“You enjoy the show?” she asked, voice sharp enough to draw blood.
I pushed off the wall, closing the distance. Not close enough to touch, but close enough that the air tightened between us. “Depends. Was it a performance?”
Her eyes flashed. “If I wanted to perform, Cole, I’d still be smiling for cameras while Hydra wrote checks in the back room.”
I wanted to believe her. God help me, part of me almost did. Because in that room, when she whispered—when she thought no one heard—her voice hadn’t sounded like Hydra. It had sounded… human.
But trust wasn’t something I handed out like candy.
“You expect me to swallow that you didn’t know?” I asked, low, dangerous. “That Hydra kept you squeaky clean while they trafficked kids and women like cattle?”
Her breath caught, sharp. Not guilty—furious. “I knew they were monsters. I didn’t knowthat. If you think I’d stand by while children were sold like merchandise, then you don’t know me at all.”
My jaw clenched. “That’s the problem, Voss. I don’t know you. And I sure as hell can’t trust you until I do.”
For a heartbeat, silence hung heavy. She could’ve snapped back. Could’ve turned icy, like always. But instead her shoulders sagged, just slightly, like the armor slipped.
“Then watch me,” she whispered. “Every second. Keep your gun pointed at my back if it makes you feel better. Just… watch long enough to see the truth, and then stay the hell away from me.”
It hit harder than a bullet. Because that’s exactly what I’d been doing since the second she walked in—and damn it, I wasn’t sure if I’d already started to see it.
I stepped closer, crowding her space until her pulse jumped in her throat. “Careful what you wish for, Voss. You might not like what I see.”
Her lips curved, not quite a smile, not quite a threat. “Neither will you.”
And hell if that didn’t make me want her more.
9
Elara
The door to my room shut with a soft click, and for the first time all day, I let myself breathe.
Not the controlled, measured inhales they taught me to wear like perfume. Not the crisp exhale of a woman who was always in command. No. This one rattled in my chest, shaky. I was tired of always being in control. I didn’t know he kept children or women.
I pressed my palms against the desk, bowing my head with my eyes closed. My reflection in the black screen of the laptop in front of me was still that polished mask: neat hair, perfect posture, bandage tucked under a blouse that oozed control. But my hands trembled. They hadn’t stopped trembling since the warehouse.
Hydra trained me to bury weakness so deep it couldn’t find its way back to the surface. But tonight, when Beckett’s voice rasped against my ear in that interrogation hallway—accusing, unrelenting—it cut through the armor. And worse, when he’d said he couldn’t trust me, part of me had wanted to beg him to try.
I sank into the chair, elbows pressed against the armrests, fingers intertwined so tightly that the knuckles turned white. Hiswords echoed in my mind, harsh and unwavering:I don’t know you. I can’t trust you.
He was right. He didn’t know me. No one here did. Not the girl who once believed her charm could buy safety. Not the woman who realized too late that safety had been a cage, with a tight collar one Hydra locked around her throat.
But Beckett… he’d seen something in that warehouse. The part of me that refused to run. The part that hadn’t been able to look away when kids were mentioned. God help me, the part that still remembered the friend I’d lost—the girl who’d vanished one night and was never spoken of again.
My chest tightened until I had to stand, pacing the small space, hands tugging at the ends of my sleeves like maybe I could wring out the memories.
Beckett didn’t believe me. But he would keep me alive. I knew that much. The way he’d dragged me behind cover. The way he’d touched the bandage on my shoulder like he wanted to take the pain himself. The way he’d promised—not with words, but with his body—that nothing would touch me while he was breathing.
And that terrified me more than Hydra ever had. Because it meant letting someone else carry the weight I was trained to hold alone.
I leaned against the wall, pulling my knees to my chest like I hadn’t since I was a child. Vulnerability felt foreign, like an old language I’d forgotten. But in the silence of that room, it slipped out anyway, a whisper meant for no one:
“Please… just keep me safe.”
The sound of boots in the hall made me snap upright, mask sliding back into place before the knock came.
“Elara?” Beckett’s voice, rough and steady. Always steady.
