Page 37 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

“Oh, good.” Her smile turns thin. “The lesson is secrecy. For a second, I thought we were having a human conversation.”

“You’ll get one call each day. Food by request. Movement under escort.” I try to keep control, and the effort irritates me more than it should. “No devices until cleared. If you hear Morozov’s name, Patrick’s name, Blacklist details, route names, or staff names, you keep them to yourself.”

“Because you said so?”

“Because the wrong words here can get someone killed.”

Her eyes flash. “Why are you here this late? To count your prisoner? To make sure I haven’t vanished through the walls? Or are we calling this concern now?”

That one gets through.

I move before my face can answer, crossing to the desk and taking the security phone. “Get some sleep.”

Cara follows me two steps, relentless. “Do you know what I thought when you disappeared?”

My hand stops on the phone.

Her voice changes. It doesn’t soften. “I thought I was an idiot. I thought I fell into bed with a dangerous man who had one great night and walked away because I was disposable. Then my life changed, and I still didn’t reach you.”

Every part of me goes still.

She doesn’t say what changed. I hear the part she leaves out, and I have to stop myself from reaching for it.

“I could’ve reached you through Patrick,” she says. “I chose not to. I wasn’t going to wake up a man who left a woman’s bed and made sure she had nothing to hold.”

I turn back slowly. “You think I left because I was done with you.”

“You left.”

“My reasons don’t change what happened.”

“No, they don’t.” Her voice shakes now, and she looks furious that it does. “So don’t stand here five years later and act offended that I built a life without you.”

I should ask what life.

The question sits there. I should push her, question her, and pull at the loose piece until the truth comes out. Instead, I look at the locked windows, the cleared desk, the guarded door, and the woman Patrick put in my hands because he knew I might want answers more than sense.

“Sleep,” I say again.

“Coward.”

That word gets through.

Two steps, and I’m in front of her. Cara doesn’t move back. Her chin lifts, her eyes stay on mine, and every tired inch of her looks ready to break before she gives me the satisfaction of seeing it.

“You don’t know what you’re calling me,” I say.

“I know exactly what I’m calling you.”

My hand closes around her wrist, then stops there. Moving her aside would be easy. Leaving would be smarter. The locked door could do what locked doors do.

Cara looks down at my hand, then back at me. “Just as I thought.”

“What?”

“Control. Your favorite language.”

I don’t release her. I step closer. Heat moves between us, brutal and familiar, and her breath catches before she can hide it. That small sound does more damage than any insult she’s thrown at me tonight.