“Not…interested?” I whispered.
“Go to the kitchen. I’ll bring you what he wants.” He dropped my arm and turned away, heading back into the bedroom.
I stood unmoving for a few more seconds, but relief got the better of me and I fled through the house, then collapsed into a seat at the kitchen table. The woodgrain captured my entire attention while my world tipped sideways. What did he mean he wasn’t interested? Not interested for now, or not interested at all? And if he wasn’t interested inthat, then what did he want in exchange for his information? I had nothing else to give him.
Harrison would have known if he’d bothered to ask.
Why hadn’t Theo clarified the terms of this agreement?
Reappearing after a couple of minutes, Scott flopped a folder onto the table and dragged a chair close to me—close enough to touch. Every time his arm brushed mine, my heartbeat stuttered, and my skin set on fire. Why was he so warm?
Or was I just cold?
Was I going into shock?
“One condition of this arrangement is that you know the intel I give them.” He slid the folder between us and flipped it open. A delicate gold band glittered on his left pinky. “The information will be in your head alone.”
“Why?”
“Because it keeps the power dynamic in my favor, and it makes you incredibly valuable. If only you know the information, then you’re indispensable. I want a contact they won’t kill for knowing too much, and I don’t want a paper trail.”
“And you want a woman.”
He flashed me a quick glance. “I do.”
But why?
I’m not interested.
Harrison would have known if he’d bothered to ask.
Resisting the temptation to dive into that, I instead asked, “Why would you care if they kill me?”
“I plan to give a lot of information, and I don’t want to adapt to a new contact every time they feel the previous one haslearned too much. The more people know about this, the more dangerous it is. I don’t particularly want to die in the way the NAO reserves for traitors.”
The monthly executions flashed through my mind. Treason was punishable by death.Howa traitor achieved that death, however…
I gazed at his profile, frowning. “What makes you think I’d care how you die? I could turn you in today, and it would save a lot of people’s lives.”
“Would it?” Curiosity sparkled in his cold eyes. “We have more than enough soldiers to offset my absence.”
“You—you kill more than any of the others.”
His jaw flexed. “I’m good at my job.”
Hewasgood at it. Too good at it. Terrifyingly good at it.
Icicles crystallized my bones at the memory of his cold-blooded executions, freezing to the point of pain. He could kill me in seconds.
His voice softened. “I’ll be good at this, too. If you’ll cooperate.”
We studied each other, and I pushed away the instinct to flee. I was in no danger from him.
For now.
It wouldn’t always be true. He wanted something—some as-yet-unnamed condition of this arrangement. His cold was threaded with an intricate anger he tried to hide. It flaunted itself with twitches of his eyes and clenches of his jaw. Lucas Scott held himself like a restrained animal, ready to attack. What, exactly, was restraining him? When would he strike?
“What do you really want from me?” I whispered once again.
