Chapter 22 Erryn
ERRYN
It only took six days for Helena’s trap to work, and the moment that notification popped up in the shadow inbox made every single moment of pretending to roll over and expose my throat to William Vanguard worth it.
For over a month, I had played the part he expected, conceding just enough ground to keep him comfortable in his opinion that he had me backed into a corner.
Every conversation had been a careful exercise in restraint, while I imagined all the ways I was going to murder him slowly, using every filthy trick I had learned in my career.
It had been…unpleasant.
But power was rarely made in the moment you struck. It was made in the game of chess leading up to it, and my bishop was moving into place to take his.
My gaze moved back to the email glowing quietly on the screen.
Helena had blocked any return emails until I’d made a decision on how to respond, but it was the tone of Octavia’s email that I was analyzing.
“She hates him,” I mused, as Helena swung her seat back on two legs and balanced, her laptop perched on her lap.
“Spoiled little rich girl,” Helena muttered.
“Can you reply to that thread?” I asked.
Helena nodded, rocking herself on the balancing chair and ignoring my look of exasperation as the table juddered with the movement.
“I can make it look like it’s come from him,” Helena said, rocking precariously back on the chair another inch as she scrolled through the thread, “but I can’t replicate the system signatures. If she goes digging, she’ll see it didn’t originate from Vanguard’s servers.”
I leaned back in my own chair, studying the email again.
“How technologically savvy do we think she is?”
Helena lifted one shoulder in a vague shrug. “Given how technologically allergic she seems to be, I’m not convinced she will think to look.”
I hummed under my breath. It was a gamble, but it would make this process a lot faster if we pulled it off. “If she hates him as much as I think she does, she wouldn’t be asking him for that transfer unless it was dire.”
The chair legs thumped softly against the floor as Helena tipped forward again, eyeing me with apprehension.
“She has donated every payment to date, Helena. What does that tell you?”
“Well, she clearly doesn’t have an abundance of wealth,” Helena said, picking up the laptop and giving it a wiggle. “Or maybe she did, but she fucked up.”
“I think she refuses to touch his money,” I said.
“She’s clearly out of her comfort zone asking for it early, and she knows she has that default gaining interest with every month.
Let’s push her a little. Reply that it’s time to stop traveling and come home.
The quarterly payment will only be made once she returns to the UK and remains here.
Set up a travel credit as well and say you expect her back within the week. ”
“I can attach a digital travel voucher,” Helena said after a moment, scrolling through another window. “Most airlines will let you redeem it directly through their booking portal.”
“Good,” I said. “Embed a tracker in the link.”
She snorted softly. “Oh yeah, just embed a tracker. So simple.”
I wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, squeezing lightly. “Do I need to show you how?” I asked mildly.
She muttered something, but brought up another screen, already doing it.
“It won’t track the plane itself,” she said eventually, “but it will tell us when the voucher is redeemed, where the booking originates from, and which airline system processes it.”
“That’s all we need,” I said. “If she books the flight, we know where she’s landing.”
Helena leaned back again, balancing the chair as she whistled a tune through her teeth. “I’ve already narrowed down her current location to Virginia,” she said, checking something else. “Sure you don’t want to go in and collect?”
I shook my head, my thumb running up the side of her neck as I watched her work, once again impressed by her efficiency.
“Too big a field, and she is too good at slipping away. I like these odds more.”
I left Helena to finish, checking the time on my watch and pulling my phone out, already dreading the phone call I was about to make. I stepped into my bedroom and hit the contact I had called so many times before.
“Well, this is a lovely surprise, Erryn.” Theo’s voice on the other end was slightly jarring after so long avoiding each other. “Is this my lecture after my little vacation to the naughty corner?”
I ignored the jab, pulling the door closed behind me.
“We can discuss that later,” I said. “I have a sensitive job coming up that I need you ready for.”
There was a short pause on the other end of the line.
“Sensitive how?” she asked.
“Extraction.”
That earned me a huff. “You’re calling me for an extraction after parking me on disciplinary leave for three weeks?” Theo said. “I’m touched.”
“I’m not in the mood for sarcasm,” I sighed, already wanting to throttle her.
“Oh, come on,” she said. “You know you miss my sarcasm.”
I closed my eyes briefly and pinched the bridge of my nose before continuing. After this, I was going to need some serious introspection about my type. I hadn’t ever considered myself masochistic, but I was starting to wonder, all things considered.
“I need you on standby,” I said. “You won’t have coordinates immediately, but when they come through, you will move without delay.”
“And the objective?”
“I want a clean abduction,” I said calmly. “Secure the target and hold until I give further instruction.”
Theo was quiet for a moment. “Alive, I assume.”
“Alive. And this stays off the books. No Triarchy software. Don’t even breathe in its direction.”
“Well,” Theo said after a moment, “that sounds more interesting than sitting here contemplating my personal growth. I’m gathering there is something you aren’t telling me?”
I leaned against the edge of the dresser, lowering my voice instinctively even though the door was shut. “The location will most likely be in the UK,” I said. “But I want you prepared for international movement if the situation changes.”
“That’s vague.”
“You have worked with less before.”
Theo snorted. “Timeline?”
“Immediate once we have confirmation,” I said carefully. “And if the situation deteriorates, the priority remains securing the target. Do not engage in anything that risks losing them.”
Helena slipped in the door, her laptop balanced on her arm, and I waved her over.
She turned her screen around, showing me the latest intercepted message.
“Within the week,” I said down the line. “Consider it your only ticket out of an indefinite naughty corner. I’ll be in touch with the details.”
I hung up, feeling Helena’s attention on me in the loaded silence that followed, and turned, putting my phone on charge next to the bed to give myself a moment to decompress.
“Good work,” I said, unbuttoning my shirt with my back to her and slipping it off, already reaching for the hooks of the torturous bra that had been driving me to distraction, when Helena’s lips brushed against my shoulder, her loose curls brushing my back.
“You have an agent in mind to extract her?” I could hear everything she was really asking in the tone of her voice.
“I do,” I said, as her hands replaced mine, unclipping the bra, and I groaned softly as it fell away, her hands coming up to caress the places at my ribs it had dug in. Turning, I took Helena’s hands and settled them on my trouser buttons in a silent order to continue undressing me.
She did. Though she did not look at me once.
“Ask me then,” I said.
Helena pursed her lips, her fingers working the buttons one by one, a little more brusquely than was needed.
“I wouldn’t dream of questioning who you choose,” she said tersely.
I eyed her in silence as she knelt, lowering my trousers as she did, and I stepped out of them, my fingers threading through her hair as she leaned in to kiss me over the silk of my underwear that were already damp with need.
Two months of this. It had only taken two months to become so used to her touch that my body now craved it.
Two months of knowing she woke up every morning wet and ready for me.
Of sitting at my desk with the lingering taste of her on my tongue, the only thing keeping me from tumbling off the cliff into the darkness that was threatening to swallow me whole.
I reached down and took her jaw in my hand, making her look at me.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
She got that obstinate set to her jaw as she pushed to her feet, moving to pick up the laptop lying on the bed. I caught her wrist.
“Helena.”
“Do you not trust me to extract her then?” she bit out. “Too much riding on it for you?”
I leveled a look at her, and her chin rose a fraction in response.
“Do I need to dignify that with an answer?” I asked.
“No.” She shrugged and tried to pull her wrist away, but I tightened my grip enough to leave bruises, warning her with a low sound in my throat.
“My stats are nearly as good as hers,” she said tersely.
“They are,” I agreed, watching her face. I could see the little spark of anger my words stoked, and it made me want to push more to see where that ember came from. I needed to know.
“But that’s still not what you want to ask, Helena.”
She wrenched her arm free. “Why her?”
“Because I trust her,” I said.
The flame roared to life in her eyes, answering my silent question.
“Why do you think I have put Theo on the extraction and not you?” I asked, stepping into her space again.
“Because you put the most efficient agents on your highest value contracts,” she said, stepping back.
“No,” I said, following her.
There was a flicker of confusion that crossed her face and it was gone again a moment later. “You trust her more.”
“No,” I said again, backing her against the wall.
“The Head hasn’t approved your guard ending.”
I let out a breath of a laugh. “No.”
“Then why?” she flung at me.
I cupped her cheek, my thumb tracing the line of her lip, my free hand pinning her to the wall. “Because I need you here.”
She scoffed. “You have rejected the need for a guard from the start. Don’t even—”
“I don’t need a guard,” I interrupted. “I need you, Lena. And I’ll be damned if I let you out of my sight while the rest of my world is crumbling around me. Mine, remember. I don’t share what’s mine, and I have lost too much to risk something—someone so valuable to me.”
Helena stilled, the look of disbelief on her face would almost be comical if I hadn’t felt the way her heart skipped and beat hard against my palm.
“What?”
“Theo is not a threat to you.”
She blinked rapidly, swallowing hard. “You meant it?”
“Lena, there has been nothing between Theo and I in nearly a year. It was strictly physic—”
“No.” She swiped her hand as if that was inconsequential. “What you said the other day.”
I frowned at her, not following.
“Yours,” she said, her voice breaking on the word.
I pushed back a ringlet that had escaped its braid and gave her a lopsided smile.
“Mine,” I said. “There is no one else, Lena. Only you.”