Page 45 of The Truths that Deceive

As I stare at her, she shifts in her seat and breaks her eyes away from mine. I don’t know what she was up to back in the kitchen, but I’ll find out. As the others say good night and file out, she stays put, eyes so stormy one could get lost in them and be dragged under by the volatile waves there.

I push away the fact I like it, the danger of the hunted getting feral. Maybe she took the knife from the wall earlier, maybe not.

There’s a guard farther down the road just out of sight. I don’t need to check with Rodriguez or confirm it for myself. The four-by-four sitting in the shadows speaks volumes.

What it doesn’t do is tell me if we’re being guarded or kept under surveillance. It doesn’t matter if Rodriguez is loyal to me. In places like this, trust can be twisted and things turn on a dime.

I don’t think Rodriguez is trying to make a quick buck or save his family by handing me over to an enemy. But who the hell really knows?

I trust him. But I get the conflict.

Family comes first.

He’s aware I can get out of most situations. And he’ll bet on me not looking for payback if he does happen to use me.

I have enemies. All Knights do. And being CIA, ex-freelance intelligence. My enemy quota’s high.

I can add little Calista to that list now.

She has a glass of rum in front of her. It’s rough, burns the esophagus on the way down. But I’ve got something else in mind for her. Smoother, guaranteed to give her sweet fucking dreams, but I leave her alone and wait until she sees the bag next to me.

I watch as her gaze skitters over to it, but she doesn’t do more than stare at it like it holds her way out of here. She’s thinking passport. Not her computer. I need to get into the device, but it’s got a thumbprint lock.

“You know, you still haven’t explained the whole thing,” I say, taking a sip from my glass.

“What do you know about the Collectors?”

I hide my smile. She’s trying to play me by bouncing thequestion my way. But she’s still too new to how this game is played.

Her interest is deep, on some kind of personal level, but I’m not sure of the connection. I don’t think she’s involved in that sordid industry, although it’s not unheard of for women to do that. There’s disgust on her face, and it makes her wild, fierce, and all the things I want to explore in her.

I shut that carnal thought down fast, just like I shut down the thoughts of her long legs, one of which she has drawn up. Her skirt pools up a little, showing thigh.

She’s not wearing panties. They were drying when I used the bathroom before, tucked on a low rung of a chair just outside the room. And now… fuck yeah, I’d love to follow the line of her thigh, slip her skirt up higher, see if I can catch a glimpse of pussy, of the tattoo. See if she’s wet and stroke down into the slippery heat of her.

“Enough.” I could goad her but decide against it. I need her to spill information. I need to see what she knows.

If I hadn’t seen that text from the Estonia number, I’d have already handed her back to the CIA—or whatever group wants her—and her head would still be spinning as I walked off to collect my fee.

But luckily, or maybe unluckily for her, she’s uncovered something about the people who took my daughter.

And I don’t care if this tiny trafficking cell she’s found never heard of fucking Dakota Hunt; I’ll destroy them anyway.

Just like in Scotland. Even if the leader there had survived, it would have been only a “long enough” scenario.

My mission is to murder every last motherfucking one of them.

Reaching into the bag, I pull out her computer and her eyes light up. “I saved this, you know.”

“B-but?—”

“Had it in that car to be loaded up last, and then the plane blew up.” I pause. “Why?”

“Oh my God…” She gets up, rushing over to me. Cramming herself cross-legged like a kid into the chair next to me, she puts her hands out. “I can’t believe it!”

But I don’t hand it straight over. “Why?”

“The plane?” Calista shrugs. “Maybe in the information I have? I had threats, those low-level ones, and my agent… I…” Her cheeks turn pink. “Maybe I poked into something I shouldn’t have. That’s the thing, I don’t know. One day I was going to work, and then there were looks and online lockouts. I could get around them, but I didn’t know what I was looking at. Whoever blew the plane up could be after me for something I have no idea about.”

---