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He shrugged and said, “Montgomery is small time.”
“And you? Why do you want Igno?" Nyla asked.
He frowned. "Besides the fact that he's a known terrorist and at the top of the ten-most-wanted list for over a decade? It’s personal."
She cocked her head. "Fair enough."
As they discussed the details of travel and transportation, something caught my eye in the hallway. Or rather, someone with a familiar gait. The hairs at the back of my neck stood up. Who the hell was that?
I pushed my chair back. "Excuse me for a moment."
I ran down the hall, following a hunch. Up ahead, he started moving faster. Why was he so familiar? Was he one of Montgomery's men? This was Interpol and spies were everywhere, so why was this one setting me on edge?
I followed him into the stairwell, but he’d vanished. As I stood inside scanning around, I cursed under my breath. "Fuck me."
A hand clamped over my mouth, and an arm pressed around my throat. I drove back my elbow, and the fucker didn't even move. "Easy does it. Don't go asking questions you don't want answers to."
A blow to the head had me dazed for a nanosecond before I whipped around to see his face, but he was already through the open door and into the hall as I struggled to stay alert.
Nissa
* * *
I hadn't expected him to come looking for me.
Yes, you did. There is too much between you.
When I headed to get coffee at the break room down the way, he pulled me into one of the offices. “Westin, let go of me. I really don't want to have anything to do with you once we take care of my father.”
“Nissa, I just need three minutes, okay?”
“There's nothing you can tell me in three minutes that makes up for what you've done to my life.”
He ran his hands through his hair. It had been getting longer for weeks now, but it looked like he'd trimmed the sides recently. Maybe someone had done it wherever the hell he went after the raid.
You're not supposed to be focusing on how good he looks.
“I know what you heard, but you have to believe I didn't kill your sister. Do you think I’m capable of that?”
“She's gone, Rook. What the hell happened to her then? I heard you say you were going to do it. And then he let you come back.”
“I came back for the undercover mission. That's all. I didn't touch your sister. I did help her get the fuck away from your father. I tucked her somewhere very far away where he was never going to find her again. I helped her hide. But I didn't hurt her. I would never have hurt her. I knew what she meant to you.”
My heart was squeezing like it was actually breaking. “I can't do this.” I tried to shove past him, but he blocked me. His fingers holding my elbow gently.
“If you want to hate me, hate me for a real reason. I lied. I didn't tell you who I really was, that I was on an undercover mission. Even though everything I told you as your bodyguard was the truth. I was there to protect you. That's been one of my primary directives ever since I took the mission. But you cannot hate me for something I didn't do.”
“Oh, yeah? Then where the fuck is my sister?” I hated that there was a part of me that wanted to believe him despite hearing the evidence for myself. I wanted to believe that he wouldn't do that to me. That he wasn't that person. That the boy I had loved was still there inside him somewhere.
But it was folly. Pure folly. Because he had already proven what an excellent liar he was.
“Look, like I said and like you heard, your father gave me the ultimatum. Remove Lenora permanently, or he was going to hurt me and Mrs. Pembry. And he told me the caveat for me coming back was pulling the trigger. And I knew that night when I left that I couldn't go back to you, anyway. I had to walk away forever. And I knew he wasn't going to let me just get away with not doing as I was directed.”
“So you just left?”
“Yeah. I grabbed my gear from the house, and he had one of his men escort me off the premises. And I did try to come for you. Two weeks later when you went back to school, I tried to get on campus. But his men were fucking everywhere. When I didn’t return from ‘eliminating’ Lenora, he knew I'd try to come for you.”
My brow furrowed. “Wait? You came to school?”
