She nodded as he spoke, guilt twisting her stomach into knots. “I don’t want to either. I’m only pretending to want it so he doesn’t doubt me. I don’t want to hurt him, but I need to do this job. And once I start working for Kohl again, neither of us will have to worry about money.”

Lowering his voice, Teo said, “I know you have to finish the job so you’ll be safe, but I want you to get away from Kohl. If the job doesn’t go as planned, end him before he comes after you. He’s the one who got you into this mess.”

She shivered involuntarily and sat up straight, pushing her hair out of her face with shaking fingers. It was easy for Teo to sit there and tell her to write Kohl off, but if anything, these last days had proved how much she needed him. Between the Jackals and the Diamond Guards, it seemed everyone in the city was after her now that she lacked Kohl’s protection. She had to get it back and return to the life she knew, the life that was safe for her. She had to kill Kouta.

“I heard some things while I was being processed in the prison,” Teo said. “Did you know people still talk about Kohl’s escape even though he’s been out for more than a decade? They all disagree on how he did it, but whatever he did, it must have been good. How else would he get away with everything he does?”

“He has a lot of bribes,” Aina said with a shrug. “A lot of friends, a lot of people he threatens. He seems to conflate the two.”

They both laughed, then, and Aina was grateful to have him back. He and Kohl were so different to her. She and Teo had always been friends, and she would never want to risk losing that. Occasionally, though, she wondered if there was more between them. But something still held her back from seeing him the way she saw Kohl.

Teo had saved her life more than once, as she had in return, but he had first met her when she was already strong. She’d constantly proved herself to him even if she needed help sometimes. She’d spent so long building up an invincible image of herself that she was frightened to show him more of her vulnerable side.

But Kohl had seen potential in her when she was nothing and no one, and he’d saved her then. Perhaps Teo might have done the same, or maybe his eyes would have passed over her, nothing special, like they did every day when they walked past people sleeping on the street.

Until he saw her starving, homeless, and desperate, and decided she was still worth saving, she would never know.

Aina fell asleep within the hour on the armchair, her bones weary with exhaustion. A clock ticked somewhere, the sound reminding her of the one on the desk in Kohl’s office. She woke up a few times throughout the night, certain she was at the Dom and that Kohl would kill her for daring to return. She shook off the nightmares as well as she could, but they returned every time she closed her eyes.