Chapter 3: I Know Who You Are

Liam

The door clicks shut behind her, and I do not move. I stand in the middle of my office, my hands pressed flat on the glass desk, staring at the wood grain as if it might tell me who I have become. My heart is a fist pounding against my ribs. My lips still burn from the taste of her – coffee, fear, and something sweeter underneath, like honey hiding in a poison jar.

I should not have kissed her again. I should have kept my distance, kept this war clean, kept my hands off the knife Evelyn Cole aimed at my chest. But when Zoe looked up at me with those grey eyes – desperate and defiant, like a rabbit daring the wolf to bite – I forgot every rule I had made for myself.

I walk to the window and press my forehead against the cold glass. The city sprawls beneath me, a wound of neon and shadow. Somewhere down there, she is walking home. Forty blocks. No umbrella. The rain has started, thin and silver, like needles stitching the sky to the ground. I imagine her dress clinging to her skin. The curve of her hips. The hollow of her throat where her pulse fluttered against my lips.

My cock twitches. I curse under my breath and turn away. This is not supposed to happen. She is bait. A weapon. A means to an end. I have been hunting Evelyn Cole for two years – since the night my father's blood stained a parking garage floor. I have slept in empty beds and learned to love the silence because it could not betray me.

But Zoe Vance is not silent. She is a storm wrapped in navy silk, and I am a ship without an anchor. I pour a whiskey and sit down at my desk. The folder with her real name is in the drawer. I pull it out and open it. Her photograph stares up at me – the one from the café. Her hands are flat on the scratched table, her knuckles white as bone. Her face is pale, but her eyes are steady, like a soldier who has already seen the worst and decided to keep breathing.

She did not want to take the job. I can see the war in her jaw, the way her teeth are clenched against a scream she has been swallowing her whole life. But she took it. Because her mother is dying. Because Evelyn Cole knows how to find the ones who have nothing left to lose. I should hate her. She came here to destroy me. She is working for the woman who ordered my father's murder. But when I look at her, I do not see an enemy. I see a mirror. Someone willing to burn herself down to save the person she loves. That makes her dangerous. Not to me. To herself.

My phone buzzes. A message from my security team: She went home. No detours. She is alone. I type back: Keep watching. Do not let her out of your sight. I lean back and close my eyes. The whiskey warms my chest, but it does not reach the cold place where my father used to live. I have not felt warmth there since the funeral. Until her. Until she walked into my office with her lies and her desperate courage. Until she kissed me back like I was not a ghost.

I am falling for her. And that is the most dangerous thing of all. The next morning, I am in my office before the sun rises. The city is still asleep, wrapped in gray light. I sit in the dark with black coffee and the folder open in front of me, going over the evidence I have been collecting for two years. Names. Accounts. Dates. A web of lies so thick it could choke the sun.

It is almost ready. Another few weeks, and I will have enough to put Evelyn away for life. But I need one more thing. Someone inside her operation. Someone she trusts. Someone she does not see coming. Zoe. She is my way in. And I hate myself for using her. The door opens at eight o'clock. She walks in wearing a different dress. Dark blue. Fitted. Her hair is loose, and there are shadows under her eyes – purple smudges that tell me she did not sleep either. I wonder if she touched herself in the dark, with my name on her lips.

"You are early," I say, colder than I meant. "I wanted to see my mother before work." She sets a cup of coffee on my desk. Black. No sugar. She remembered. "You did not have to bring me coffee."I am your assistant. It is my job." "You are not my assistant." I stand and walk around the desk. She does not step back. "You are a spy. A liar. A woman sent here to destroy me." Her hands clench, but her face does not change. "You knew that when you made the deal." "I did." I stop in front of her. She smells like rain and honey. "And I still kissed you. Twice." "Why?"

"Because I could not help myself." I reach out and touch her face, my fingers tracing her jaw. "Because you are lying to everyone except me, and that makes me want you in ways I can not explain." She does not pull away. Her breath catches. "Liam," she whispers. "Do not say my name like that. Not when I am trying to remember why I should keep my hands off you." She reaches up and covers my hand with hers. "What if I do not want you to keep your hands off me?" I stare at her. "Zoe."I know this is a game. I know you are using me. But when you kiss me, I forget all of that. I forget everything except how you make me feel."

I should step back. The camera is watching. Evelyn is watching. But I do not. I pull her against me and kiss her, hard and deep. She moans into my mouth, and I forget everything too. There is only her. I back her toward the desk, and she goes willingly. I lift her onto the glass surface, and she spreads her legs without hesitation. I step between them, the heat of her seeping through my pants. I want to take her right here.

But I stop. Because this is not a game anymore. She is not bait. She has slipped through the cracks in my armour and lodged herself somewhere I can not reach.

"Zoe." My voice is rough. "Go. Before I do something, we will both regret it." She slides off the desk and walks to the door. She stops and looks back at me. "Thank you. For my mother. For everything."Do not thank me. I am not doing this for you."

She smiles – a small, sad smile that cracks the ice I have been hiding behind for two years. "I know. But I am doing this for you." She walks out. The door closes. I stand there, my body aching, my heart pounding. I look down at my hands. They are still shaking. Across the street, hidden in a darkened window, a camera's red eye blinks. Evelyn Cole watches the footage and smiles. She has planted the seed. Now she only has to wait for it to grow – and for me to destroy myself trying to save a woman who was never mine to keep.