Page 69 of Secrets

“Why should I even care? You hired her to kill me.” My voice breaks at the end of my sentence. Admitting it out loud burns the edges of my heart.

Alexi, now seemingly bored with our conversation, leans back in his chair, his eyes roving over my uncle’s office as if suddenly intrigued by his surroundings. “And yet here you are. Still alive, despite my orders.”

I clear my throat, but it does nothing to dislodge the knot there. “And why is that?”

He shrugs. “No idea. I gave her thirty days to kill you or else I’d off her and then…” He waves his hands around as if the result is obvious. “In the end, she is worth more to me alive than dead, and if she liked you enough, you’d likely leave me be after a while, and might even serve a purpose.”

My heart tumbles. Before she even met me, she knew it would end with either me or her buried six feet under. Yet she didn’t kill me in the dark alleyway after I left The Four that night. She didn’t do it at the observatory, at the park, in my kitchen, in hers, at the movies. There were countless times she could have, yet, in the end, she chose my life over hers.

She was willing to die for me.

Then shekilledfor me.

And now she’s been abducted for her actions.

If the cartel knows she’s responsible for all the dead members I’ve linked her to…

“How long has she been gone?”

“Give or take ten days.”

My hands slam on the desk, iced panic chilling me to the core. “Ten days. She could be dead!”

“Maybe. But probably not. We’re going to go get her tonight.”

I round the desk, heart racing, emotions frazzled, with no idea where I’m headed. “I’m coming with you.”

He stops me before I get to the door. “Yeah. I figured. But you can’t go as an agent. It would…complicate things for me. And you have to promise that this little crusade of yours against me stops as well.”

Not bothering to ask what he means or for him to elaborate, I simply nod, Elena and her safety now consuming my every thought. As far as my crusade, well, I guess that can be decided if we get her back alive. I don’t tell him that, though. “Fine. But I want a bat.”

His responding smile is wide. “I got the perfect one.”

* * *

If someone would have toldme that one day, I’d be working with the man who made me feel like complete shit, and then wasted two years of my life trying to put him in jail, I would have…well, seeing as I’m me, it may not have surprised me. But right now, as he looks my outfit over to make sure I’m covered from head to toe, I still can’t believe I ended up here.

“Alright. The objective is pretty simple. Get in, kill as many of them as you can, capture the ones that look like they know something, then find the plant lady.”

After addressing the men behind me, Alexi tugs on my mask, yanking it the rest of the way over my face.

I jerk away from his touch. “Getting Elena should be the first thing everyone does.”

A round of chuckles from Babin’s goons surrounds me, but Alexi’s face remains impassive. “You have your little bat. You wanna go get her first, no one here will stop you. But my goal is to end this war once and for all. I have a fiancé waiting for me and I can’t have someone threatening to put her in danger.”

My mouth parts to speak, to verbally display my shock that someone would willingly marry this man, but before I can, a row of drivers pulls up to the front of the estate. We load into the SUVs and head to Georgia, the ride unsurprisingly loud the entire way. My heart lingers in my throat with every mile we drive, and the closer we get, the harder it beats.

I try not to think about what Elena could be enduring right now, try not to linger on everything that’s happened, but it’s where my mind stays. In a perpetual merry-go-round of lows and lowers and at the end, I’m nauseous as fuck, and just want off the ride.

When we make it across the state line, the conversations between the men shifts, going from the game the other night to strategies over when they arrive. Alexi turns around in the passenger seat, his eyes finding mine through the dark. He’s quiet for a long moment, and right as I’m about to tell him to take a picture, he surprises me.

“So, by you coming, and risking your job and even your life, you forgive her, right?”

“No, I–” The words cut off, my mind and heart beginning a war within my chest.

I remind myself that Elena was lying the entire time we were together, and could have at any time decided to kill me in order to save herself. But then I also remember that there were more than enough opportunities for that, and in the end, she chose me in more ways than one.

Alexi’s laugh is telling. “Yeah, you do. Or at least, you will. Just have some make-up sex. It fixes everything.”

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