Page 100 of SINS & Riley
And even though the blanket draped over me is probably cashmere—paired with matching slippers and a ridiculous silk eye mask—there’s no way in hell I can sleep.
Sabine must have a sixth sense for nerves. She slips into the seat beside me, calm as a saint.
“Can I get you anything?”
I flash her my sweetest smile. “I’d love to know where we’re headed?”
“You’ll see when we land,” she says, like she’s soothing a child two seconds from a tantrum.
I study the mystery woman Dominic swore I was in “good hands” with. Sabine’s older than me—though how much is anyone’s guess.
Heavy bangs curtain her face, but faint scars slash beneath them, catching in the low cabin light.
There are three of us here.
Me.
Sabine—a total boss who’s clearly running the show.
And another woman across the aisle.
The other woman is pale and jittery. She also flat out refused the sleeping pill Sabine offered her as if it was poison.
A thick chain circles her throat, almost identical to the one I had, except hers glints green. It drags against her collarbones, weighing heavy the way mine did when they slid the tracker in it.
Or maybe it just looks heavier because she’s so thin.
Diamonds weigh a lot.
Diamonds with a tracker buried inside? They weigh a fuck ton.
“That’s Elena,” Sabine murmurs, her voice low. It’s as if every piece of the woman needs to be handled with care. Even her name.
I glance back at the chain choking Elena’s throat. My fingers ghost over my own bare skin, forgetting for a split second that the black diamond necklace isn’t there anymore.
“So… what is this? Witness protection or something?”
Sabine shrugs. “Maybe. If witness protection came with bottomless wealth and a vigilante at its disposal.”
Vigilante?
She’s telling me Zver is a vigilante.
And suddenly, all the pieces snap into place. The guards crawling everywhere, cameras up the wazoo, the fortress-level paranoia. The secrecy.
The mask.
If he’s running the kind of ops Sabine says he is, danger isn’t a possibility. It’s his shadow.
All of it makes sense.
He wasn’t just hiding himself from me.
He was shielding me. Protecting me from the fallout of knowing too much.
This isn’t witness protection.
It’s a rescue mission.
