"You look like you've seen an angel and forgot how to speak."
Drake's voice cuts through my paralysis. He appears at my side with a fresh glass of bourbon, the amber liquid sloshing gently as he presses it into my hand with the kind of quiet concern that tells me I look exactly as wrecked as I feel.
I pocket my phone with deliberate slowness, trying to arrange my features into something resembling composure. My jaw aches from clenching. "Am I that obvious?"
"It's how I feel around Katriana." Drake takes a sip of his own drink, watching me with those sharp gray eyes that miss nothing, that have seen me at my worst and my best and everything in between. "Want to tell me what's going on?"
I could lie. I could keep the secret I've been carrying for eight weeks, let him believe the same story I've been telling myself. But the weight of it is crushing me, and if I'm going to face Ilona, I need someone to know the truth first.
Even if that truth makes Drake look at me differently.
"I need to tell you something." I take a breath that shakes more than I'd like, my chest tight with the confession building behind my ribs. "And you're not going to like it."
Drake's expression shifts, sharpening into the focused attention of a man who's survived countless crises. He sets his glass on a nearby shelf and angles his body toward mine, blocking us from the rest of the party. "Talk to me."
"Remember that jungle beauty I told you about? The one from Scarlet Thorn?"
"The one you think is a goddess? The one you can't get out of your head, even though you only spent one night with her. Yeah, I recall."
"Her name is Ilona Marchetti." I hold his gaze, letting him see the weight of what I'm about to confess. He takes in the name and his expression turns from amused to calculating. "And I knew exactly who she was before I ever approached her."
Drake goes very still. "Explain."
"I've been building intelligence files on Enzo Marchetti, right?”
“Yes.”
“His territory, his connections, his vulnerabilities blah blah blah, right?" The words taste like ash, but I force them out anyway.
“I’m seeing where you are going with this.”
Although I already told Kon all this, Drake needs to hear it, too. And eventually Rafael. But one brick wall at a time.
“I’m counting on it, but let me finish. Eight weeks ago, I spotted his daughter at Scarlet Thorn. I recognized her from the surveillance photos. And I saw an opportunity."
"An opportunity." Drake's voice flatlines.
"I recognized her and made my move. Seduced her with intent." The words land like a blade, and I let them cut because he's earned the right. "I was going to date her, get close to her, use that relationship as leverage against her father. Or as a way into his inner circle. I hadn't decided which yet." I swallow hard. "Itwas my play. I didn't bring it to you or the brothers because I knew you'd shut it down."
The silence that follows is suffocating.
Drake's jaw tightens, a muscle jumping beneath the skin. His gray eyes have gone cold, the warmth of moments ago replaced by something harder. Disappointment. Maybe disgust.
"You went rogue." It's not a question. "You used Syndicate intelligence for an unsanctioned operation, and you targeted an innocent woman as a pawn in her father's games."
Fuck me, but that hurts. "Yes."
"And then?"
"And then my entire plan upended and somewhere between the first kiss and morning, I stopped pretending. It became real. All of it." The confession scrapes out of me, raw and bleeding.
Drake says nothing. His expression reveals nothing.
"I let her go." I shake my head, the motion heavy with regret. "She slipped out before dawn, and I told myself it was better that way. Better for her to remember one perfect night with a stranger than to find out the truth about what I'd planned. I've spent eight weeks knowing exactly where she is and telling myself the operation takes priority over whatever the hell is happening in my chest."
"And now Katriana wants you to hire her."
“You heard?”
