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She didn’t reply. She didn’t want to even think his name.
“I take it you aren’t happy to see me.”
Cygny opened her mouth to speak but she wasn’t quite sure she’d be able to make any sound. “N-not particularly.”
He clapped his hands together. “Always a wit.”
The buyer that Cygny hadn’t talked to finally spoke up. “What’s going on here? Are you going to give her a leg up on this sale? That’s not what we were promised.”
Standing at the head of the room, resplendent in his designer suit, was Nicholas Cavendish, former head of Homeland Security’s Espionage division.
The look he turned to the other was deceptively calm.
He gave them all every indication that they were welcome and about to have a wonderful experience.
She wanted to warn him. She wanted to warn them all, but it seemed as though the best plan was to wait and see.
Making rash judgements around her old boss had never been particularly helpful.
Or smart.
He liked to play the long game.
It had taken him over two years to plant evidence in Leo’s life. He’d infiltrated every corner of Leo’s life and no one had noticed.
He’d interwoven his lies into Leo’s file so well that it had taken her months of searching to find the breadcrumbs and double that to[?] cull the lies from his records.
Nicholas Cavendish didn’t rush. He didn’t react to things as much as he waited to see what choices his quarry would make and then trigger the traps he’d placed in front of them.
She’d worked with him and had [only seen glimpses of the true man behind his professional demeanor.
How had she missed such a darkness lurking in his heart?
She knew that the man in front of her had a will that she shouldn’t underestimate. The fact that he was free and standing before her was a testament to that.
“I’m glad you could join this gathering, Cygny.”
He put an added emphasis on her name.
“Cygny Devoy.” His mouth twisted into a sneer. “What a colorful moniker. Did you choose it yourself?”
He didn’t even bother to wait for an answer.
“I liked Elaine better. It had more character.”
If he meant to cut her with his words, he was far from the mark, just seeing him had already flayed open a hundred wounds that she thought she’d closed up.
But this time was different.
He’d shocked her before. Discovering his guilt had turned her world upside down and inside out, but now she knew the mettle of the man in front of her.
He’d planned this. The look in his eyes said as much.
He’d meant to pull her into a trap and she’d walked right in.
What he knew about her, about her past, had all figured into this.
As she lifted her chin and kept a hold of his gaze with her own, she held onto one thought that gave her hope.
She wasn’t the same woman who’d believed his lies.
She wasn’t under his thumb anymore.
Nicholas looked around the room, his eyes landing on every person in turn, but touched on her last at the end of his perusal of the group.
“I had hoped to meet your man, Cygny. It’s not everyday a woman ruins her promising career over a muscle-bound ape.”
The chill in the room seemed to seep into her bones as she realized his meaning. Leo’s absence suddenly took on a more ominous tone.
Where was he?
Looking around the room herself, she noticed that there was someone else missing.
* * *
