His gaze didn’t leave her face as he slowly answered, “I think… you are going to be upset.”
“Why would I be upset?”
“Because I…” Kaz swallowed hard. Reaching for the envelope like he wanted to take it away, he assured her, “I promise it’s not bad.”
“If it’s not bad, why do you feel so off?” Atria pulled it closer to her chest. Her heart began to pound as prickles of unease raced over her skin. A strange sort of flight or fight instinct surged, as if her body knew whatever it was that had him so unsettled was dangerous. “Why can’t I see it?”
Kaz didn’t blink. His face had gone perfectly neutral, his gaze watchful. Revealing nothing. More alarms went off in her mind. It was the spymaster staring at her, not her mate. “I think lying to you is worse than what’s in there, but you won’t like it, Atria.”
“Why would— Why would you feel like youshouldlie to me?”No. Don’t think the worst. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.
The memory of Norman’s betrayal was still fresh. Looking at her mate’s carefully blank expression, Atria felt the burn of it in the back of her throat.He would never betray me. He’s my mate. I trust him.
But then why would he be acting so cagey? What was he hiding that made him so certain she’d be upset?
Kaz slowly lowered his arm to make a fist by his thigh. Speaking in a low, flat voice,managingher, he said, “Look at it.”
Her trepidation grew when she flipped the metal tab and pulled the packet of papers out of the envelope. Atria’s heart jackknifed in her chest as she skimmed the first page.
“It’s me,” she said, staring down at her own photo, her own name.
ChapterForty-Two
The photoitself was years out of date and apparently sourced from an old ID. She could pinpoint the exact year it was taken by the way she’d braided her hair. Norman told her she looked better with her hair loose, so she’d spitefully braided it up into a complicated style, like he would even care if she showed him. Even something as banal as getting a new ID photo taken was a cry for his attention.Stupid.
Of course, he didn’t notice. And now all she saw when she looked at the photo was a woman who was desperate for any scrap of affection or attention, clinging to a love that didn’t exist with a man who would sell her out for his ambition.
“Why… do you have this?” she asked slowly, shuffling the pages to see her dissertation, an article she co-authored inScience Now!,and tips on how to handle taking the kohl. The more she looked, the more it began to feel like she was holding acrash course on being mated to Atria Le Roykit.
All things considered, it wasn’t that bad. She’d expected the papers to contain some horror, like a letter from some shadowy figure tasking him with kidnapping her or something. What she found seemed innocent enough, if not a little invasive.
Maybe more than a little,she thought, eyeing her phone number warily.But Kaz hoards information professionally. I shouldn’t be surprised he’d do the same in his personal life.
So why did he seem so worried about her reaction?
Before he could answer, she muttered, “When did you evengetall this? Did you whip up a file on me when you heard about the bounty? When did you even have the time?”
He certainly didn’t have timeafterthe fact. At least, not when she wouldn’t have seen him do it. They’d been attached at the hip for days and days. Before then, they were on the road. Not once did they come within a hundred feet of a printer.
“Atria…” he began, worrying her even further with the use of her real name. “There’s nothing sinister there.”
“I never said I thought it was sinister. Of course you would want to know everything about me. Information is what youdo.”But there was something undeniably off about it.
If it was no big deal, then Kaz would say so. He’d tell her bluntly that he gathered as much intel on her that he could to use to his advantage. That was who her mate was and how he kept his grip on the world.
The problem was that he didn’t tell her that.
When she looked up at him, she found him watching her with that infuriatingly blank expression. Waiting.
Something about the file bothered him. There was something she wasn’t seeing. She couldfeelit.
Atria shook her head and looked back down at the papers. She shuffled them again. When her face appeared at the top once more, she explained with a baffled sort of relief, “I’m not mad. I just want to know how you did this, and why it upsets you so much.” She gestured toward her photo. “This is an old picture by the way. That was years ago. Wherever you got your intel, you…”
This was years ago.
Her eyes snapped up to the top of the page. Her lungs compressed when she took in the date stamp in the right-hand corner.
1:12 AM 10 July 2045
