Yet the sight of Hauk’s bulging muscles while he dangled precariously fascinated her and made her breathless. The male was fearless and ripped in a way that had to be illegal in most galaxies. And it left her with fantasies that would have Kyr cutting her throat if he ever learned of them.

How could anyone be so lickably delicious?

When she got to one of Hauk on top of a picturesque mountain, with his arm around a Hyshian female, she froze. The woman was beautiful. Exquisitely so. There was no missing the admiration and love in their eyes as they stared at each other. A weird, inexplicable fissure of jealousy went through her. Though why she would care who Hauk loved was beyond her.

Disturbed by that thought, she quickly moved on past additional photos of them together that did nothing to improve her ire.

Until she came to a photo of five people. Her heart leapt into her throat as a bitter chill consumed her. Hauk, Nykyrian, Darling, the Hyshian woman, and another handsome man with dark hair and dark eyes, who’d been in several of the earlier pictures.

All five wore unmarked red-tinged black battlesuits…

The same suits that were used by Sentella members.

Holy shit.

This was the five members of The Sentella High Command. It had to be. She’d meticulously studied the footage of their mission into The League prison enough to know their heights and builds as well as her own. With them clustered together, there was no mistaking those tough I-will-kill-you-where-you-stand stances.

Oh my God, this is it. She had what she’d been sent for.

Swallowing hard, she shivered. With this one, condemning picture, she could destroy The Sentella once and for all. This, right here in her hand, was the intel Kyr would sell his other eye to possess…

“Uncle Hauk?”

Sumi quickly turned the device off and stowed it as she heard Hauk and Thia outside, preparing dinner. Terrified of being caught and killed, she scrambled back to her pallet while her heart continued to hammer in her chest.

But the images were burned in her mind. Worse, they made Hauk a real person to her. Not a target. And that was so dangerous it wasn’t even remotely amusing.

I cannot allow myself to feel anything for him.

He must remain the enemy and nothing more personal than that. It was the only way for this to work. The only way she could survive and do what she had to do. For her sake and for Kalea’s. She’d already made the mistake of putting her life and faith into a man and his integrity.

Sumi had barely lived to regret that stupidity. There was no way she’d ever do that again.

She refused to be a victim. It was that stubborn determination that made her such a lethal killer. Why she was one of the best assassins in her division.