Atlantis Betrayed by Alyssa Day Page A

way he’d grown up. She’d stepped into the middle of a beating that day, seven years ago, and come out the other side with a broken arm and a fifteen-year-old boy who wouldn’t be parted from her, no matter how many times the authorities had tried to find him a suitable home.
    So her home had become his home, and the child of a murderer and a whore became the ward of a thief. In her more self-aware moments, she wasn’t that sure it was a step up. But the truth was that she needed the help—help she could trust—and the reward was far too great for far too many for her to retire the Scarlet Ninja just yet.
    Even though now she was in danger. She’d been seen.
    Her thoughts returned to the man from the Tower. She hadn’t had the time to ask him how he’d gotten past security, not that he would have answered her anyway. But he knew she was a woman; a Scottish woman. He knew and he had absolutely no reason to protect her identity. She’d shot him with drugs and left him for the Guard.
    She’d shot the man. Shot him and kissed him , her conscience whispered. Bloody hell. She’d shot the one witness who could ruin everything. She was absolutely mad.
    “ Should have killed him ,” the ghost of her grandfather whispered in her mind, but she shut him down, hard. She’d retire the Scarlet Ninja and go to work cleaning toilets before she’d become anything like him .
    The soothing music and the exhaustion pulled at her, helping to repress the worry for just a few minutes, and brooding turned to dozing until the car smoothly pulled to a stop and she realized they’d arrived safely in her garage. Sean was out of the car and opening her door before she could do it herself, another gallantry she’d tried to talk him out of many times. He took his chauffeur’s role seriously, though, and wouldn’t be dissuaded.
    “We’re safe home,” he announced, grasping her arm and helping her out of the car as if she were a ninety-year-old woman with a bad case of the gout.
    She bit back the impatient retort that sprang to her lips. It wasn’t Sean’s fault that she’d botched the job. A simple reconnaissance. “How dangerous can it be?” she’d said to Hopkins. Flippant and carefree. Foolish .
    How dangerous could it be? She was ruined. That was how dangerous.
    “If you’re all right, then, I’ll say good night,” Sean said. He lived in a lovely little apartment over the garage. Hopkins had overseen the decorating himself, though he’d never admit it.
    “Fine, thanks. You get some sleep.” She put a hand on his arm as he started to walk away. “Sean? You’re a wonderful help to me. I know I don’t tell you that often enough. Thank you.”
    His pale face slowly flushed to a glowing pink under the dusting of freckles on his cheeks. “You don’t, I mean, I just, we—”
    Hopkins’s dry voice sounded from the doorway to the laundry. “He means to say ‘you’re welcome,’ don’t you, Sean?”
    “Exactly!” Sean said a shade too loudly. “Just off to bed now. To sleep, that is. Just sleeping. In bed.”
    Fiona watched, fascinated, as Sean’s face turned a peculiar shade of plum-purple before he made a bizarre squeaking sound and practically ran for the stairs to his apartment.
    When the door had closed behind him, she gathered her bag, closed the car door, and turned to Hopkins. “What on earth was that about?”
    “That young man has believed since he was fifteen years old that the stars and moon shine for you alone. Didn’t you realize that all of his puppy adoration and hero worship would almost certainly turn into something a bit more personal?”
    She blinked, trying to force her tired mind to put some sense into his words. “He—oh. Oh, no. He has a crush? On me? I’m far too old for him.”
    “Oh, yes, all of five whole years. You’re ancient. And yes, a crush, as you say. Unrequited love. Quite an astonishingly fierce case. But don’t fret, it will pass. In fact, perhaps sooner rather than