“Are you threatening to fire me and my team?”

“Yes. And you’ll all be sequestered.”

“Sequestered? For what?”

“This is a top-secret facility, and you’re disgruntled employees. The risk is too high to terminate your employment and turn you out into the general public.”

“You’ve lost your mind, Peter. You’re really going to go through all that trouble, ruin lives, because I’m not in love with you? Where is your pride? Where is your integrity?”

“It goes far beyond that, Naomi.”

“No, it doesn’t. You’re a spoiled child. The one thing you’ve always wanted is the one thing you can’t have. You’ve broken numerous laws to get me, including interfering with my military career, my deployments, and now false imprisonment; bending rules of a government facility to keep your childhood crush close, and experimenting on a human being via coercion—not sure what the official term for that one is, but I’m certain it’s illegal.”

Peter glanced up at his bodyguard, who was stone-faced. “You’re distorting the facts.”

“Those are exactly the facts.”

“Did you not hear what I said?” Peter asked.

“Yes, play nice and pretend what you’ve done to Zeke is not evil and you won’t put me under house arrest. Is that about right?”

“Slightly biased account, but yes.”

“Just tell me, Peter. Tell me what you said to Zeke to get him to agree to this.”

“I didn’t have to convince him, if that’s what you’re asking. He was out of a job as a hotshot, he’s sick, he felt unworthy of you for both of those reasons. I gave him a job he loves and treatment he needs to be the man he wants to be for the woman he loves.”

“As if you care,” I grumbled.

“You’re right, I don’t. It was convenient for certain, but you’ve forgiven me for worse. Paige, for instance.”

“You marrying Paige is not even close to tricking my boyfriend into a three-year contract underground to keep him away from me.”

“Well, that’s one perspective.”

“Did you tell him he couldn’t leave once that blast door closed? Tell me the truth—if you even remember how.”

Peter shifted in his seat, clasping his fingers together. “It came up briefly.”

“Briefly? He’s not military. He doesn’t even have the appropriate clearance! How did you get this by the general?”

“I’m not required to.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“How often will he fight fires down there?” I snapped back.

“Naomi, really. You have no idea what goes on in Deep Echo.”

“Then tell me.”

“You know I can’t.”