Page 112 of The Truths that Deceive

I breathe out. “If I do?—”

“Then,” he says, saying words made of magic, “I will do everything I can to get you out of it. I promise. But you need to trust more than just yourself. This is your last chance.”

Chapter 31

Smith

Calista stares up at me, confusion and mistrust on her face. “I don’t know…”

“We both want the last of the Collectors gone.”

“I want to ruin them financially, hit them where it hurts,” she says.

Her and me and the Knights. “Work with me, then. Jon Trenton’s dead. I know who killed him and this guy, Mercer, he doesn’t fuck things up. He delivers… always. But we can still take down the son. We can take down all the ones he’s in bed with. He’s sneaking around, probably hiding behind his mom, Felicity, and?—”

“No.”

She steps back.

“No?” I ask.

“No. I mean…” Her tits under the big, boxy hoodie rise and fall quickly. She looks so young right now, her hair still dark, face makeup-free, and those stormy eyes wary.

I should feel guilt scraping at my senses.

Guilt for fucking her, for wanting her, for wanting to do itagain. And worse, I should feel deep, gutting guilt at being the one who’s going to lie and manipulate to get what he wants.

She’s too fucking naïve and too innocent for her life to end up where it’s going. Under lock and key. It doesn’t matter if they put her somewhere nice; she’s too gifted for the CIA to let her live freely somewhere. She’s way too good at what she does to work for anyone but them.

I don’t need the money for the job of bringing her in. I just fucking like money. And I could have just used the information she gave me as a way to shut down a flow of money into the Collectors and their nasty, twisted little schemes. Close down another avenue of theirs.

She’s already handed me a way to connect this group, the ones who are using Bolivia to move girls and indulge in depravity by helping to move and sell stolen blueprints and new weapons parts.

But I got even more than all that. I saw something she missed.

Her agent Johnny didn’t skip town. He’s here, watching, waiting, teasing leads.

There was a dinner from two nights ago, just a receipt on a deep dive electronic list, but I recognized the company name. It’s the fake one Johnny used in Miami.

He went out with Trenton Jr.

And she didn’t connect those dots.

I lift my gaze back to her face.

If Johnny’s here, wining and dining, then he knows she is, too.

To me, it explains why the CIA hasn’t come looking for her. He disappeared, set her up, and now they’re waiting.

Until the big fish are reeled in.

And my girl goes down for her incidental part.

I’m filling in blanks, but I spent enough of mylife tethered to the CIA, enough of it in the wilds of intelligence outside the CIA, and now within the walls of the Obsidian Knights to make these connections with confidence.

“I mean,” she says again, “it’s treason.”

“You’re right, but I can get that to the right authorities.”

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