Page 80 of Sweet Deception

“Rory just sent me a copy of their recon notes. As we suspected, there’s a lot of activity going on, but we need to get eyes inside and perhaps some surveillance footage from the Red Hill servers in order to parse out what’s important?—”

My phone buzzes in the middle of Finn’s sentence. I pull it away from my ear and check the caller ID.

“I’ll call you back. It’s your dad.” I hang up on Finn to answer Shane. “Yes.”

“My office. Now.”

Tension locks my chest up tight as I spring out of bed and quickly dress. Nine times out of ten, if my uncle wants to see someone in his office, that means they’ve fucked up.

As I take the grand staircase down to the second floor and wind through the administrative hallways to the most imposing door of them all, I wonder if that’s the case for me too. Guards let me into Shane’s wood-paneled study, a space forever infused with oak and cigar smoke.

My uncle sits behind his massive desk, fingers steepled over paperwork, a cigarette pinched between his lips.

“You wanted to see me.” I grab one hand with the other, holding them both behind my back. When facing my uncle on my own like this, I do everything in my power to keep my tone level.

“Go get Veronika Kotova and bring her here for questioning.” Shane might as well have shot me through the heart.

“Excuse me?”

“We’ll keep her close and put her IT skills to work.” Shane lowers his hands. “But Darren. If she steps one toe out of line…”

The threat hangs unfinished in the air.

I don’t know whether to celebrate or push back. Every second I’ve spent away from that woman has killed me a little on the inside, but it’s still safer for her if we’re apart.

If she comes here…

If I bring her here…

Then what?

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Alone in this place, I’m haunted by the ghosts of the past.

Even with the all-but-mute bodyguards who stand like columns before every exit, barely moving or making a sound, this safe house feels hollow now.

If not for Piro, my sanity would be long gone.

Even my kitten seems to be taking this to heart.

Restless and uneasy, he paces between the bedroom windows. This space has never felt more like a cell. Piro hops into the sills and mewls softly whenever distant road noise reaches our ears, as if one of the travelers might bring Darren back.

In my memory, the growl of his sports car echoes like a song I can’t forget.

The last time I felt this much misery, I’d woken up alone in the hospital to the news of my grandmother’s death. And as soon as my leg healed, I landed in a group home.

Surviving the monotony of this place is impossible. The visceral, cutting bite of abandonment bears down on me every second.

The blanket Darren covered me with still lies rumpled on the couch where we worked side by side. Where he put his lips onmine, where he pulled me into his lap and held me close. Where we devoured each other in the dark hours of the night…

His coffee mug sits unwashed in the sink, a reminder of our early mornings.

His scent is everywhere. I didn’t notice it before, but without him, my senses have gone into overdrive, straining to capture the vestiges of proof that he was ever here to begin with. That anything that happened between us was real…

Shaking my head to disperse the painful thoughts, I blink away the moisture gathering in my eyes before tears can form and focus on Piro as he leaps onto the windowsill yet again, ears perked in the direction of the driveway. He turns his head to me and cocks it, his little blue-gray eyes inquisitive.

They’re sort of reminiscent of Darren’s.Bozhe moy…