Page 146 of Guarded Knight

Anton steps in first. Then Freya.

Her eyes find mine—and whatever mask she walked in wearing just dissolves.

“Oh my God,” she breathes.

She crosses the room in three strides, tossing her bag into the chair before sinking to the edge of the bed. One hand covers her mouth. The other reaches blindly for mine, like she needs proof I’m still here.

“I’m okay,” I croak. The lie scrapes in my throat.

“You’re not okay,” she snaps. “You’re hooked up to an IV and look like you lost a fight with a hurricane.”

“A handsome hurricane,” I tilt my head toward Gabriel.

Freya snorts. Her eyes are wet. She squeezes my hand tighter. “Glad to see your glass is still half full.”

“I felt awful,” I murmur. “You being at the gala alone… I wish you didn’t have to carry that.”

She pauses, glancing at Anton. “Yeah… When he rushed out during my speech…”

“Did you kill it?”

“Obviously. Full Oscar energy.” She shrugs bashfully.

“That’s badass considering you were abandoned.” I feel awful.

“I looked around for you and G and Anton, but you were just… gone. No texts, no excuses. I knew something was wrong. You wouldn’t leave me like that.”

“None of us would’ve,” Anton says, casually but it’s an undeniable truth. “It’s not exactly our style to bail mid-op.”

“I know,” Freya says. “It just felt like… we were a team.”

Gabriel straightens his spine, out of guilt perhaps, for ever suspecting her.

She continues. “The second you all vanished, I knew something was off. I freaked out for a bit, but then…”

She smiles coyly.

“…Kevin handed me the perfect opportunity.”

Anton shifts near the window, arms crossed, trying not to look proud.

Freya flushes. “He left his phone on the table. Unlocked.” Her nostrils flare. “He really thought I was that dumb.”

Anton lets out a dry laugh. “He was wrong.”

“Damn right, he was. I took that thing to the bathroom and combed through everything. Invoices, texts with Belinda—fraud, donor theft, even messages about you, Lara. They knew you were close to figuring it out.”

“Damn,” I mutter.

Freya’s voice dips. “Yeah. There was a lot in those messages.”

She doesn’t elaborate, but I know what she means. Belinda and Kevin were a thing. Shameless.

She shrugs. “I don’t know if it was brave or reckless. But I wasn’t about to let him walk away. When I got back to the table, he asked if I’d seen his phone, and I told him it fell into my purse and I hadn’t realized. Hook, line, and sinker.”

“You’re a damn legend.”

“I sent photos of it all to Rio right away.” Freya smiles crookedly. “What GhostEye found along with this evidence should be a damn good start to putting those two in jail for a long time. And it got the Feds moving today.”