When he doesn’t do anything but grab his bleeding leg and moan, I say, “Because men like youalwaysunderestimate women like me.”
The front door whips open, crashing against the wall.
“Nova!” Noah’s panicked voice shouts from the doorway.
I smile. He’s safe. We’re safe.
“In here!” I shout back.
When he rounds the corner and finds me standing over my target, his shoulders slump, and his lips turn up. “That’s my girl.”
Ella switches on the light in my bedroom, and I bolt upright, wiping the sleep from my eyes. Jax and Evan both groan simultaneously next to me. We’ve barely slept in the last forty-eight hours.
The look on Ella’s face has me bolting out of bed. Tears streak down her face, her eyes bloodshot from crying. I fear the worst, but I wait for her to speak.
“It’s not Dec, Nova.”
The fear and pain I’ve held tightly wound up in my chest finally release, and identical tears streak down my face.
“How do you know?” I ask with a shaky voice.
Ella raises a brow. “Besides the fact that the second you were brought up, he burst into tears?”
“Shit. I’ve never seen Dec cry.”
Ella lets out a shaky laugh and falls into the chair next to the bed. “Neither have I.”
I remain standing, swaying back and forth, full of nervous energy.
“He told me everything, even though it broke about a million rules. Everything he has on Owen’s case, on your case, on the black snake crime syndicate. He put most of it together himself with very little information.”
I huff, stopping my swaying body. “I’m an idiot. I should have trusted my gut. He could have helped us.”
Ella wisely doesn’t comment, because even though she suspected he might be the rat, in the beginning she encouraged me to talk to him about everything.
“I didn’t tell him the evidence we have because I was still afraid he might be our rat, but as the conversation went on, and the more he revealed…” Ella trails off, more tears spilling from her eyes. “He’s risking his career for you, Nova. He told me he’s going up against the board with the shitty evidence he has and will resign after. He is fighting for you.”
“Fuck.”
How could I have so badly underestimated him?
There’s a long silence where no one even moves, though their eyes are trained on me.
I take a deep breath, meeting their expectant faces. “I’m going to Dec with all of it. I’ll explain everything.”
It’s the answer they were all anticipating, but as I quickly exit the room, Ella’s voice trails after me. “If the rat isn’t Dec, then who is it?”
I stop in the doorway, turning enough to notice her face.
I’d already figured it out as she was speaking. Perhaps I’d always known, and I’m angry at being so foolish and as blind as Peyton implied. But my fragmented memories and dreams finally make sense. There’s only one person with the tech skills. There’s only one person who was in Italy with me when everything went to shit. And there’s only one person who has a vested interest in my trial going well. Not because they care about me, but because they care about being outed as a double agent.
“It’s Gray.”
Chapter 33
“You broke protocol!” Declan shouts into the phone.
“Dec, I had to. You know why.”
