Chapter 9 #2
One of my men approaches.
“Site is secure.”
I don't look away from her.
“How many?”
“Three detained. One injured. We’re sweeping again.”
“Phones, drives, paper, cameras. Everything comes to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nothing uploads to Blackwell central.”
His hesitation is tiny.
I see it.
“Nothing,” I repeat.
“Understood.”
Sabine notices.
Naturally she does.
“You're hiding me.”
I look down.
“For now.”
“From who?”
“Everyone.”
Her expression changes.
“Even Blackwell?”
“Especially Blackwell.”
She studies my face.
I know what she's thinking.
Can I trust Xavier?
She trusted Ghost.
That's what she told me.
Now I need to earn the rest.
“My father doesn't know you're here,” I say quietly.
Fear flickers.
Barely.
“He can't.”
“He won't.”
“You don't understand.”
“Then explain when we're safe.”
“You work for him.”
“No.”
That surprises her.
I amend it.
“I work for Blackwell. That doesn't mean my father gets everything I know.”
Her eyes search mine.
“You lied to him?”
“I declined three calls and hung up on the fourth.”
Despite everything, her mouth twitches.
“That must have hurt him.”
“Deeply. I'll send flowers.”
There's my Vesper.
A tiny spark behind the fear.
It almost undoes me again.
Then I see her wrists.
My entire mood turns.
Raw skin.
Blood.
Plastic cuts.
I take one hand carefully.
“What happened?”
“Zip tie.”
“You did this?”
“I needed NULL.”
My throat closes.
She cut herself free trying to reach me.
“Sabine.”
“I didn't have much choice.”
I look toward the men being restrained in the adjacent room.
Every violent instinct I've ever disciplined comes roaring forward.
She sees it happen.
“Xavier.”
“What?”
“That face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you start calculating how many countries have weak extradition treaties.”
One of my security men coughs.
I glance at him.
He becomes fascinated with the floor.
I look back at her.
“I wasn't calculating.”
“You were.”
“I already know them.”
Her mouth twitches again.
Good.
Keep joking.
Keep looking at me.
Keep breathing.
I take off my coat and settle it around her shoulders.
She catches the lapel.
Then stops.
Her expression changes.
She lifts it slightly toward her face.
Inhales.
My chest tightens.
“The wedding,” I say.
Her eyes lift.
“What?”
“You did this with my jacket at the wedding.”
Color rises beneath her tan.
Interesting.
“You don't know that.”
“Orange blossom.”
She stares.
“I knew you smelled it.”
“I identify details.”
“You buried your face in the collar.”
“Travers exaggerates.”
“He saw?”
“He has eyes. Unfortunately.”
That earns me the faintest laugh.
I could live on that sound for an unreasonable amount of time.
Then I touch a strand of her hair.
I shouldn't.
I do anyway.
Caramel curls around my fingers.
Real.
“You lied about the blonde.”
“I never said I was blonde.”
“You deliberately created a blonde witness description.”
“That is different.”
“You left synthetic hair.”
“Also different.”
“You have a problem with honesty.”
She lifts one brow.
“Says Ghost.”
Fair.
My thumb brushes the strand once.
Then her eyes.
“Cornflower.”
She blinks.
“What?”
“Your eyes.”
I can't stop looking at them.
She spent years refusing to show them to me.
Now I understand why.
They'd have destroyed every photograph.
“I imagined gray.”
“Wrong.”
“Green once.”
“Also wrong.”
“Drew said baby blue.”
Her mouth falls open.
“Drew saw me?”
“At the wedding.”
“Oh.”
“You made an impression.”
Her expression becomes cautious. “What did he say?”
I almost smile.
“Nothing worth repeating.”
“He mentioned my breasts.”
I stare.
Her mouth curves.
“Men are not subtle.”
“Travers especially.”
For the first time since entering this building, I feel something other than panic or rage.
I want her.
Not in the clean, distant way desire works when it's attached to an anonymous photograph.
Her.
This messy caramel hair.
These eyes.
Her real accent.
The mouth I already know.
The woman beneath my coat bleeding onto my shirt and still trying to make me laugh.
Then she looks at me, and something in her expression changes.
“You came.”
Two words.
Quiet.
Not teasing.
I cup her face.
“You said you needed me.”
“I didn't know if you'd—”
“Don't.”
Her eyes widen.
“Don't ever finish that sentence.”
She goes still.
“I would've crossed farther than London.”
Something passes across her face.
Fear.
Relief.
Maybe the same thing I'm feeling.
“You didn't even know who I was.”
“Yes, I did.”
“You knew Vesper.”
“I know you.”
“You know code and messages.”
“I know when you're lying. I know when you're pretending not to be hurt. I know you get meaner when you're scared and funnier when you're lonely.”
Her lips part.
“I know you disappear when something matters too much. I know you hate needing anyone. I know you read messages twice before answering when the truth makes you uncomfortable.”
Her eyes shine.
No.
I can't handle tears.
Not hers.
“And I knew your mouth,” I add quietly. “Immediately.”
That stops them.
“What?”
“I told you. Three planets away.”
She gives me the strangest look.
“That is ridiculous.”
“Accurate.”
“I was bleeding.”
“Still recognized it.”
“Very romantic.”
“I wasn't trying to be romantic.”
“Clearly.”
I almost kiss her.
Everything in me wants to.
My thumb rests beneath her lip.
Her gaze drops to my mouth.
The air changes.
Then she flinches.
Barely.
Pain.
Reality returns.
Not here.
Not like this.
I drop my hand.
Her disappointment is so fast she probably thinks I miss it.
I don't.
I miss nothing about her anymore.
“Car,” I tell my team.
“Ready.”
I guide her toward the exit.
My hand stays at her back.
She doesn't pull away.
Outside, rain is falling.
London cold.
Streetlights cutting through mist.
My father calls again the second we reach the vehicle.
Sabine sees the name flash across my watch.
FATHER
Her entire body stiffens.
I silence it.
“Xavier.”
“He can wait.”
“What if this is connected?”
“It probably is.”
“Then you should answer.”
“No.”
She looks at me like I've lost my mind.
Maybe I have.
I open the rear door.
“Get in.”
“Bossy.”
“Kidnapped.”
“Temporarily.”
“Sabine.”
That does it.
She gets in.
I follow.
The privacy glass rises.
My security team takes the front vehicle.
For the first time since I received her 911, there are no other people close enough to hear us.
Sabine sits beside me wrapped in my coat.
Real.
Alive.
Mine to protect even if she never becomes mine in any other sense.
My father's name flashes again.
I shut the watch completely off.
Sabine watches.
“You can't hide me forever.”
“I don't need forever.”
“How long?”
“Until I know why Blackwell buried your father.”
Her eyes move to mine.
“And if your father had something to do with it?”
There's the question.
The one she expects to divide Ghost from Xavier forever.
I should hesitate.
Family.
Company.
Legacy.
Everything I've been raised to protect.
I don't.
“Then he answers for it.”
She stops breathing.
I lean back against the seat.
I can't tell her the rest.
Not tonight.
Not while she's hurt and terrified and wrapped in my coat.
I can't tell Travers.
Kane.
Vale.
Leo.
Nobody.
And my father can never know until I understand exactly what happened to Adrien Beaumont and why armed men were willing to abduct his daughter for something called a second key.
Most of all, I cannot tell Sabine that somewhere between a dark encrypted room and finding her bleeding in a London warehouse, I crossed a line I didn't know existed.
I'm in love with her.
Completely.
Catastrophically.
With Vesper.
With Sabine.
With the ghost and the woman.
She spent years making herself impossible to catch.
Turns out she caught me first.
And I'm beginning to understand the truly dangerous part.
I don't want to get free.