“I need to trust that you won’t hurt her,” I added. “But I do agree with you. We need to talk to you.”
“No. Emil… No. I trustyou, but I can’t take your word that I should trust an agent.”
“You can. And you will. Let her help us. Let her choose the family just as she’s chosen me.” That was the beauty of what was changing my life at warp-speed.
Sadie chose me. She chose to hide the fact that I’d kidnapped her. She spared me more trouble. She chose me by wanting to keep and protect our baby. She chose me when she pushed me down to safety in gunfire, and she chose me when she held me and listened to me last night.
She was mine, as much as I was hers.
My father had to respect that.
“Will she?” he asked, direct and blunt about it.
“What?”
“Will she help us?” he asked again. “Are you that confident that she isn’t tricking you and playing you for a fool? That sure she will side with us and betray her career?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t speak for a long moment. I waited, nervous and impatient.
“This woman cares enough for you that she would truly turn traitor to her superiors?”
She didn’t have any superiors anymore. They’d fired her after they failed to have her killed.
I couldn’t answer with full conviction that Sadie cared about me that deeply. In the heat of the moment, she could very well be motivated by lust and desire, that deep physical bond we both felt.
“I will ask her to come home with me and speak with you,” I said instead, hating that I was stuck in a guessing game about how she really felt about me.
“Ask your lover if she’ll help our family,” he ordered. “Don’t keep me waiting,” he growled before disconnecting the call.
I held my phone and stared at it for a long moment.
“Huh,” I whispered to myself as I rolled my eyes. “That went well.”
22
SADIE
Emil wasn’t yelling, but he spoke loud enough that it woke me up from the last wisps of sleep.
I was a light sleeper, but I noticed that since Emil and I had started to be together like this, sharing a bed, I was an even lighter sleeper. I was getting used to his being flush against me and making me feel so safe that when he wasn’t there, I was more prone to toss and turn and wake up at the slightest noise.
I sat up, trying to listen in to what he was saying in the other room. Nothing was really clear as he seemed to take a phone call, because his voice was the only one that came through. It was all a mumble, so I tried to be patient and wait.
He could either come in here and be honest and upfront and tell me what was going on or he could disappoint me even further by trying to hide details from me.
We were enemies coming together in the oddest circumstances. But we had to move forward together. As a team. Not just because we would be bringing a baby into the world but because we made sense.
We had to because I couldn’t imagine us going our separate ways anytime soon. That wasn’t due to the baby but because it seemed like everything was only just starting between us, not ending.
I sat there, hoping I looked as calm as I wanted to feel.
It wasn’t long before he stopped speaking out there and came back into the room.
With an unreadable expression on his face, he closed the door behind himself and sat on the edge of the bed, facing me.
“Let me guess,” I said matter-of-fact.
