PRETEND PRINCESS
"I pay you to dig up things. If you didn't turn up anything, okay. That's okay. But for goodness' sake, don't just stand there making muck."
I'm serious," he said, twitching lips. "That's the joke. I'm not lying. Yuyu Roman—the girl you imagine you know, the one employed at Creed X Technologies—never existed. She's a fake identity. A creative cover story. And the person who concocted it? Genius-level work. Clean, subtle. Almost invisible to the system.
I narrowed my eyes at him, my stomach lurching with a combination of fear and incredulity. "If she doesn't exist, then who the devil have I been speaking to, Zed? Am I crazy?"