“And that includes you.”
I set the bottle down.
This is the part I haven't said out loud to anyone. The part that lives in the sealed compartment of my life, where I keep the things that would break Sophia if she knew them and compromise Ian's focus if he knew them too well.
But Ian needs enough to understand the urgency.
“She's been running me harder,” I say. “Not just the volume of jobs. The nature of them.” I don’t have to spell it out. Ian gets it. He knows Valeria’s twisted appetite, and all he needs to know is that it’s increased.
“So, what's the play?”
“We wait. When Mary knows, we move. Fast.” I look at Ian. “I have a contingency in place for the extraction. Someone positioned to move them the moment Samuel tells Mary.”
“Not us?”
“Not us. Our job stays Sophia.” I hold his gaze. “The moment Samuel moves, Valeria is going to know it came from somewhere. She's going to start looking.” A pause. “And she’s going to look straight at me.”
Ian nods slowly. Processing. “And you trust Samuel enough to let him handle Mary without you?”
“I trust what he loves.” I look out toward the pool. “Men who love the way Samuel loves Mary don't hesitate when it counts.”
While Samuel’s busy moving assets and coming up with a well-oiled contingency plan of his own, I’m doing the same. Building a backup to a backup, a series of actions and favors called in across continents.
For years, Mary was my responsibility. It takes me finding love to realize that Samuel is now that person for my sister. He’ll take care of her, while I take care of the woman who now holds my every breath in the palm of her hand.
I turn to face Ian again. “It’s happening. And it’s happening soon. Samuel and I just need a little more time. Make sure everything is in place before we make our move. We can’t riska half-assed plan, because half-assed plans are the ones Valeria takes as a personal insult.”
“I still think you need to stay,” Ian says. “If you leave in three days, it’s gonna break her all over again.”
My eyes find her as she gets out of the pool, the yellow bikini slicked to her skin, blonde hair wet and trailing water in a thin line down the center of her back. I didn't think it was possible, but she's even more beautiful under the Greek night than she is anywhere else.
The moon is doing something extraordinary tonight.
Full and low and closer than it has any right to be—the kind of moon that makes you understand why the Titan goddess Selene was worshipped at night. It catches the water on Sophia’s skin and turns it silver, every droplet a small deliberate light, like she walked out of the pool wearing something the night made specially for her.
I’m not a man who believes in gods. But if I did, I would only ever ask for one thing.
For Sophia Sinclair to be untouchable by darkness. Even if meant keeping her away from me.
Ian says something beside me.
I don't hear it. “How is she?” My gaze finds his. “How is she doing…really?”
He doesn’t answer right away, which is an answer in itself. Something about the way he glances out at her, his jaw set, says he’s thinking harder than usual.
“Better.” He turns the word over like he's checking the underside of it. “The nightmares stopped.”
“What nightmares?”
“Bad ones.” He says it the same way he'd saythe weather's been shit—matter of fact, no theater in it. “Sometimes she couldn’t pull herself out of it.” He drinks again. “I've slept next to her a few times.” He holds up his hands. “Before you get any ideas—she was crying and I wasn't going to lie in the next room listening to it.”
Something shifts in my chest.
“I'm just saying.” He empties his beer, then pushes off the stove. “She's fine. But there was a really long time when she wasn’t. Took me weeks to get her out of that damn apartment.” Tosses the empty bottle in the trash. “Which is why I originally hated this idea. Before I knew Mrs. Pervert was on our asses.”
“What do you mean, you hated the idea?” I straighten. “You mean the idea of me seeing her?”
“More the idea of her seeing you.”
