Page 17 of Raven

Raven didn’t even flinch.

Of course he didn’t.

He just nodded once. “Good. Now we know what we’re dealing with.”

I blinked. “That’s it?”

“For now.”

I stared at him. “You’re not going to ask why I left?”

“I’m not going to ask you anything until you’re ready to talk,” he said, then added, “But when you are… I’ll be right here.”

My throat tightened.

Because I believed him.

And that was the most dangerous part of all. I didn’t want him to get involved in this horror of mine, where he could get killed.

9

Beatrice

We saton the deck in silence.

Mike was curled at my feet. Mandy lay beside Raven, ears flicking at every sound. The ocean was dark, restless, and the night felt like it was holding its breath.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Raven said, voice low.

But I did.

Because Slate wasn’t going to wait.

And if I didn’t start trusting someone—reallytrusting someone—people I cared about were going to die.

“I was twenty-one when the government recruited me. I had just graduated from college,” I said, staring out at the water. “One of my friends' fathers worked for the CIA. I met some other CIA agents. They said I was bright. Calm under pressure. They thought I could get away with more because I was an unknown. There is corruption everywhere, but mostly in our government. They tricked a twenty-one-year-old girl into thinking she would be helping her government.

Raven didn’t respond. Just listened.

“They trained me to go places people like them couldn’t go. Places where a pretty blonde who knew how to fight didn’t raise any alarms. My Dad had died when I was seventeen, and I thought, what the hell. I could get in, get eyes on things, make contact, disappear. And for a while, I believed in it.”

I paused. Swallowed.

“But Guatemala changed that,” I said.

Raven shifted slightly, waiting.

“We were embedded near a village that had become a trafficking hub. My job was to identify the buyers—follow the money. What I didn’t know was that the Agency had no intention of rescuing the victims. They’d cut a deal to protect the pipeline in exchange for intel on bigger fish.”

I clenched my jaw. “So I went rogue.”

“You took them down,” he said quietly.

“I tried,” I corrected. “I got most of the kids out. Burned the place down on my way out. But some of them—my contacts—my friends—didn’t make it. Slate killed them before I set the place on fire. Slate was there. He ran the place, mostly the trafficking. He saw everything. I didn’t know if he got out. I hoped he didn’t.”

“But now he’s here,” Raven said, his gaze hard, as he watched me.

I nodded. “The symbol on the woman’s hand… it wasn’t just a warning. It was a signature. They want me to know they remember what I did.”

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