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)
“Why? Because you think I can’t handle it? Because a long time ago I told you that I loved you and you turned me down? Look, I get it, I always have, but I don’t carry that torch for you anymore, Mia. I’m here as a friend and nothing else. I’m looking out for you because I don’t want you to make a big fucking mistake, because that’s what’s going to happen if you keep going on this way.”
“Alright,” I say quietly, surprised by his outburst.
“You’re in too deep,” he goes on. “We all know it. And we’re worried. We’re worried that you don’t know how to separate your job from your heart, or whatever part of you is calling those shots. We’re worried that you’re putting that first, and not the mission, not the job, not your role as a NOC. Frankly, we’re worried that you’re compromised, and if that’s the case…”
“I’m not compromised,” I snap at him. I believe it, I have to.
His eyes flick over my face, trying to read the signs, just as I was doing to him.
“Good,” he says finally. “Otherwise that would be a problem. For you and for the mission.”
“I know what’s at stake, Cal.”
“Do you?” He sets his glass down and stands, moving toward me. Not threatening—just close. “Because the moment you’re in too deep and can’t reach the surface, we might not be there to pull you out. Understood?”
“Loud and clear.”
Leave no one behind doesn’t apply to NOCs.
He picks up his bag, slinging it over his shoulder. “I should go. Find a hotel, check in with Bayo, all the proper protocol things. Or maybe I’ll just be a tourist for a day. Haven’t seen this city in a long time.”
“Cal—” I say but stop myself. Because what I want to say is, I’m sorry it wasn’t you.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Mia.” He pauses at the door, his hand on the knob. “Really. When you went dark, I…” He shakes his head. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
The sincerity in his voice makes me feel like the worst person alive.
“Me too,” I say quietly.
He opens the door, then hesitates.
“Oh yeah,” he says, not looking at me. “Whatever happened during those three days and whatever happened before, whatever you’re not telling me—just…be careful. Okay? People like Vanguard, they don’t fall for people like us. Not really. And when they figure out what we are…” He turns, and his expression is unreadable. “It never ends well.”
Then he’s gone, the door closing shut, the sound echoing across the room like a punctuation mark.
People like Vanguard don’t fall for people like us.
It never ends well.
I think about the way Vanguard looked at me after the fall. The rawness in his voice when he said we’d start over. The fragile, impossible thing we’re trying to build from the wreckage of everything we destroyed.
Cal’s wrong, he has to be.
But as I stand there alone in my hotel room, something cold settles in my stomach.
Something that feels a lot like doubt.
What the fuck am I going to do?
CHAPTER 38
JULIA
The data tells a story Julia Van Veen doesn’t want to read.
She stands before the wall of screens in her private monitoring station, arms crossed, watching the scrolling teal green numbers cascade in real time. Vanguard’s heart rate, his cortisol, all neural activity patterns that paint a picture of a man coming undone.
He kept that fucking woman in his penthouse for three days, she thinks bitterly, trying to fight the waves of jealousy that batter her. She might not believe in jealousy, but the emotion sure seems to believe in her.
She pulls up the neural mapping from the past seventy-two hours, watching the patterns pulse and shift like a living thing. The attachment cluster has metastasized, spreading through his limbic system like a vine. But it’s the other readings that concern her—the aggression markers climbing steadily, the possessive pathways lighting up like Christmas lights, the darkness pushing closer to the surface with each passing hour.
The programming is fighting against his emotional responses.
And the conflict is causing glitches.
Time gaps in his location data. Moments where his vitals flatline and then spike without explanation. Neural activity patterns that don’t match any baseline she has on file.
He’s destabilizing. Faster than she anticipated.
And now she knows why.
The message from Dmitri Volkov arrived three days ago—a courtesy from an old associate in Minsk who’d seen photos of Vanguard’s new journalist companion in the tabloids. Mia Baxter, the papers called her. But Dmitri knew her by another name.
The Moth. She nearly got me in Minsk. I never forget a face, Julia. Not even under a different wig.
Her real name is still unknown, but what is known is that Mia is an SOE operative. A weapon disguised as a woman, sent to evaluate whether Julia’s creation poses a threat.
She knew it. She knew it all along, that Mia wasn’t who she said she was, that she was up to no good. And for some reason, she ignored her own instincts. Because Vanguard seemed happy for the first time ever, and she thought she was being the bigger person by letting him feel that, instead of snatching it away.