Page 79 of Sweet Deception

Those words hit me like a punch to the face.

Is my father accusing me of…falling for her?

Am I falling in…?

Fuck.

“Listen,” Shane cuts in just as I’m ready to explode. “This summit is our most pressing issue. If Red Hill establishes international trafficking routes through Sophia Kovaleva’s connections, forget undermining our operations. They’d become our biggest rival overnight.”

“We need to find out everything the hacktress really knows,” Cian muses aloud. “She has to know something.”

Finn scrubs his beard, his expression pensive and calculating. “This is about the family. We have to verify she wasn’t planted and that she won’t turn on us if we engage her.”

Shane releases a gruff grunt of approval.

I seethe in silence. A coward.

A couple of days later, I’m lying alone in my bed at night and staring up at my fifteen-foot ceiling. Doesn’t matter if I close my eyes or leave them open.

All I see is Nika in that safe house.

With those two guards who aren’t me.

Cradling Napalm in her arms like an abandoned child.

Suffocating guilt bears down on me.

My mind should be on the summit now that we’ve finally discovered the location. Shane has decided that we’re going to crash it. We have to. We can’t let this little business deal of Troy’s go forward. Not without risking a huge power shift in the criminal underworld.

I should be contemplating which smoke bombs and hand grenades to use to get us in and out.

Instead, I’m wondering if Nika’s warm enough. If she ate. If she’s scared. If she hates me.

Fucking hell.

I’m too miserable to even drive. And worse than that, I don’t trust myself. I know with every fiber of my being that if I go down to the garage and get behind the wheel of my car, I won’t stop driving until I’m back at that safe house, pulling her into my arms.

That I manage to sleep at all, even a little tiny bit, is nothing short of miraculous.

I usually don’t remember my dreams, but this time around, they linger. Scenes of carnage unfolding around me while I run, searching for someone amidst the massacre, desperately hoping she isn’t already dead?—

My phone spurts to life on my nightstand, and I slap my hand over it before dragging the cold block to my ear. It’s Finn.

“What is it?” I sound like shit, even to myself.

“My father just put in the order.”

I sit straight up in my bed.What does that mean?

“And?” I prompt my cousin.

“He sent Cian and Rory to do recon on Red Hill’s operations.”

“Fine. And?”

“You’re benched. Too compromised.”

A sarcastic laugh sticks in my throat. “Anything else?”