“Absolutely not,” Adam replied flatly.
Vanika pinned him with a glare.“Are you saying you don’t think I can do it?”
“Borthwick left six armed men back there.How’re you gonna overcome those guys with one knife?”
“I don’t need to overcome the guards.”Vanika’s eyes glittered dangerously.“I just need to free my cousin.”
Adam considered his brief but potent impression of Subhas Konja and wavered.
But he’d be sending a twelve-year-old kid into danger on her own.
“You still need to get your friends out of the well,” Vanika pressed mercilessly.
“Yeah, but…”
“And you plan to try to stop that demon from getting Rama’s weapon,” she continued without waiting for him.
“Might’ve been considering it,” Adam mumbled.
“You are not the only one here who can do things.”
Hell,Adam thought ruefully.He couldn’t ask for Vanika’s trust without granting it to her in return.
The fierce, scrawny girl beside him waited for his response.
“Why do I feel like you’re scolding me?”Adam complained.
She rolled her eyes.“Because I am.Now take your knife out and drop it into the grass.”
Adam yanked the knife from his belt.He hesitated.“Will you at least promise me that you’ll back off if it looks dangerous?”
“Areyougoing to back off if it looks dangerous?”Vanika pushed back.
“Probably not,” Adam admitted.
Vanika waited.
Adam muttered a curse under his breath and let the knife go.The blade sank into the tall grass at the base of the boulder and disappeared.
He checked the camp to see if anyone had noticed.After a few suspicious looks when he had first sat down, the soldiers had gone back to ignoring them.Even Adam’s guards didn’t consider his conversation with a child to be much of a threat.They were watching their colleagues as though wishing they had a more interesting assignment.
He glanced past them to the far side of the camp—where a pair of black eyes studied him with coal-hard intensity.
And like that, the rest of Adam’s plan snapped into place.
Not that it really qualified as a plan.It was more like a patently insane impulse—one that he’d likely reconsider if he stopped to think about it.
Good thing he didn’t plan to stop.
Jacobs strode toward them through the soldiers.
Adam rose to his feet.“Here comes your distraction, kid,” he muttered under his breath.
Vanika’s eyes went wide as she looked from him to Jacobs.
Adam wasn’t going to lie.As stupid as he knew this was… part of him was going to enjoy it.
Jacobs drew closer, and Adam stepped out to meet him.
