece.

The man grinned wider. “So let’s see it.”

She blinked at him. “W-what?”

“You heard me.” He squashed out his cigarette on the dry floor. “Strip. Dance. Just like you used to.” He leaned in, voice low and oily, bringing the odor of smoke and unwashed clothes.

“N-no.” She forced the word through her frozen lips.

“I suppose I could shoot you in the leg and wait for the next guy to show up. And I promise, he won’t want a performance. Just pieces.”

She shook her head slowly. “No.”

He stood. Cocked the gun and pointed it directly at her shin. “One.”

Don’t give him the satisfaction. But her muscles locked. Her heart thundered.

“Two.”

Tears burned her eyes.

Dante, please…help.

“Three.”

“I’ll do it!” she choked. “Just…don’t shoot.”

Her body shook as she pushed herself upright, boots scraping on the floor. Her limbs were numb. Her pride had shattered sometime around the moment the cold metal of the gun followed her every move.

He moved back and flopped on the bucket again. “Go on then. Entertain me.”

She turned away from him as she began to move, hips swaying awkwardly. Her sweater slipped up, revealing bare skin above her waistband, but she couldn’t push it down with her hands bound.

Her eyes stung, not from pain—even though the zip-ties cut into her flesh—but from shame.

She’d worked so damn hard to leave this part of her life behind. For a fleeting time, she had built something worth being proud of. And now her past was being used against her.

Kennedy focused on the sound of her breathing. Inhale, exhale. Don’t think about Dante seeing you like this. Don’t think about the way he made you feel safe and cherished, like maybe you were more than your past.

But he’d seen that photo of her onstage…and he couldn’t handle it. He left her.

Fresh pain lanced through her chest, carving away any hope of him rescuing her.

She moved slowly, rhythmically, nothing sensual in the dance now. It was pure survival. The man watched with that same bored expression, arms crossed, gun resting lazily on his knee.

The tears came anyway.

He didn’t deserve them, but they came, streaking silently down her cheeks.

“You’re distracting me with your crying,” he said, almost disappointed.

She spun on him. “Of course I’m crying! Do you think this is a fucking performance for me? This is my life— the past I was trying to erase so I could have a better life!”

He didn’t flinch, just shrugged again. “That’s not my problem.”

She collapsed to her knees, her zip-tied hands painfully striking the floor to keep from falling on her face. Her shoulders trembled. After a long moment, she gave him a direct stare. “Just tell me something.”

He tilted his head.

“Is this it? Is this where I die?”

He stared for a long time, shaking out another cigarette. “Probably. That guy’s thorough.”

She let her head drop.

It wasn’t just that she was about to die. It was how she was going to die—alone, filled with grief and guilt that she had been responsible for the security leak after all.

The weight of that shredded her heart.

She thought of Dante, how lately he’d started to look at her differently, and how they had shared more than just physical pleasure.

She’d found someone— finally —who saw her for more than what she used to be. And now he’d go back to thinking he couldn’t trust anyone. Like everyone else in his life, she’d let him down.

“Fuck,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

She didn’t even know who she was talking to anymore.

The man stood again. “Don’t wear yourself out. I want one more dance before the boss arrives.”

Her heart plummeted.

But in her boot, the AirTag pressed against her heel.

Maybe Dante would check.

Maybe he’d find her.

Please, Dante. Don’t let me be disposable.