Page 19 of Crossover

It couldn’t be true.

But a traitorous whisper in the depths of my soul wondered,What if Daniel had manipulated Grayson the same way he had my mother?The possibility was too excruciating to contemplate. If it were true…no. I couldn’t bear it. There would be no coming back from that.

Not that it mattered now. My fate—and my mother’s—had already been written in blood the moment Daniel took me. We were going to die. Grayson would be forced to watch, helpless, as Daniel enacted his sadistic plan, and then the man I loved would blame himself for not protecting me, for every scream that would be ripped from my throat. If only I could tell him one last time that the moments we shared were everything to me, that his love had brought light to my darkest hours.

An ache grew In my chest, sharp-edged and hollowing as I pictured my mother’s face. I’d been so critical of her, never fully forgiving her for the affair that tore our family apart. Only now, staring down the barrel of my mortality, did I realize how foolish I had been to waste our time on anger over a mistake. She had been a victim, too, manipulated by Daniel’s lies and false charm. What I wouldn’t give for one more chance to wrap my arms around her and whisperI’m sorryandI love you.

And Grams…

Sobs threatened to tear me apart as I imagined her confusion and fear, torn from the home that had been her anchor. The devastation in her eyes when she’d realize I was never coming back. Why hadn’t I lingered just a few minutes longer the last time I saw her? To memorize the feel of her paper-thin skin, the way her face lit up when she smiled. To soak in every precious second of her presence, her love.

Tears carved scalding trails down my cheeks as the reality of all I was about to lose crashed over me in relentless waves. The future I’d dreamed of, the moments I’d taken for granted, the people I cherished most—all slipping through my fingers like sand in an hourglass.

Each labored breath felt like a countdown to the end, my muscles seizing with the effort to keep air flowing to lungs that would soon be forever still.

In the oppressive silence, Daniel cleared his throat, the sound as jarring as shattered glass.

“Now,” he said, cold and clinical, like he was finally getting to the point, “I’m going to need you to tell me every person you confided in about your concerns over your father’s death. And your claims of being innocent against the evidence against you.”

8

GRAYSON

“There’s the building,” Hunter said.

I squinted, my muscles becoming a sea of anger as I tried to confirm what I was seeing. To the untrained eye, it was just an abandoned Laundromat, but I knew better. The proximity to the interstate—it was a carefully chosen location for extensive interrogations.

That’s not what I was staring at though; it was the familiar car parked off to the side that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“I think my boss, Daniel, is here.”

At the safe house, he acted helpless, unable to stop Ivy’s death, presumably unaware of where they were taking her. Yet he drove straight here after I left. Did he know her location all along?

After talking with Seth, I knew something felt off, but I’d been hoping I could give Daniel the benefit of the doubt. Just as “facts” were manufactured to make Ivy look guilty, I thought that perhaps Daniel could be a victim of something similar.

But why didn’t he tell me he was coming here?

Maybe he discovered her location after I left.

Maybe he followed through with my desperate plea to stop this and he raced here to prevent it.

But Daniel was quick to dismiss my proof of Ivy’s innocence, and that wasafterhe’d tricked me into leaving Hunter’s house so that Ivy’s termination could be carried out. And yet Ivy wasn’t immediately killed. She was taken alive and was currently being held captive.

Why? And what role did Daniel have in it?

None of this was aligning with any other operation we’d ever carried out. In fact, my instincts were raising alarms. Even if I couldn’t fully understand why, my biggest asset in staying alive all these years as an operative was to listen to my gut.

But what do you do when those instincts go against the foundation of everything you know about someone?

I clenched my eyes shut, my fingers tightening around my gun. The cold metal against my palm did little to steady my racing heart. I couldn’t dwell on this right now; I needed to make a plan, and two options lay before me.

One that trusted Daniel as an ally.

Or one that did not.

When Hunter killed his headlights and parked the car two blocks from the target, I forced my mind to snap back to the tactical situation in front of us.

“I see no men outside,” Jace said. As if he’d been on countless missions like this.