Heart kicking suddenly against my ribs, I took a small step back, but his hand tightened not letting me go. He grinned and I fought the red on my cheeks. I knew this grin, I'd seen that infuriatingly tempting dimple of his whenever he wanted to push my buttons or surprise me.

"I bought the treehouse," My heart rate picked up as I watched him look at me, his steady meaningful gaze causing havoc on my senses.

"How? Why? I... the people who bought the house tore it down years ago!"A fierce ache welled up in my chest until I didn't know where to look, wanting to absorb everything at once. The feelings were heady and dizzying.

Unfamiliar but so welcome.

"No, my parents had it installed in our house, and then it was sold separately. I tracked the couple and bought it from them."

I didn't know what to say. I understood what he was giving me. A chance to accept him. A chance to start over with him. A normal life.

Why couldn't I? I wanted what he could give me. Didn't I deserve that? Wasn't denying it more treacherous? Or was I lying to myself even now? And if so, did that even matter? His eyes held mine captive and I knew we were both aware of the edge. Of the danger.

We were inches away from falling.

His touch stilled as he searched my face for an answer. And in that moment, I realized that this was my life. What existed between Azaan and I was messy and complicated, but oh so real and alive. Something to be protected and cherished. To be fought for.

"Eliza, I..." He breathed, maybe pleaded. I wasn't sure. His eyes shifted to look at something behind my shoulders and he took in a deep breath. "He's gone outside. This is our chance."

I stiffened, realizing where we were, why we were here. Out from the fairytale and into the real world. "How much time do we have?"

"Wait, let me check," He looked at his wrist. "Five minutes," I shivered, his proximity sending little prickles over my temple.

"Dancing with you always made me forget my bearings."

"Uh-huh," My cheeks were hot again, and I felt the weight of my hair shifting. One eyebrow rose up in an arch but he chose not to reply, his eyes dancing with mirth. I stepped back and he followed, his body seemingly attuned to mine.

"Let's go," He whispered just as the clock struck the hour, grasping my hand in his, leading me towards the stairs.

As expected, two large men in dark suits flanked the exit at the back. Azaan shuffled me towards the darkened corner, his hand on the small of my back, pretending to whisper something in my ear. I let out a small giggle, and the guards looked away, taking us to be another pair of love birds.

Their first and only mistake.

In a high-tech, modern house like Akbar's, the security system, lights, the music, and the power all ran off a single grid, controlled remotely. Al had reassured me that she would be able to hack into that system. And as always, my sister had my back.

The moment the room plunged into darkness, I dove for the legs of the guard closest to me, watching Azaan do the same. Seconds later, he reached into his pocket and pulled out two syringes. He uncapped them, handing one to me, both of us swiftly reaching out and injecting them with a small vial designed to put them to sleep. The transparent, amber-colored fluid flowed into their bodies, gleaming sinisterly in the evening light.

We got to work, hiding the bodies in the corner, going down the empty corridor.

The entrance to the basement was at the other side of the hallway, designed as an exit route for Akbar.

Smart man.

Azaan took off his jacket, muscles flexing as he pulled at the heavy lock and we slipped in, the deadbolt sliding back with a laborious click. I pushed past him just as the lights came back in the hall, punctuated by the collective sigh of relief that echoed behind us.

Three stone vaults, large grotesque rectangular boxes made to contain human remains, greeted us. Aside from some carved stone plaques on the walls, the small room held nothing else. How had he left this area unprotected? Was it arrogance?

"Where do we start?" I asked.

Azaan noticed the lid of one box sat less straight than the others. "This one's been moved."

With both of us shoving, the vault lid swung aside. We stopped pushing when the large container opened, staring dumbfounded at the second traditional vault.

Typical.

"How long will it take you, Eliza?" If I knew Akbar, this would be the simplest and the easiest code to crack. His arrogance and frequent use of the lock made it so.

"A minute," My fingers worked faster, the pins in my hair helping me decode the code, by checking the grooves in the lock. There was a whirring sound, with the sight of something rising inside a protective case.

A noise from outside caught our attention and Azaan crept toward the door, his flashlight in his fist in case the guard needed another sedative.

"Focus Eliza."

A faint but steady clicking sound so slight it would have disappeared entirely in any other moment, in any other room. The door popped open and started to spin, and yet the case itself seemed to move, hydraulics working, smoothly raising the velvet cushion. Only the small signs that hung on the two cases gave any clue that what I was seeing wasn't a mirror image or some elaborate mirage.

The stones were perfect. Priceless and pristine. Their insides filled with a code that could take down a king. As I turned the diamonds, they sparkled, catching the light, bathing the area in a white iridescent glow, and yet it was nothing compared to the look in Azaan's eyes as he stood near the doorway, staring right at me.

"We did it," I nodded, my eyes welling over. He nodded, relief on his face. It was almost over.

Something fell in the distance, someone shouted and there was some type of scuffle.

"Time to go, Eliza..."

Excitement curled in my stomach and I made the switch, my electronic bracelet passing over the piece, and stood up. "Done."

Azaan whirled just as a giant security guard stumbled into the room, lunging at him, trying to tackle him to the floor. He kicked hard and I heard a grunt of pain as Azaan's heel connected to the guard's face. The guy still didn't let go, grasping at Azaan's jacket, tearing it at the seams. Pushing him off, Azaan finished the fight by punching the man repeatedly in the face and then driving his foot into his back, letting him hit the floor with a thud.

"Huh," His jacket in tatters, I briefly admired Azaan's toned chest as his white dress shirt gleamed with sweat and blood. Not his blood, I noticed—the only injuries I could see were his split lip and a bruise on his cheek

"Do you have it?" He asked and I nodded. "Let's go."

Running across the hall, we exited through the side entrance. Shouts and screams echoed in the distance. We waited for the guards to come down the hallway, looking for intruders. We heard the footsteps of one guard, the other right behind him. We kept waiting.

Once they were both out of sight, we rounded the corner of the staircase and ran towards the back exit, sprinting across the lawn towards a small gate drilled in by Sush and Riaan hours before. Azaan hauled me towards the back wall, abandoning the rope ladder, practically flying over the wall and down the trail—all to loud shouts and flashing lights.

The place was shutting down.

I could hardly catch my breath by the time we reached our getaway car. This had gone horribly wrong. Terribly wrong. They'd noticed our escape.

A surge of restless energy poured through me, drumming up the residual fear and panic. I couldn't sit still. I couldn't close my eyes. Breathing hard, Azaan checked the rearview mirror, hitting the gas and flying past half a dozen cars on the freeway, his muscles tense.

"We got company," He gritted, his eyes on the road ahead.

"The necklace must have had a tracker."

Swerving in between a set of cars and ignoring the horn that blared behind us, he watched the black vehicle that belonged to one of AJJ's fools get in the row.

"Exit here!" He swerved out from between the vehicles and hit the gas again. The Merc zoomed past an eighteen-wheeler and a Hummer. "What are you doing Azaan?"

"Will you trust me?"

The vehicles trailing us weren't too far behind. He pushed the car to go faster—too fast to take a turn at the last minute."You're a madman!"

"A madman who's saving your life!" Pulling in between another set of vehicles when there was a big enough opening, I caught sight of them following our lead. They were right behind us now and going a good twenty over the speed limit. The black car was so close to our bumper that I could practically see the scowl the man wore. It was not an easy thing to lose any of the  cars trailing behind us on a congested highway.

It was almost like a game.

When the exit ramp came, Azaan took the turn with no warning. He didn't put on the blinker to signal he was leaving the freeway, or even slow down for the turn. The guy hadn't been expecting the move because he flew on past with no available time to turn with us.

Poor guy.

I almost felt sorry for him.

Except ... nope.

Laughing, Azaan watched the brake lights on the black car light up. He simply hit the gas and sped down the exit ramp leading back into the city. There was no way they could turn on the freeway without causing some kind of accident. The men had another few miles to go before another exit ramp would come up. We were safe, for now.

"Now do you trust me?"

I stared at him open-mouthed. "Okay, Vin Diesel. I trust your crazy driving skills."

"No-" Azaan's warning caught in his throat just as the back of the car was blown wide open.

The boom was volcanic. It was so loud that it made my ears ring. The window exploded inward, showering the interior of the car with broken glass. My hands flew up to cover my ears, and I crouched low in the car out of instinct. Our smaller vehicle spun around once, twice, before coming to rest up against a cement divider. We were only a few feet away from the blast, but the instant reaction of the bomb was unmistakable. Heat, blinding light, and flinging metal.

"Azaan!"

Panic and chaos set in as I staggered to where I had just seen Azaan only seconds ago.

Crap crap crap.

In my chest, my heart raced as tears streamed down my cheeks.

He had been right there!

I tried to open my own door, but the metal had caved in from the impact with the silver sedan. My face and arms were cut in a dozen places. I had to clamber over the glove compartment, with battered and bruised arms, crawling out Azaan's door at last, dazed and stumbling. On wobbly legs, I gasped to find a still burning sedan at the other end of the chaos. The surroundings were shadowed with marks from the blast, and pieces of the car rested in various spots on the freeway. Which was suspiciously empty.

God.

It was almost like a daze had settled over me as I stupidly stared around at the smoldering mess and the black plume rising toward the sky.

I couldn't breathe. "Azaan!"

"Yeah," He groaned low, the sound originating from the other side of the carnage.

The world around me moved slower than what was normal as I took a hesitant step forward, and then another. Nausea had me stumbling in my heels, pain blooming in my ankle when it twisted hard to the left. A sickness rolled in my stomach and I caught myself on a roadblock.

My knees hit the wet, slushy pavement as I reached for him. A dark trickle of red oozed down in a thin line behind Azaans' ear, stopping my hands from grabbing him at the last second. I took in a few deep breaths. A calm head, a firm demeanor, and confidence was the best thing to show in a bad situation. "Sit down for me, please."

"Kind of hurts right now," He confessed under his breath.

"When you breathe?" I asked. Despite his protests, I managed to get him rolled over onto his back. His hands shook and his eyes became unfocused. With him on his back, I could see that he sported a nasty, bleeding cut on his right cheek directly under his eye. "You've got to try and get up."

As I removed my hands from under his head, something warm and sticky coated my fingers. Pressing the tips of my fingers gently along the base of Azaans' skull, I found a lump that was hard and hot to the touch. Behind his ear, I found the spot that was bleeding. Panic's icy fingers gripped my lungs like I couldn't breathe and I was breathing too much at the same time.

"Does this hurt at all?" I asked.

"No."

That couldn't be good. Fear, cold, and brutal stopped my heart, freezing my blood and telling me that I'll never be warm again. It clawed up my stomach and lodged in my throat. "We have to get out of here. They're right behind us, can you make it?"

"I can't"

"You can! Get up!"

"Look at you being all optimistic. Where's that cynic I met a month ago?"

The air was stifling—suffocating with the copper scent of blood and the heavy crush of fear. "Fighting."

"Fighting?"

"I would rather go down—however, this ends—knowing I tried than pretending like I didn't."

A hint of bitterness curved Azaans' lips into a smirk. "You're so convinced we're doomed to fail, Eliza."

We. The bones in my chest contracted, collapsed and crumbled to dust at his admission."Do you see this ending differently?"

Azaan didn't answer. I didn't really need him to because at that exact moment I saw him walking over us.

Chaos would not have been the word that I would have used. Chaos implied movement and action and fear. What followed was the quietest kind of panic that I had ever seen.

I watched his every move, took in every step and shift of his shoulders, noted what he looked at. His eyes—those unfathomable black eyes that would probably haunt me for the rest of my life—were bright. Akbar Jamshed Junejo was an extremely calculating man. Someone who knew when to hedge his bets. Someone who had picked up a fifteen-year-old and introduced her to a life of crime. Someone who had strategically targeted my parents and their wealth, stripping them off their senses by making them addicts.

Someone who was going to pay.

"Here's my little bird," Akbar greeted, his hands held open as if to welcome me, his face passively aggressive.

"You didn't have to hit us that hard. You almost hurt me."

I heard the sound of a hand against flesh before I felt the stinging throb in my cheek and mouth. The pain was faint and I was thankful the shock still clung to me, especially as the coppery tang of blood filled my mouth.

Akbar wiped his hand with a silk handkerchief. "That was for having the nerve to break into my house," His eyes flashed over my bloodied hands that were now holding down a very angry Azaan. "I take it you've grown fond of this man?"

Ice shot down my spine at the thought. He could never know who Azaan was to me. All the panic and confusion in my head suddenly cleared and I stepped away, curling my mouth in disgust. "I don't want a murder charge on my head."

"Have I ever let you down little bird?"

"I've just spent a month with the FIA, no thanks to you."

"I wanted you to have some excitement in your life. Didn't you get tired of robbing the same diamonds over and over?" I didn't say anything. "But that's why you're here, aren't you pet? Where's the necklace sweet?"

"Don't tell him, Eliza!" Cold fear skittered down my spine as I saw his beady eyes shift towards Azaan.

"Poor fool thinks you were on his side. Sad. It's always a pity to see the good ones lose hope."

Azaan opened his mouth to speak as he glanced down at his body and then back at me. No words came out. He didn't even look like he was breathing. His hand clenched so tightly that his knuckles had turned an ashy white from the pressure.

Akbar looked at me. "It's with me."

"Good girl, now give me the details. Better yet, come with me. You've managed a remarkable feat my darling. This might be your finest work yet."

"What about him?"

"He'll be fine. The police are on their way. No harm would come to him," I stared him down, knowing he was playing with me.

"But..."

"Come little bird. Your place was never with someone like him."

"You have no right to tell me where my place is."

"No matter what I did, I really did love you, Eliza," The word hit me like a stone to the head. His eyes moved to Azaan and he chuckled. "He still can't believe it. Boy, think about the place where you first met her."

Something awful and terrible welled in my stomach as I watched Azaans' face fall from the usual confident mask he wore to the expression of a heartbroken man."What is he saying?" He asked in a whisper.

My heart cracked.

It ached.

It made me sick.

It was all wrong.

It wasn't from an unknown pain, caused by something I didn't understand, but because of the hurt and blame gathering in his eyes. Someone had chosen to trust me. Someone had thought of me as responsible. Someone to count on. Till I switched to the other side. And I'd let him down.

Just like my parents had done to me.

"Don't do this Eliza."

Was it the FIA agent who spoke, the friend, or the lover who had never manifested himself?

I saw his wide, dark eyes looking into mine, trying to communicate everything we hadn't had a chance to say to each other yet. Azaan's hopeful expression fell at my indifference, and the wound I'd given him flickered in those magnificent eyes. "Stay," he whispered.

I swallowed and found it particularly hard to do so. "I'm going."

"No," he said softly. "Don't go."

Don't.

That was what I'd said to my parents that night they'd beaten me, at the moment before they'd held a knife and struck me when I thought they were going to hurt Aleena instead. And then they'd beaten me so badly I'd been knocked unconscious.

Don't.

The word I'd pleaded when they'd taken another dose of the drugs provided to them by Akbar. When they'd sold out our inheritance. When they'd left us homeless. And then penniless.

The air was too thick. I closed my eyes. It took me a minute, and more nerve than I realized, but the answer finally came. It had always been there—whispering to me in my sleep, behind every breath, a dark weight that I couldn't ever escape. My knees felt oddly weak when I took a step forward, putting space between us. Our gazes met, and the aching want in me pounded along with my heart.

Akbar Jamshed Junejo had to die.

But after he lost everything.

Exactly like my parents.

"Ignore him," I said with a bright smile, turning my back towards Azaan, dropping one of my pins at his feet, ruffling my hair. "Has my payment been completed?"

"In your Falkland account," He swaggered towards where I now stood, his gaze predatory and vindictive. "Are you coming with me little bird?"

Fear, cold, and brutal ran through me. It clawed up from my stomach and lodged in my throat. Taking a deep breath, I nodded making a point to not look back. Nothing good started in a getaway car. I was a fool for believing I could escape this mess.

I should have known. Traitors like me never won.

He led me to a sleek back Bently, his henchmen opening the door, pushing me in, before I could protest, a hard knock at the back of my head had me seeing stars, knocking me out for the ride.

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