Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
“Nate—”
“You don’t get to call me that anymore.” He steps into the room, closing the door behind him. The lock engages with a soft click. “Right now, to you, I’m the asset. The target. The subject of your surveillance.”
“That’s not—”
“So who do you work for?”
The question is direct. He’s interrogating me.
I say nothing.
His jaw tightens. “Who do you work for?”
Silence fills the room.
“What’s your mission?”
I hold his gaze and give him nothing.
“What have you reported back about me?”
The silence stretches. I watch something build behind his eyes—frustration bleeding into rage.
“You think staying quiet is going to help you?” He takes a step closer. “You think I won’t find ways to make you talk?”
I keep my voice flat, bury my emotions back into that box.
“I think you can try.”
His nostrils flare.
“Fine.” He’s in my space now, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. “Let’s try something else. What was real? Between us. Montana. The torch. Any of it?”
This one I want to answer. God, I want to answer it so badly my chest aches. But I can’t. Because if I start talking—if I give him even one thread—he’ll pull until everything unravels.
So I stay silent. It’s the only way I know how to do this. I’ve been through worse before and I have to be as hard as steel if I’m going to survive.
He stares at me, waiting for nothing, and something cracks in his expression.
“Nothing?” His voice drops to something desperate. Dangerous. “You’ve got nothing to say about any of it?”
I force myself to hold his gaze. To give him nothing but empty stillness.
“You fucking—” He grabs my chin, wrenching my face toward his, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. “Look at me. Look at me and tell me it was all fake. Tell me every time you touched me, every time you moaned my name, every time you looked at me like I was something other than a goddamn target—tell me that was all performance.”
His face is inches from mine. I can see the dark grey flecks in his eyes, the way his pulse hammers at his throat. The rage and the hurt and underneath it all, something despairing. Something begging me to give him something to hold onto.
But I can’t.
My silence is its own kind of answer.
His grip tightens. “Say something.”
I don’t.
For a long, terrible moment, I think he’s going to hit me. His whole body is vibrating with the effort of holding back, muscles coiled, breathing ragged.
Then his gaze drops to my mouth.
And I feel it—that sick, electric pull between us that hasn’t gone away despite everything. My body responds before my brain can stop it, heat pulsing between my legs, breath catching in my throat.
He notices.
Of course he notices.
“Jesus Christ.” His voice is thick with some emotion I can’t name. “You still want me. Even now. Even like this.”
I don’t deny it. What would be the point? He can tell.
His thumb drags across my lower lip, rough and slow. Not tender. Possessive. Like he’s reminding both of us who’s in control.
“That’s fucked up, little killer,” he murmurs. “That’s really, really fucked up.”
Then he releases me so abruptly I stumble.
He’s across the room before I can catch my breath, putting distance between us like I’m diseased. He has no idea that I actually am.
“You’re going to eat,” he says, not looking at me. His voice has gone hard again, all that heat packed back down into ice. “And then you’re going to sleep. And tomorrow, we’re going to try this again.”
“And if I refuse?”
He turns. The smile he gives me doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Then I stop asking nicely.”
He brings food an hour later.
Rice, vegetables, and chicken. Healthy and balanced, like a power bowl from Pret-A-Manger, the kind of thing you’d feed someone you wanted to keep functional.
I don’t touch it.
He stands in the doorway, watching me not eat, and I can see the irritation lining his brow.
“Starving yourself isn’t going to help,” he says.
“Neither is eating.”
“Eat the fucking food, Mia.”
I give him a steady look. “No.”
He crosses the room in three strides. Before I can react, he’s got the bowl in one hand and my jaw in the other, forcing my mouth open.
“I said eat.”
I jerk away, but his grip is iron. He shoves a forkful of rice and vegetables against my lips, and I have a choice to swallow or choke.
I swallow.
“Good girl.” The words drip with condescension. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
Get fucked.
Humiliation burns through me, hot and sharp. I want to spit it back in his face. I want to claw his eyes out. I want to—
He forces another bite into my mouth.
“You don’t get to starve yourself,” he says, almost conversationally. “You don’t get to hurt yourself on my watch. That’s not how this works.”
On his watch. Like I’m a prisoner he’s obligated to keep alive. Which, I suppose, is exactly what I am.