“Yes, I did. Right now, she’s my concern. Victus is a problem. If you want to talk about this after we catch them, I’d be open to that.”
He gave me a nod that said I was dismissed, and I turned on my heel to go. I needed to keep her off their radar. No matter what.
Lyra
“Oh, this isn’t awkward at all,” I said and shifted in the passenger seat as I slid Tyler a glance.
“I see you looking at me.” His voice was silk. But I knew better than to trust it.
“Mainly because I can’t believe what I’m seeing.” Pompous prick.
“You want to go ahead and ask all your questions, find out what I’ve been doing and get it out of your system?” he asked with a cheeky grin.
I opened my mouth to tell him what a pompous prick he was being but then shut it when Addie beat me to it on the comms. “You are such a pompous prick. Do you really think she’s been worried about you or what you’ve been doing?”
Tyler chuckled low under his breath as he glanced around, checking his binoculars. “The way she’s looking at me suggests that she’s missed me. We all know how well that turned out last time.”
My hands were balled up into little fists, and I was grateful that Addie couldn’t see me. She was positioned in a tower overlooking our location. We were in the car, across the street from where Stannis’s contact was supposed to be hiding out.
“I know you like to tell yourself she was hung up on you, but she wasn’t. That was just your fragile ego talking.”
Goddamn, I loved Addie. Even though I had been distraught, but only because I hadn’t known the rules of the game. I hadn’t known I was a job to him. Break in the new agent. But I wasn’t dumb enough to make that mistake again.
He had broken me in all right. Singled me out, made me feel special, appreciated, seen, loved. Then, just when I was feeling a breath of confidence and fully coming into myself, he yanked the rug out from under me. Apparently, Roz thought I was getting too attached. And she was right. I was too attached. I’d started to need him.
The following three months had been the worst. Working through heartache and betrayal. He told me everything when he broke up with me though. Right down to how Roz had worked my profile. What I needed, how he was to treat me. It had all been completely orchestrated. I felt betrayed. Broken. And he’d come out unscathed, while I’d been shellshocked.
Over the years, I’d come to realize that Roz was, in her own intense way, trying to keep me out of the clutches of somebody who could’ve done real damage. If I had fallen for someone on the outside, someone who could’ve really broken my heart, I’d have been done for at The Firm. And it would have shattered everything I’d been working toward. So it had been better that it was with Tyler. And he had been gentle. I had felt loved and cherished. Except none of it was real, was it?
I swallowed and shook my head. “We’re not doing this.”
“If you say so. Are you really dating that Neanderthal?”
My head whipped around. “Just focus on the mission. My dating life is none of your concern.”
“Just saying, he made it my concern by putting on that public display in front of me. Does he know about us?”
“There’s no ‘us’ to know about, Tyler. As you relished in telling me many times, we weren’t real. There was nothing to tell.”
“Ah, right, so he doesn’t know that I was your first. That you were in love.”
“He doesn’t need to know because you’re inconsequential.” I kept my emotions under tight control.
Over the mic, Addie laughed. “Oh, burn.”
As much as I loved her, I wished she wasn’t listening. I wished she wasn’t present for my humiliation.
But that was unavoidable.
Tyler’s voice went softer then. “I know you were hurt. That wasn’t my intention. I was just doing my job.”
The fury burned under my skin, making its way to the surface like steam, waves of heat on asphalt. “When I say we’re not doing this, we’re not doing this. Don’t act like you didn’t have a part in it. At any moment, you could’ve told me the truth.”
“You were a mission. An op. That’s all.”
“Right. And at some point, you could’ve been less convincing. But you weren’t.”
He sighed. “That was the job. I don’t know what to tell you. That’s what it was. I never intended to hurt you. Once I realized you didn’t know any of the rules, I tried to be as gentle as I could be. I didn’t want you to be hurt.”
I rolled my eyes and chuckled. “Right. We’ve been through this. We’re not rehashing it again.”
“I did care—”
At the corner of one of the buildings we were watching, I saw someone hopping down onto a stack of milk crates on the side of the building. I grabbed my binoculars. “We have a runner. Tall, pale, white-blond hair. He’s making a beeline. Addie, do you see him?” Why was he running? You only ran if you were scared. And you were only scared for one reason.
Like someone told you to be scared.
He’d been warned. But by who?
“He’s headed west.”
“Copy. On my way.” Then I shouted to Tyler. “Get me a fucking ID on him.”
“Already sent the image in. Move your ass.” The binoculars were already plugged into our tech. All imagery captured was already being sent to The Firm. We’d have something in mere moments.
I jumped out of the car, and Tyler followed. I could hear his heavy footfalls behind mine. I was lighter and a better long-distance runner, but he was stronger and faster, and he
