Page 87 of My Temptation

“I can’t wire you. We’ll have no idea if you’re in trouble.”

I tilted my head to the side. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t have anything small enough to be undetectable if someone’s looking at you closely. And they will be, considering you’ll be dancing,” He explained. “The best we can do is have you plant what Brody’s sending before you’re on stage, but even that is a long shot. There are too many unknowns in that fucking place for us to have a solid plan.”

“We’ve gotten pretty far without any knowledge of what he was up to, and we’re still safe,” I tried to reassure him. “We came here to get Samson, and that’s what we’re doing.”

“No, we came to get information on Samson.” He stood and put his hands on his hips. “We didn’t come here to put you in a situation that could go really bad really fast. We have no idea what lengths he’ll go to protect his business, whatever the hell it is.”

I sighed. “Ethan…”

He laid his hands flat on the table and leaned down, putting us face-to-face. “I’m not willing to sacrifice you for this fucking guy. There isn’t anything you can say that will change my mind. I know Elite’s plan is to send you in. I hate it, but I can’t change it, and it’s pissing me off.”

I wanted to reassure him somehow, but nothing I said was helping. I couldn’t remember a time in my life when someone felt so strongly about my safety. I was trained to be thrown into the fire, and even when I wasn’t safe, I was told I had to keep going for the sake of the job. But that wasn’t Ethan. He would pull out right now just to keep me safe and have no regrets. I was just about to tell him what that meant to me when there was a knock on the hotel room door. I glanced at Ethan, who looked toward the door, but he just dropped his head, obviously frustrated.

Getting up, I walked to the door, squinted to see through the peephole, and smiled before pulling it open. I was happy to see him and a little relieved. Maybe Nick would have the words Ethan needed to hear.

“You’re late.”

He chuckled and walked into the room. “Red-eye was full, so I was stuck until this morning.”

I closed the door behind him when I heard Ethan’s voice. “Kyle couldn’t make it happen?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I guess there are some things even Kyle can’t do.”

Ethan smirked. “I have a hard time believing that.”

Nick put his bag on the floor before facing us. “Sounds like you two found something.”

I nodded. “We think we have.”

“So does Brody, or I wouldn’t be here,” Nick admitted.

Ethan crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you mean?”

“If he didn’t think something was there, he would’ve brought you home, especially considering it sounds dangerous.”

“It is dangerous,” Ethan commented. “Too dangerous to be in there alone.”

I glanced at Ethan, who watched me closely, but then shifted so I could see Nick. “We’ve been hashing out some ways to get more information tonight and stay safe doing it.”

Nick nodded. “Brody said you made friends with a couple of girls.”

Putting my hands on my hips, I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Except they both ghosted us,” Ethan added.

“What do you mean?” Nick glanced back and forth between us.

“Jenny and Carl invited us the first night, but they never showed. And then last night, I met a girl named Truly. She invited us downstairs, and we never saw her again. She literally just disappeared. Her and her boyfriend,” I explained.

“That says a lot.”

Ethan dropped his arms. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll bet they were scouts. These women got you where Samson wanted you and then disappeared.”

“Leaving us right in his line of sight,” I concluded, the realization hitting me all at once. “Dammit. I didn’t see that before, but you’re right and when we passed a test we were moved on to the next one.”

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