“Why would you come all the way out here for him? This place would kill him as well as anybody.”

“I didn’t come here to kill him.” She grimaced. “I sort of came here to save him.”

Rhys raised his brows. “You came here… to save Raine?”

“Sorry.”

“It’s just odd how that happens, Nyx. Like last time. When you burned away my life.” The congeniality was gone. Why? Because she came here for somebody else?

“Doesn’t look like there’s much left to burn this time.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“You tell me. I don’t blame anybody else for my life. When I left Tirhan, you had a wife and a job. If you don’t anymore, that’s none of my doing.”

“That’s catshit, Nyx.”

“Your mouth used to be a lot cleaner, too.”

“Let’s not start this again.”

“I didn’t start it. You were the one acting like a fucking ass. As always. Without a change. Not a fucking change in what, six, seven years?”

“Seven years,” he said. He regarded her. “The years haven’t been kind.”

“Not to either of us,” she said, because though Rhys would never be an ugly man, he had gone from pretty to handsome in the ensuing years. His hair was a little longer, his face more drawn, tired. He was so thin that the lines in his face were more prominent.

“Can we fuck about it later?” Nyx said. “These people creep me the fuck out.”

Rhys shook his head. “You never change. Do you have people outside who can help you?”

She thought of her little team. Ahmed, Kage, Safiyah, and Isabet. She couldn’t trust them any farther than she could throw them. She already lost the one she trusted most. “I have a team. But they’re cobbled together.”

“Where are they?”

Nyx felt a moment of hesitation. He saw it.

“I’m not here as an interrogator, Nyx.”

Could she really trust that? “They’re out there,” she said. “That’s all you need to know.”

“I can’t help you if I don’t know.”

“And I can’t… Rhys, I can’t trust you.”

“What?”

“Would you trust me?”

Rhys looked at the floor.

“Yeah,” she said. “All right. Fuck.”

“Let me see what I can do,” he said.

“He’s not going by his old name. They call him Hamza Habib now.”

Rhys said, “Yes, I know. Shit.”

“Fuck, your mouth has gotten bad. You drink now, too?”

“Nyx, why are you always turning up looking for the most dangerous people I know?”

“Why are you always fucking around with dangerous people? Blame God, not me.”

“I have no interest in talking about God with you.” He stepped back into the interrogation room. “I’ll return.” He closed the door.

“Rhys,” she said.

“What?”