The Offer — Continued

Savannah

I sat there with the phone on the counter, my heartbeat loud enough to fill the room. For the first time in weeks, I actually wanted someone to walk through the door and tell me this was all a bad joke. That I could go back to being a normal college student and not the girl a dozen dangerous people wanted to recruit or crush.

The more I thought about that woman’s words, the worse it felt. “We want you to oversee Tyrant’s zone.” They didn’t even bother with subtlety. It wasn’t an offer dressed up as a threat. It was both at once. A polite hand wrapped around a chokehold.

I paced, and every step replayed the same scenarios in my head. If I said yes, what did that even mean? Wearing some kind of badge that made the dealers keep the peace? Sitting in a posh office while men I’d never met decided who lived and who didn’t? My father’s name on a letterhead and mine dragged through the mud? The thought of Ethan Ford’s face if he ever found out made bile rise in my throat. He’d never