he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I’ve been watching him. I know what he’s capable of. I need him on this op.”
Something inside me twisted.
“You’ve been watching him?”
He nodded, unfazed.
“Of course. You’re not exactly discreet about who you keep close. I had to vet him.”
He stepped closer.
“He’s a risk. He makes you vulnerable. You feel too much around him.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,”
I shot back, defensive. He tilted his head, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips.
“Don’t I?”
Then, as if he could see right through me, he said the very thing I had been avoiding since that rooftop dinner.
“Noah is your weakness.”
And just like that—
All the warmth, the hope, the almost from the night before—
Froze in an instant, because deep down, I knew he was right.
I had spent one night letting my guard down, one night laughing like I wasn’t trained to be stone, and the moment that mask cracked, the past slithered back through the walls like smoke. Straightening my spine, I folded my arms.
“Give me the files,” I demanded. “Mission briefing. Targets. Timeline.”
He smiled. Not in a kind way. More like a man who had just won a battle no one else could see.
“I knew you’d understand,” he said, pulling out a small encrypted drive from his coat and handing it to me.
“You’ll need time to prepare. We move in seventy-two hours.”
“I’ll assemble a team,” I replied, my voice hard as steel. “And I’ll talk to Noah. But he goes in as an asset, not a… liability.”
Those words burned as they left my lips. But I said them anyway.
Because if I didn’t—
If I allowed myself to feel anything real—
I wouldn’t survive this mission. Not this one. Not with him on the line.
My father nodded once in acknowledgment, and as I turned away, I tried to ignore the echo of Noah’s laughter in my mind, and the painful echo of my heart breaking all over again.
Noah
I woke up smiling.
Which, in my world, was usually a sign of trouble.
Smiling meant hope. And hope was dangerous.
