Page 172 of Wicked Proposal

“It was a Prizraknest.If you’d told someone, we could have made real progress. Instead, they made you disappear.” I clench my fist on the counter. “I don’t have to explain to you what I thought happened, do I?”

She considers me, her green gaze fixed on me like water. Calm, unfazed. “I knew you’d never stop looking.”

Damn right I didn’t.And yet, in the end, I wasn’t the one who found her.

It was Mia.

“I made a promise to your sister,” I tell Nikita, eager to steer my thoughts away from Mia. “I wasn’t going to let somemudakput you in the ground next to her.”

“I love you, too, Yuli.”

I hold up a hand. “Don’t.”

“Sorry for triggering your feelings allergy.” She doesn’t sound sorry at all. “As for our Ws…”

“Go on.” I’m eager to get to the end of this conversation, find out where to strike. If we hurry up, we can still find traces. Traces we can follow.

But Nikita dashes all my hopes with a single sentence. “I have no idea where I was kept. And before you start barking with your alpha voice, I was drugged out of my mind.”

I ignore her provocation and clench my teeth. “I find that hard to believe, considering you escaped.”

“I got lucky,” she shrugs. “Someone must have fucked up my dose. I woke up, freed myself, hobbled away with the first weapon I could find. I was too high to get a car in motion, so I waited in the backseat. The rest, as they say, is history.”

Fuck.“You’re telling me we don’t even have a trail.”

“Sorry to disappoint. Next time I have to run for my life, I’ll make sure to bring breadcrumbs.”

“I don’t think you understand the reality of the situation,” I snarl. “Our enemies are packing up, Nika. They’re shipping themselves overseas. If we don’t catch them now?—”

“Overseas?” Her face goes pensive. “So that wasn’t a dream, then.”

The hell…?“Explain yourself,” I demand.

“While I was under, I heard voices. Just now and then, between doses.” She purses her lips, eyes narrowed, trying to grasp a memory just out of reach. “They were talking about leaving. Said they had one last job to finish, and then they’d be gone.”

One last job.

My blood freezes. It can’t be anything else.

All these years, they’ve kept close tabs on me. I couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t struck yet, but now, it all makes sense—they were preparing their escape hatch.

And if it’s ready, so are they.

Conflict grips my stomach, twisting hard. Every drop of guilt I’ve been suppressing rises, a torrent of acid burning up my throat.

Suddenly, my phone buzzes with a text. I check it distractedly, not even looking who it’s from.

And then I see it.

A selfie—from Mia.

She’s grinning, carefree and light despite the hellish day she just had. Her hair is still damp from the shower. I can almost smell her shampoo through the screen, creamy and sweet.

In her arms, Eli is giving the camera a gap-toothed grin, his Garfield plushie held tight in his arms.

Looking forward to tomorrow!

P.S.—Your biggest fan says hi.