Aria’s POV
I read the letter three more times before I finally set it down, the paper trembling faintly between my fingers.
“You’re not going,” Romanov said, reading my expression before I’d said a word.
“I didn’t say I was.”
“You were thinking about it.”
I couldn’t deny that, so I didn’t try. “She’s never asked to see me. Not once, not even when I left. This is either the first honest thing she’s done in years, or it’s exactly the kind of trap Northbridge would use to draw me out.”
“I won’t assume one way or the other,” Romanov said, echoing the same careful logic he’d used about the mysterious caller weeks earlier. “Which is why you’re not meeting her alone, and you’re not meeting her anywhere I haven’t cleared first.”
“I didn’t ask permission.”
“I’m not asking for it either,” he
