“Then why do you smell so wounded?” His gaze cooled until his eyes were hazel once again. “Are you hurt because I pulled the blinders off your eyes?”

My thoughts were a runaway train of regret. I wanted you to be different. I wanted an uncomplicated meal with a handsome guy without an agenda. I wanted you to like me for me, not for what I can do for you. I had been a fool to forget, even for a second, that he entered my life when Marie exited his. Her passing linked us, not a mutual like or respect, but a job. One he expected me to do no matter the cost. I didn’t know how to put any of that into words, so I didn’t try. “I think you should leave.”

“No.”

“No?” I gritted my teeth. “This is my room. You don’t get to make that call.”

“I’m the only person in this game who won’t lie to you, Ellis. I’m not sneaking around behind your back. I’m not lying to you or trying to trick you.” His earnest expression never wavered. “I’m sitting right here in front of you, laying all my cards on the table. I’m being honest.” His jaw flexed. “I want to use you—as Lori—for bait. Together I think we can end this.”

Laughter sliced up the back of my throat. “Hypocrite much?”

“I never said Vause had a bad idea.” He looked pained to give her that much credit. “Manipulation isn’t the right way to go about asking for your help. She shouldn’t have kept Lori in her back pocket like an ace in the hole in the event the conclave managed to corral Charybdis and needed an operative to bring him down. The day she pulled your file and chose you for this was the day she should have confronted you with her plan. That’s what I believe, and my being here ought to be proof of that.” His shoulders tensed. “I’ve told you what I need from you. Will you help me?”

The question lingered between us, and I sat there rubbing at a grease stain on my knee from the bacon I had eaten at the breakfast we had shared this morning, the one where I thought tonight would be ending with a belly full of food and not rage. I embraced the anger. It broiled away my aching uncertainty into a flawless clarity that allowed me to appreciate what he was saying, the logic of it, and then wield that same instrument to deduce what he wasn’t.

“You weren’t surprised.” The truth slammed into me. “In Falco, you weren’t surprised I could shift.” Most folks were stunned where he had been sympathetic. It wasn’t a talent I often showcased for good reason, yet he took it all in stride. A worse possibility dawned. “Were you at the Wink Sinks? Is that how you knew?”

“I interviewed one of the marshals.” Tension in the air thickened, and he admitted, “He told me what you did.”