Page 129 of Underground Prince

“They’ll take off the cuffs if you stop fighting them,” Kai said beside me. He was lucky I couldn’t throat-punch him. “We’re—I’m not here to hurt you.”

“No,” I said, my voice ragged with misuse. “You’re here to betray me.”

He clamped his mouth shut after that and turned to Nate Westcott and Agent Vance. We sat on the couch, and they settled across from us in chairs they’d dragged over from the poker table.

“I didn’t want us to meet like this.”

Nate spoke after fifteen minutes of silence, no doubt spurred forth by my voice, a sound that hadn’t escaped this room since they’d clamped handcuffs on me and introduced themselves. He was a good-looking man. Tawny hair, sharp green eyes and an angular face stared back at me, unperturbed—exactly the air I was trying to impose on him.

“You can’t do this,” I said to him. “I’m no lawyer but you’re crossing some lines, keeping me here against my will.”

“You were throwing punches,” he said, planting his elbows on his thighs. “We had to subdue you.”

“That’s not it. You want to scare me, get me pliant, have me singing everything I know so you can go and nab who you really want, and you’re willing to cut some corners to do it.”

“And what do you know?” Agent Vance spoke up from his chair. He was the opposite of Nate, with round eyes, soft cheeks, short-cropped black hair, olive skin, and a Staten Island undertone to his accent. But he was tall, like Nate. Imposing with his opaque brown eyes and thick shoulders.

“Nothing,” I replied.

“Don’t play us,” Nate said. “We have too much for you to go and do that.”

“Right. The wire.” I drew out the syllables. “If you have such a well of information, why am I here right now? Oh. I get it.” I answered my question before anyone else could speak. “You didn’t have your electronic ear the whole time. You go in hot on Saxon territory, you’d exit without a tongue. So it was us two. Just during our private moments.”

Kai’s eyelids fluttered, his only indication of guilt.

“What’s your real name, anyway?” I couldn’t recognize my own voice. It was so sharp and shattered, jagged cuts of glass replacing what once was soft. Compliant.

“You know I can’t tell you that,” Kai said into his lap.

“Because you’re undercover. FBI, am I correct? Newsflash. Your cover’s blown.” I laughed, taking long, hard gasps of breath as I giggled up to the ceiling. “Oh my…to think, oh my God, to think, that when Trace was so paranoid about me, so willing to grab my throat and strangle a confession out of me, it was you!” I laughed harder. “The dealer they’ve had for two years!”

Kai—for what else could I call him?—went ramrod straight. “I meant what I said, Scarlet. Had I known Trace was cornering you I would’ve—”

“Bullshit.”

“What?” Kai’s surprise was unexpected.

“I said bullshit. I saw your face. You knew. You understood that I was being led to a slaughter and you sat there, because your superiors”—I made sure to include Nate and Vance for that one—“nattering in your secret earpiece, told you to. And like a good little worker bee, you did.”

Kai blustered. “I’m sitting you down instead of bringing you in because I’m trying to explain—”

“Everything you did was premeditated.” Against my orders, my eyes pricked with tears. “All you said, what you did for me, was part of a greater goal. Those poker guys, the ones I played with in this very apartment. Who were they?”

His expression shuttered.

“Cops? Fellow feds?” I probed further, each realization cutting into my skin. I dripped the blood of duplicity all over the floor. “And the money you gave me, it was supplied by your superiors? To get me closer, so I could successfully—stupidly—infiltrate and have a deeper relationship with Sax? Huh?”

Kai didn’t answer.

“You didn’t feel anything toward me,” I spat. “Not friendship or kinship—”

“That’s not true—”

“I was a pawn!” I shouted, my cheeks dripping hot.

“Hey. Scarlet—hey,” Nate held up a hand. “Let us talk for a minute, okay? Hear us out.”

Breathing hard, I had no words left. I gave him my attention, but not because I wanted to.

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