Page 63 of The Brutal Arrangement

Regret coiled in my stomach, making it tense. Just when I told her that I wanted to learn more about her, she would make me question whether she was worth keeping? Right when I admitted that I didn’t trust others easily, she had to be secretive like this?

Creeping out into the apartment stealthily, I focused on finding her before she’d notice me. No words followed her murmur, but another one came. Even quieter.

Who is there?

Who is she talking to?

Fuck, is she just watching TV or something in the lounge?

If someone’s here, why can’t I hear them?

Too many questions inundated my mind, and I felt that telltale twinge of pain from clenching my jaw too tightly again.

What if it’s a guard? A soldier she’s been trying to keep up a secret tryst with?

That was a reach, but I couldn’t help my mind from jumping there. With the way my mother betrayed Father, the concept of women being prone to lying and cheating would always stick with me. I was predisposed to assume the worst of the other gender because of how my mother had lied to Father, almost sold secrets that would ruin us, and nearly got her sons executed to appease her lover.

No. No one in the organization would dare.

The Ivanov guards and soldiers assigned to this building’s security were the most loyal I had.

However, the second that I spotted Lucy in the guest room, hunched over as she sat on the edge of the bed, I knew that my instincts were right to an extent.

Shewassneaking away from me to have a secret conversation.

Shewasdoing something she didn’t want me to know about.

Because if this conversation on her cell phone was innocent, she wouldn’t have gone into another room to have it. She wouldn’t be sitting here tense and so quiet if she wasn’t hiding anything.

Dressed in a silk robe, she bent at her waist with one elbow on her knee, the calf of that leg propped on the bed. Slanted over like that, she sat with her hair falling over her face like a curtain,preventing me from getting a peek of her profile as I eased into the room with her back mostly to me.

What the fuck are you doing?

Who are you talking to?

What are you hiding?

Saul had set it up for her phone to be tracked. All he’d reported about that device was that she’d been in contact with a debt collector. Maxim ran a report on her as well, a background check, and all he’d found was that she had been a maid since high school, starting that job shortly after her father died. No mention of her mother showed up, so we assumed that she was either out of the picture or dead.

She let out a heavy sigh, hanging her head a little more. The curve of her back suggested she was burdened by whatever she was being told. Even though I was more in the room now, behind her back, I couldn’t hear the small voice of whoever was on the other line.

“Okay,” she replied. It left her as a distressed sigh. “I can look into that.”

Look intowhat?

I curled my fingers into a tighter fist, trying to vent this vibrating anger into that action before I’d hurt her so much that she wouldn’t be able to answer me.

“Yes. I’ll look into it today and report back to you,” she said, still quiet and quick to appease.

“The fuck you will,” I growled.

I’d be damned if I stood around and listened to her agree to look into something here and report information to anyone. I’d been so distracted by wanting to know more about her and trust her that I lost an edge on the fear that she could be here to spy.

She squeaked, jumping up suddenly with how startled she was to hear me behind her. As she whirled around with that slight shriek, she flung her arm out to keep her balance. In doing so, she tossed her phone across the room. It bounced onto the carpet and rolled until it smacked against the opposite wall and stopped its momentum.

“Damon,” she said, breathing heavily and panting immediately.

That fear belonged in her eyes.

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