Page 27 of Dark Soul

Alexia sobbed, clutching the duvet tighter around her body, unable to stop the shivers, which this time around had nothing to do with the temperature of the bedroom.

It wasn’t yet five in the morning but she knew she wouldn’t be getting any more sleep, so she bundled herself in her workout clothes and headed to the gym at the end of the hallway—one of the perks of staying in one of the downstairs rooms.

The home gym was incredible, better than anything she could ever have imagined, and she considered herself a pretty imaginative person. One entire wall was lined with top-of-the-line cardio equipment, including a ski erg, a Peloton spinning bike, and a strangely shaped rowing machine. There was also a large screen that she imagined could be used to stream live classes, though she’d never seen anyone use it, and a larger area with a CrossFit training rig.

Alexia didn’t need all that—the treadmill was enough for her. She wasn’t a particularly strong runner. Half an hour later, she slowed the machine down and stood on trembling legs, breathing hard—having momentarily succeeded in chasing her demons away.

She stepped off the machine and put her sweatshirt back on, then made her way back to her room, where she showered and sat down to write out her lesson plan for the day. Regardless of what she might think of Arseny, she took her job teaching Nikolai seriously.

And as she wrote, in the back of her mind, was the awareness that once the day was over, she’d be meeting Luke Dark again. And for the first time in years, the flutter in her chest wasn’t pain but rather excitement. She was looking forward to seeing him again.

And though a voice inside of her told her she should be thinking of Rob, not cavorting with a man she knew nothing about, another voice told her she could give herself this moment, if nothing else.

10

* * *

Dark

“Thorne was right,” Rogue said.

Dark took in the pallor of the man’s face. He looked exhausted, and Dark was pretty sure the clothes he was wearing were the same ones he’d been wearing the night before, when they all went to bed and left him there, claiming he needed just a few more minutes.

“You never made it to bed, did you?” Dark asked.

Rogue gave a by now characteristic never-mind-that wave with his hand.

Griffin and Slate walked in, bringing cups of coffee for everyone. Dark decided to take that as a good sign, that they’d made coffee together. He knew heavy things like what the two men had gone through couldn’t be fixed from one day to the next, but if they’d at least reached an entente cordiale, that was a start.

“You look exhausted, Rogue,” Ash said. Dark hadn’t even noticed him walk in.

“Whereas you all look fresh-faced and rested, right?”

“Fresh-faced?” Slate laughed. “You’re going to give us ideas if you say that.”

“Ideas?”

“Yeah, you know. You swing for that team, Rogue?”

Rogue’s hands clenched into fists. “I don’t, but what if I did? Would it be a problem?”

Slate raises his hands. “Relax. I was just kidding. It wouldn’t worry me none.”

“It wouldn’t worry any of us,” Dark said.

Rogue held Slate’s gaze for a few seconds longer. “Sorry,” he finally said, his shoulders relaxing. “My sister’s married to a woman. I’m sensitive about the topic.”

Jesus, there were minefields everywhere, with these guys.

It was barely eight a.m. and Dark already had a killer of a headache.

“Just tell us what you found, Rogue.”

Rogue nodded, clicked twice until the image appeared on the large screen.

“I had to dig around all night, but I managed to identify and crack the encrypted comms between Kvyat and the Iranians. It’s worse than we thought. They’re talking about exchanging something they refer to as the masterpiece.”

“The masterpiece?”