Page 18 of Devil’s Azalea (Nightshades #3)

EMILIA

Katie’s stare drills a hole into the side of my face.

I can practically feel her questions building behind her eyes, but force myself to focus on the task at hand—carefully extracting the note from between the poisonous petals without actually touching a single one.

I still don’t know what that man’s obsession is with sending me azaleas.

Sure, it’s a nod to my middle name—the one I specifically told him I didn’t like. And he’s been dead set on changing my mind ever since. Fine, deep in some locked chamber of my heart, I might be developing a grudging appreciation for the name, but fuck he needs to stop sending me toxic flowers.

My stomach knots as I think about what could have happened if Katie hadn’t known better.

What if she’d buried her nose in these beautiful, deadly blooms for a whiff of that deceptively fragrant scent?

Then I’d either be rushing her to the ER or dealing with a temporarily paralyzed—or worse, comatose—friend.

The thought alone makes my blood run cold.

I break the seal on the envelope and, hyper-aware of Katie’s gaze on me, resist the ridiculous urge to lift the note to my nose and sniff for any lingering trace of his cologne. My brows pinch together as I read the cryptic scrawl in Rafael’s unmistakable handwriting.

Thank you for lending me this. I’ll put the information to good use.

No signature. Of course the man is arrogant enough to assume I’ll just know it’s from him. My heart stutters as I drop the note and snatch up the small box—dread and fury mingling in my gut because I already know exactly what’s inside.

Sure enough, when I flip open the lid, there it sits: the flash drive he stole from me yesterday. The same damn drive that kicked off all that chaos at his penthouse when I went to get it back.

“Who did you loan your flash drive to?” Katie asks curiously, but I’m already moving, driven by a desperate need to confirm what I already know in my bones.

Heart hammering an unstable staccato against my ribs, I race to my room, boot up my computer, and jam the flash drive into the port.

For a moment—just one stupid, hopeful moment—I actually let myself believe maybe Rafael has a conscience buried somewhere under all that expensive tailoring.

That maybe, despite everything that happened, he left the files.

That maybe he wanted me to find the truth.

That maybe this was his way of making it right.

But when I click into it, my shoulders slump in crushing disappointment.

It’s empty.

He’s deleted everything. Every. Single. File.

Of course he did.

That fucking psychopath. My throat closes up with rage, and my ears threaten to pop, but I force myself to stay calm. Getting angry and reckless solves nothing. Last night proved that spectacularly.

I had acted on impulse, convinced I was in control. But all I had done was let him walk away with the upper hand— again .

I shouldn’t have pulled back with my shot at him. When I had him in my sights, finger on the trigger, I should have aimed for that arrogant, perfectly-coiffed head and saved the world from the misery of existing on the same planet as Rafael Moretti.

My trigger finger itches with phantom regret.

“Bastard,” I mutter through clenched teeth, yanking the flash drive from my computer with enough force to probably damage the port.

I march into the living room, snatch the bouquet of flowers by its wrapped stems, and continue my furious parade to the kitchen.

The flash drive goes in the trash first—if I have to see it for another second, I might actually lose what’s left of my sanity—and after a brief hesitation, the azaleas follow.

“What’s going on, Em? I don’t like all this secrecy,” Katie says behind me. Her voice is soft but heavy with concern, and I can almost hear the frown forming.

“It’s nothing.” That bastard is nothing to me.

But even as I think it, I know it’s bullshit. If Rafael was nothing, my hands wouldn’t be shaking. If he was nothing, I wouldn’t feel like someone reached into my chest and carved out my heart with a rusty spoon.

How could he do this to me?

That ballet performance was my one shot—my only shot—at getting dirt on Jason Moore. The fucker always leaves the country a day or two after, and once he’s gone, his offices, including the building where yesterday's event took place, are locked up tighter than Fort Knox.

There’s no way I’m getting anything on him now without getting caught and blowing my cover. In other words, Rafael just made me fail my mission.

Greg’s ‘Don’t disappoint me, Emily .’ echoes through my skull like a death knell, and I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling the nausea rising.

What the hell am I going to tell my supervisor tomorrow?

“It was Rafael, wasn’t it?” Katie’s suddenly beside me, and her knowing tone makes me want to scream. “Has he been in touch with you? How did he get our address?”

“It’s Rafael fucking Moretti,” I spit, fists clenched at my sides. “The bastard seems to know everything.” Including exactly how to get under my skin.

“What was on that drive?” Her eyes narrow. “Somehow I doubt you loaned it to him voluntarily.”

“Information I got on Jason last night.” Shame burns across my skin as I confess. “Rafael caught me transferring the files and stole the damn thing from me without me noticing.” I was so stupid. So fucking amateur. So completely outplayed.

Rafael isn’t impulsive. He’s methodical. Coolheaded. Ruthless. He didn’t kiss me because he couldn’t control himself around me, and his hands certainly weren’t all over me because he couldn’t resist my body.

He had a goal. He got close. He struck.

And he did it all without hesitation.

Exactly what I should’ve done.

“Fuck,” Katie breathes. “You’re so fucked. Greg is going to rip into you tomorrow.” Her mouth pulls into a grim line. “And you took off the comms we could have used to assist you as well. RIP in advance, my friend.” She tries to make it light, but my lips don’t even twitch.

Because she’s right.

Rafael has set me up for failure, and I’m going to face the consequences.