I lower the camera slowly and turn to face him. He’s standing in the hallway, his expression unreadable. No smile. No casual toothpick in his mouth. Just a cold, calculating assessment.
“Need you in the den.Now!”
The words land like a death sentence.
Around us, the clubhouse continues its lazy recovery. No one seems to notice the tension crackling in the air between us. No one sees the way my palms begin to sweat or how the color drains from my face.
“Sure,” I manage, proud that my voice doesn’t crack. “What’s up?”
He doesn’t answer. Just turns and walks toward his domain, clearly expecting me to follow.
Every step feels like walking toward the gallows. The distance to his den feels like it’s taking forever rather than mere seconds, my boots echoing on the floor. My mind races through possibilities, excuses, escape routes. But I’m trapped, and we both know it.
Did someone see me at the precinct?
Did they follow me?
Did Ghost find something I missed in his den?
Does Sin already know?
The thought of Sin’s face when he finds out I have betrayed him makes my chest constrict. Those dark eyes that soften when they look at me, turning hard and cold.
Disgusted.
Betrayed.
Ghost reaches his door and punches in the code. The lock clicks open, and he gestures for me to enter first.
I step inside, and the door closes behind us with a finality that makes my pulse spike.
The tech den looks exactly as I left it—pristine, organized, every monitor glowing with information I can barely comprehend. Ghost moves past me to his command center, his fingers flying over the keyboard.
“You’re probably wondering why you’re here,” he says conversationally, not looking at me.
I swallow hard. “I figured you’d tell me.”
“I always review my security footage.” His voice is still casual, but there’s an edge to it now. “Every morning. Without fail. Especially when it alerts me that there was movement in my den, and someone tried to access files.”
My heart stops.
Actually stops.
I feel the moment it happens, the split second where everything inside me seizes up in pure, terror.
He clicks something on his screen, and my worst nightmare materializes in high definition.
Me.
In this very room.
In the middle of the day, thinking I was so careful, so clever.
The footage shows everything.
Mepunching in the code.
Meentering the den.
