“Because if he discovers I told anyone, he will kill me.” The girl’s voice was flat and completely serious. “I simply wouldn’t wake up one morning. And don’t think he wouldn’t find out, or that he wouldn’t be able to get to me—he has eyes and ears everywhere. Gathering information is his specialty, it’s literally all he does.”

“He wouldn’t be able to get to you here,” I insisted. “I don’t care who he is, no one is going to find you when you’re with me.” I narrowed my eyes, the hint of a growl creeping into my voice. “But this is my underground we’re talking about. I need to know you’re not a threat, Mist. I need to know I can trust you. So tell me who your employer is.”

“No,” Mist said calmly.

I glared at her. “You’re going to make this hard, aren’t you?”

“You could always interrogate me, if you want,” Mist replied, the hint of a dark smile on her face. “You went through the same training I did. Though I will warn you, I’m just as resistant to pain as you are. Without drugs or some kind of truth serum, it might take a while.”

“As if I’d ever do that,” I said, my lip curling at the thought. “I’m not Luther. I don’t interrogate people for shits and giggles.”

“Then I’m afraid we’re at an impasse.”

I exhaled. “All right,” I growled. She wasn’t going to tell me, and I wasn’t going to “interrogate her” to get her to talk. “But answer me this—who were you working for that night in Vegas? When you were trying to get me to reveal the locations of my safe houses?”

“That night?” Mist furrowed her brow slightly, remembering. “I was working for Talon.”

“So, you understand why I’m a little confused. Who are you loyal to, Mist? Your employer, or the organization?”

Mist glanced away, staring down the hall, as if gathering her thoughts and weighing how much she wanted to reveal. “My employer is part of Talon,” she finally said. “He has his own agents, his eyes and ears within the organization, though no one knows of them. Not even I know the identities of his other informants. Officially, we all work for Talon. We do our jobs and follow orders per normal, unless our employer tells us differently.

“That night in Vegas,” Mist went on, “I was following Talon’s orders. My mission was to separate you from your friends, discover the locations of your safe houses and then kill you. It was business. I was just doing what the organization required.”

“And your employer was okay with it?”