Page 127 of Mile High Ruin

“Yes.”

“Without asking me.”

“Yes.”

“You had no right to do that.”

“I had every practical reason.”

“I didn’t ask whether you had reasons. I asked whether you thought you had the right.”

I lean back against the desk. “You are alive because I’m being cautious.”

“And that apparently means I stop having a say in my own life?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“It’s exactly what you’re doing.”

She starts again before I can respond, the questions coming faster now, one running into the next because she has clearly been holding them in for hours.

“How long am I supposed to stay here? Where is my bag? When do I get it back? Is someone still going through my things? Are you checking Camille too? What are you doing with Daniel? Does my family know where I am? If I decide I want to leave this afternoon, are your guards going to physically stop me?”

“Sloane.”

She ignores me. “And what exactly happens if you decide you still don’t trust me tomorrow, or next week, or whenever this investigation ends? Do I just stay here indefinitely because Vadim Chernovar has decided that is safer?”

“Sloane.”

“What?”

“Stop.”

She doesn’t. Instead, she comes closer. “No. You don’t get to tell me to stop when you are making decisions about my life without telling me anything. You cancel my flight, you search my phone, you bring me to another country, and then when I ask what happens next, you act as though I’m inconveniencing you.”

“You are inconveniencing me.”

Her mouth drops open.

I almost smile. “That was a joke.”

“You are terrible at jokes.”

“I’m beginning to notice.”

She’s close now. Too close.

I should explain that the situation is still unstable, that Petrov knows enough to be dangerous, that I’m not willing to send her back into the world while somebody may be watching her.

Instead, she says, “So what happens if I just walk out the front door?”

I look at her. “You won’t.”

Her eyebrows lift. “That sounded very confident.”

“It was.”

“And if I prove you wrong?”