Page 22 of The Truths that Deceive

If I’m going, I’m not pretending to be his daughter.

After everything’s paid for and wrapped, and my other purchases arrive, I take the packages and step outside in one of the ghastly dresses he chose.

I expected Smith to be outside the door, but he isn’t. And he’s not on the street.

Heart thumping hard, I find a tiny side street and duck in. My mind works quickly to process scenarios. If I thought I could run, I would. But this dress makes it impossible. I also want my computer and one of the passports. Fake ones can be bought, but I’d need to use his card, which would track me. Besides, they take time to make. And I’m betting the one he got me circumvents all the biometric rules where it’s going to be a problem for me if I use another fake one.

So I do the next best thing. I pull out the burner phone to call my brother when my hand starts to tremble because of what I’m seeing on the screen.

A contact, a hacker from Estonia I’d befriended, sent me a message to contact her. I’m about to call when everything in me goes on full alert.

And Smith grabs my wrist.

“I wanted to see just how stupid you were.” He snatches the phone right out of my hand. “I’m thinking you’re up there with world-class level of stupid. Who does this Estonian number belong to, and what the fuck do you know about the Collectors?”

Chapter 7

Smith

Calista’s still a little too wet behind the ears to notice someone like me waiting for her. She never spotted me while I was on the other side of the Straße, having coffee and getting information from Jones.

Her bones are delicate, but strength radiates through her.

I want to sink my teeth down into her throat, bite my way up to her ear.

This pull to her on such a visceral level is something I don’t really understand at all. I figured putting her firmly in the daughter box as we get the fuck out of Dodge would help me keep it in my pants, but her looks still burn into me.

They’re complicated ones that hold both longing and dislike. The ones where her eyes tell me she clearly wants to run, but also hold the fire to fight.

And even now, the alternating push and pull commands her where she’s both trying to snatch her hand back and tilt her hips toward me.

But I keep my brain on the question. “I knew you’d have a fucking SIM card. Fuck, I hate stupid.”

“I’m not stupid. I graduated Oxford at seventeen, thank you very much.”

Shit. I hadn’t read over the education of Ms. Price. But the similarities eat at my brain. I graduated Cambridge at eighteen. Smart enough to go, and a way to isolate from others older than me. Fuck the CIA. They must have sent her even earlier than me.

Then again, I hadn’t hacked anything. I was actively recruited, and when I wanted to turn it down because of Sylvie, I was pushed.

I shut that shit right down because I can’t get caught up in my past. Not now.

But the pain isn’t something that goes away.

Not Sylvie. I’d loved her. We were fucking teenagers; of course, I did. But the pain of losing her has been dulled by life, by time. I doubt we’d have made it more than another year or so, anyway. Maybe a little longer because of Dakota but…

The Dakota pain. Those lost years. That gulf between us.

It doesn’t go away.

I let pretty, young Calista go and step back, scooping up the packages.

From there, I get us a car back to the apartment. Not a word’s exchanged between us. But there will be.

I’m biding my fucking time.

Who the fuck in Estonia is texting her about the Collectors?

My apartment building has state-of-the-art security built in. No one gets in or out without me knowing, not even if I don’t come back here for years. I don’t keep close tabs on the building, but I keep enough to know it’s uncompromised. Once we’re inside, I toss the bags down and ask the question I held off on spewing at her.

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