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“I-I’m sorry,” she chokes out. “I’m sorry for what I did to you. And…” She looks up at Derrick. “And trying to kill you. It was just business.”
“I believe everyone in this room is familiar with killing just for business,” Derrick says dryly.
“Yeah, well,” Emma says, “I imagine it feels a little different when you’re the one being killed.”
The corner of Derrick’s mouth quirks in a smile.
“Apology accepted,” I say magnanimously. “You’re hired.”
“What?!” Iris and Emma say at once.
“What else are you gonna do?” I ask Emma. “Got enough for that plane ticket yet? And after you landed in Sydney or Tokyo or Zimbabwe, what were you going to do? Your fake dad’s name wasn’t going to take you that far.”
Emma’s mouth is hanging all the way open. “You- you’d really hire me to work for you? But I was part of the Speare family!”
“Not sure what rock you’ve been living under, but my brother married Morgan Speare’s niece and now they’re having a baby. That ship hassailed.”
Emma shakes her head. “This has to be some kind of trick-”
“Believe it’s a trick or don’t, I don’t care,” I tell her frankly. “But whatever you believe, make your choice. Either you die here, or you come work for the Warwicks.”
Iris’s grimace has smoothed into a thoughtful frown as she observes Emma. Derrick only has eyes for me. I desperatelywant to ask if he thinks I’m being too naive, but even as I meet his gaze, he’s giving me his dimpled, crooked smile.
“All right,” Emma finally says, sounding like she’s signing her own death warrant instead of collecting her get-out-of-jail-free card. “I’ll work for you.”
“Good,” I say, grinning down at her. “It would’ve sucked if I had to kill you after I just started to like you.”
Before I can rethink it, or she can brace herself and maybe get hurt more, I sock her right in the face. Emma’s head whips to the side, and Iris shifts in my peripherals, as if preparing to fire if she retaliates.
But when Emma looks back at me, her bloody lip is quirked in a cautious smile. “That’s funny. I was thinking the same thing last time we were here.”
“Let’snottalk about that right now,” Iris sighs, rubbing her temples like she’s getting a headache just standing here. “It’s going to be hard enough explaining another stray to Thomas. Do me a favor, kid?” she asks Emma. “Watch your mouth, just until he gets used to you.”
Emma nods quickly, wiping the blood off the corner of her mouth, and Derrick helps her to her feet. She looks a little shell-shocked when she stands face to face with me, and I can’t help but smirk.
“Thank you,” she says quietly. “I- I never would have imagined…”
“Well, in a fucked up kind of way your shitty vetting skills are responsible for reuniting me with the guy I’m going to marry,” I tell her breezily. Over her shoulder, Derrick breaks into a grin. “That’s the only reason I didn’t hit you harder. Consider us even now.”
CHAPTER 40
Derrick
It is indeedanother awkward moment when we return to the Warwick estate with Emma Clarke in tow and have to explain the situation to Thomas. Namely that she’s not, in fact, a prisoner being taken straight to interrogation, but she’s Silver himself.
Herself.
Oh, and she’s his newest employee.
I’ve been on the receiving end of many of Thomas’s most consternated glares, but the one he’s pointing at Raleigh now could level a small mountain. Though, to her credit, she just smiles sweetly back at him. “I solved the problem, didn’t I?” she asks.
“What exactly am I supposed to do with her?” Thomas shoots back.
“She’d be great undercover!”
Emma, for her part, is doing her best impression of a very humble statue. She sticks close to Iris and Raleigh, her eyes fixed on the ground, her hands folded demurely in front of her. She hasn’t made a single peep since she got in the car with us back at Cooper’s, seated snuggly between Iris and me while Raleigh sat in the passenger seat as our driver took us home. I get the feelingthat she’s expecting one of us, at any moment, to suddenly regret letting her live and take steps to correct that mistake.
Luckily, Thomas looks to Iris for her opinion. Iris gives a wordless shrug, which apparently tells him all he needs to know. “Very well then.” He turns the full force of his intense hazel stare on Emma. “Come with me.”
