Chapter 90

Aurora POV

I freeze the moment I see him.

Shit.

He’s standing just outside the bathroom door like a damn shadow, arms crossed over his chest, eyes boring into me with the weight of suspicion. And not just your standard protective-best-friend skepticism.

No, this is something deeper. He looks like he’s seeing right through me. Right through my plans and my schemes, down to the very core where the scarlet colored traitor is tattooed on my heart.

For a heartbeat, I forget how to breathe.

“You were taking a long time in there,” he says coolly, voice edged like a blade. “You seem to enjoy spending a lot of time in the bathroom since we brought you back here.”

My fingers tighten slightly around the lapel of my robe, praying that the outline of the burner phone tucked there can’t be seen from this angle. My mouth opens to answer, but my brain stutters through excuses like they’re stuck on repeat. “I… um… I haven’t been feeling well since I got back. I think all the nerves are making me throw up.”

Romero doesn’t move. His expression doesn’t even twitch. “I didn’t hear the toilet flush.”

Shit.

“Okay. Actually, I was crying,” I add lamely. “I’m still really freaked out about Alek coming after me. That gun fight when you found me… it really scared me.”

He tilts his head, just a fraction. “Nothing hit you. If anything, you should be feeling grateful we went out of our way to kill two of Alek’s men in order to rescue you after you decided to skip town and fly across the country to a foreign place.”

The silence that follows is brutal.

The hallway seems to shrink around me, the shadows crowding in with the pressure of his stare. My heart thumps painfully in my chest, loud enough that I wonder if he can hear it. “I don’t know what you’re trying to insinuate.”

Romero takes a slow step toward me, making me cower against the wall next to the bathroom door.

“If you’re hiding something,” he says, practically growling out the words, “you should come clean now. Before this gets worse. You wouldn’t want to do something stupid and regret it, would you?”

My hands twitch with the urge to shove him away and bolt but there’s nowhere else to go. I’m cornered, not just from him boxing me against the wall but in this entire suite. The twins are only a few feet down the hallway.

I doubt either of them have forgiven me for drugging them. I’ll be lucky if they aren’t as hostile with me as Romero is acting right now.

My throat tightens. “I’m not hiding anything.”

His eyes narrow.

I can practically feel him trying to see past the bullshit. He’s peeling back every layer with that stare, hunting for the weak points in my armor, the cracks I haven’t patched over well enough no matter how many times I’ve rehearsed this in my head before Alek cut me loose.

“I’m just trying to survive,” I whisper, more to myself than him.

He studies me for another long beat, then opens his mouth, about to press again, when a voice echoes from down the hall.

“Romero,” one of the twins calls. “You need to see this.”

Romero doesn’t move at first. His gaze lingers on me for another few seconds before he finally pulls away and turns his head slightly in the direction of the call.

“You and I aren’t done,” he mutters before he steps away and leaves me sagging against the wall.

My lungs finally remember how to work as I exhale in a shaky rush. My hand curls around the edge of the doorway to steady myself.

That was too close.

If he hadn’t been called away just then I don’t know what would’ve happened. But I don’t think I’d be walking out of this suite the same way I walked in: alive. The second he finds any speck of evidence that I’m in cahoots with Alek, he’ll kill me without question.

I force my legs to move, heading toward the bedroom again but pause before I get to it. My stomach clenches painfully, reminding me I have yet to eat since before my meeting with Alek and his inner circle.

Sighing more to myself than anything else, I head back down the hallway, hoping that whatever Romero is working on with the twins is enough of a distraction for them to completely ignore my presence.

Though, as luck would have it, the second I step out from the shadows of the hallway, two sets of eyes pin me in place.

Dominic’s twin lieutenants, who I once thought were the more laid-back ones of the group, now look up at me in eerie unison from where they’re seated. They’re both leaning over a laptop, probably going over surveillance footage or some encrypted communications about Alek.

But the second I enter their line of sight, they pause and stare with matching expressions of quiet calculation on their faces. I offer a small, polite smile. “Sorry, um… about what happened back at the motel.”

Neither of them say anything.

My pulse kicks up again, fast and anxious, and I hurry over to the kitchenette to grab something to eat before darting back down the hallway. I reach the bedroom and quietly close the door behind me, hungry completely forgotten the second I’m locked safely inside.

Dominic’s still in bed, sprawled on his side with one arm reaching toward the empty spot where I’d been. The sheet dips just low enough to reveal the long scar running along his hip, a remnant of some old fight I never got the full story of.

He looks peaceful like this. Vulnerable, even. But I know better, he’s anything but.

After stashing my burner phone somewhere I know he won’t look, I set the sandwich I grabbed on top of the dresser and strip down until I’m just in my bra and underwear. As I slide back into bed beside him, his arm curls around me automatically, pulling me in close.

His voice is low, groggy, thick with sleep. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I whisper, pressing my face into his chest. “Just needed the bathroom.”

He hums, not quite convinced but too tired to ask more. I lie still for a long time, listening to his breathing even out again, feeling the weight of his arm across my waist and the warmth of him against my back.

I’m worried Romero knows something or at least suspects I’m guilty of working with Alek. My hands still tremble faintly under the blankets.

I came back to bring this man down but right now all I feel is that I’m the one being hunted. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this act together before my karma catches up with me.