by Arran,Olivia
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be back soon.” I followed her out of the door, scanning the corridor for any security I might have missed. The place was littered with gadgets, marking every meter of the hallway. Charity—my ass.
Passing through the main doors and back into the foyer, her fingers brushed against my chest. “My card,” she murmured, almost panting as she smoothed her hand across hard muscle.
Huh, so this is what it’s like to feel violated.
Heavy boots echoed through the foyer along with a sharp intake of breath. I could feel eyes burning into me.
I looked up into stormy hazel eyes. “Who’s she?” I murmured.
“Nobody,” Ms. Smith snapped out, her hand still lingering against my chest.
“Does she work here?” I couldn’t look away, Frankie’s gaze ensnaring me.
“No.”
“She looks like she does. She’s wearing a badge like yours.”
The PR woman flinched, an almost imperceptible twitch working through her cheek. “Uh … she … I …”
“The restroom?”
“What?” She gaped at me, like I’d asked for directions to the moon. Her eyes tracked back to Frankie, who was clomping her way toward us, obviously enjoying her role a little too much. Her luscious body was squeezed into tight black leather, her hair hanging in a sharp, sleek line, skimming her shoulders with every exaggerated roll of her hips. A silver chain dangled from her neck, dipping between her plumped up breasts. Some sort of black stuff rimmed her eyes, creating an almost feline look, but her lips were bare. Kissable.
My wolf howled, his panting almost deafening inside my head.
The need to protect her roared through me, to pick her up and carry her far away from here. But I couldn’t break cover. And it was the only way.
“The restroom,” I gritted out, when, despite the surroundings, my cock twitched to life.
It was her. Only she could do this to me.
Ms. Smith raised an arm, her attention riveted on the woman in front of us for completely different reasons to my own, I was betting.
I took off in the direction she had pointed. I didn’t look back; I didn’t trust myself.
Chapter Nineteen
Frankie
The plastic looking Barbie doll that had been pawing Abel just two seconds ago, stormed toward me, her spiked heels tapping out a war drum warning on the tiles.
“What are you doing here?” she snarled.
She made it sound like I was something she’d found stuck to the bottom of her shoe, and not one of the Agency’s most highly trained operatives.
I closed the gap between us, nearly gagging on a cloud of eau de chemical that surrounded her. What did she do? Bathe in the damn stuff? Staring down at her, my lips inched up into a smile. “I’ve got a physical.”
“You’ve got to go,” she hissed, then she had the audacity to grab my arm.
At my pointed look, her hand fell away. The same hand that I was toying with the idea of snapping off, due to whom it had been caught stroking. I widened my eyes, trying for a blissfully innocent look. I was pretty sure I failed miserably, given the way she stared at me. “Why?”
“You’re not scheduled for today.”
“How do you know? I’m sure you’re busy … doing whatever it is you do.” I flicked my fingers at her, arching an eyebrow. Translation: pimping yourself out. Yeah, I could be a condescending jerk when I wanted to be, but she shouldn’t have been rubbing up against my guy. My guy—it was growing on me. Ah, screw playing it cool, I was as thrilled as a kid at her first real birthday party.
“All physicals are conducted on Tuesdays.” Her foot tapped on the floor as she folded her arms across a suspiciously well endowed chest, given her skeletal frame.
“What day is it today?” And that was an honest question; I didn’t have a clue. All I knew was that Dez had gone into work, so it was a weekday.
She gave me a look that told me I’d been demoted from floor scum to something even worse. The fluff stuck to the gum? “Wednesday. Go home, your handler will assign your next job.”
“Oh. Right. Wrong day.” I waited until she turned away, then added, “I want to see Payroll.”
Her back stiffened, her lips pressing into thin lines. “Payroll?”
“Yeah. There’s gotta be one, since I get paid.” I was already moving, cutting around her in a smooth glide.
“But—” The PR woman’s glossy lips flapped as she fumbled for an excuse.
“Third floor, right?”
“You can’t go up there!” She threw her arms out.
As if flapping her arms like a demented bird would stop me.
“And you can’t stop me.”
She flicked her fingers, motioning for the security guard to come over.
I looked him up and down, taking in his polished shoes, the beginning of a beer belly, and the fact I’d lay money that his holster would still creak when he unclipped it. “Really? I’m one of their best—they spent years and money training me—and you think you can take me?” I lowered my voice to a soft whisper, leaning in and looking him straight in the eye. Sometimes it really did come in handy being tall. “I could cut off your balls before you even have chance to draw your gun.”
He hesitated, as if actually considering my question.
Idiot. Where the hell did they do their hiring?
“I thought so.”
I sauntered toward the elevator, not bothering to look back.
“Hold it right there!”
Geez, daytime cable, much? My fingers twitched at my sides, just begging to slide the cold steel from its hiding place.
A low mutter reached my ears. “Not here!”
Right answer.
I jabbed the button, thumbing through my iPod and cranking up the tunes. Slipping one ear bud back in, I mouthed the words silently.
“She’s too valuable …”
Like I was a performing monkey, or a prized piece of art. And now I really wanted to stab something, and I’d never been a big believer in delayed gratification.
The doors slid open and I forced myself to step into the steel box. I didn’t have to do this, I could turn around and walk out of the door. No one would stop me, and things could go back to normal.
Yeah, my normal was fucked up. I jabbed the button for the third floor.
Tinny music filtered into the small space, competing with the pounding rock in my left ear. The floors lit up as the elevator cranked its way up the shaft at a snail’s pace. I wriggled my hips, swaying to the pounding beat in my ears. The music or my heart? Who knew?
Ding! The doors slid open.
“Hi, guys.” I waved at the team of security brandishing their guns in my face. “Are we having a party? I brought my friends too.” My hands dropped to my hips and the next thing I knew I was on the floor. Every instinct in me screamed to fight back, but I resisted. It wouldn’t do any good, I was outnumbered.
They half dragged, half carried me down the corridor and into another elevator. This one rocketed down the shaft, spilling us out into a clinically white corridor, complete with flickering lights that gave it a spooky, horror movie atmosphere. The kind in which the ghosts haunting the walls are the type that don’t just kill, they like to play with their victims first.
Yeah, I had an overactive imagination.
More dragging, a quick pat down—surprisingly, not one of them copped a quick feel, saving themselves from certain disembowelment—and I was thrown into a dark room.
I bounced off a wall, my cheek scraping against rough brick. Dragging myself off my knees, I couldn’t stop the flinch as the door slammed shut, the sound of the bolt being dragged across screeching in the sudden silence.
Why they called it the hole, I didn’t know. It had a door. You didn’t get thrown down, you got thrown in. Maybe the no-light thing? Or it could be the size. I spread my arms, stretching until I could trace the brick with both sets of fingertips. I knew from experience that the ceilin
g was about five inches away. But I didn’t want to touch it; the walls were already closing in and I didn’t want to remember.
Sliding down the wall, I hugged my knees to my chest. The fuckers had taken my iPod. I closed my eyes; staring into the pitch black was disorientating after a time, and it didn’t help that these fuckers liked to slide open the hatch and shine a light in my eyes for fun. If they still did that? Who knew?
I was here. Mission accomplished.
Abel better get his ass into gear and not screw this up, or I’d personally tear him a new one.
I held back the shiver that threatened to knock my teeth together. I hated this place.
Chapter Twenty
Abel
Everyone’s eyes were on Frankie, even the receptionist’s. Taking my time, I walked across the foyer toward the restroom, nice and easy, no sudden movements. Nothing to see here.…
The keycard I’d swiped from the receptionist burned a hole in my pocket as I opened the restroom door, letting it swing back shut with a soft click as I moved with a surge of inhuman speed in the opposite direction.
Darting across the corridor, I timed the camera as it turned, ducking beneath and coming out the other side. Holding my breath, I slid the card through the slot. It beeped—the sound deafening in my ears—and flashed green.
Sweat had dripped down my back by the time I reached the end of the first corridor, the constant ducking and diving out of the way of the security cameras and infrared scanners calling on all of my shifter speed and agility to stay hidden and undetected.
The second set of doors beckoned.
Ms. Smith didn’t have cameras in her office, it was the perfect place to hide.
I reached out.
The doors swung open, a burly looking guy dressed in the security uniform of black stared at me, astonishment on his face. He reached for his gun.
“It’s okay, this is Mr. Abelstein,” Ms. Smith called out from behind me.
The guard relaxed, though his expression was still wary.
I couldn’t blame him, I was bigger and meaner than him, even suited and booted.
“He’s going to be one of the Agency’s biggest benefactors soon, it would be a shame if you accidentally shot him!” Reaching me, she curled her arm through mine and tugged me back the way I’d come. “You missed the bathroom!” she said with a light giggle, not commenting on the fact that I had been found wandering around a secure area. Either she didn’t care, or the thought hadn’t occurred to her.
Or it was something else. The hairs on the back of my neck rose, the feeling of being watched intensifying. It had been bothering me since I’d stepped foot into the building, but I’d put it down to general wariness—something that was good to have in my line of work, it kept a man sharp—but now, I wasn’t so sure.
“I must have turned myself about.” Dammit. We were heading to the front door.
“Well, good job I found you!” She didn’t exactly shove me out of the door, but I was definitely ejected from the building. “Give me a call,” she mouthed as the doors slid shut behind me.
What the fuck had just happened?
Frankie had assured me that all security would be called to deal with her, that it was standard protocol when an operative was misbehaving, her choice of words, not mine. And she had said it with enough derision in her voice that it was clear she’d played the game a few times before.
There shouldn’t have been a guard there. I should have been able to walk straight into Ms. Smith’s office and hide.
I shouldn’t be standing here on the street. I’d just been handed my ass, and I didn’t fucking like it.
I checked my watch. She’d be in the hole by now.
My stomach flipped, nausea gripping me as the thought of failing her flowed like ice water through my veins.
She was waiting for me. She was in there … because of me.
I’d fucked up.
There was only one thing to do. I dragged my cell out of my pocket, flipped it open, and hit speed dial.
Chapter Twenty-One
Frankie
It wasn’t so bad in here, really. Once you got used to the smell … and the dark. At least they had fed me, giving me a sliver of light so I could see where to put the food. They probably had a job lined up that they needed me for, and didn’t want me getting too weak or ratty.
Speaking of rats …
I tore off a chunk of bread, throwing it into the corner. Red eyes stared at me, then with a squeak and a flash of tail the bread disappeared.
Was it Harry? Then I remembered I’d had to squash my adopted friend as he had tried to chew on my leg while I was sleeping.
“I’m going to call you, Hershey,” I murmured, throwing him another chunk of bread. “But don’t go getting any ideas about eating me, I’m not staying long.”
Or at least, I wasn’t planning on it. Where the hell was Abel? It had been hours; night must have fallen. If he had fallen asleep, I’d kill him.
A scuffle sounded from the other side of the door and the cover slid open.
The smile on my face faded as brown eyes—not the gorgeous gray I’d expected—peered at me through the brightly lit slot. Squinting, I realized I recognized the man, that I’d seen him a couple of times before, mostly when I was younger. He had always been surrounded by armed men, big burly guys with guns who looked like they knew what they were doing, not like the poor excuse for security the Agency used as a front.
I stayed silent. This isn’t good.
He stared at me, and not in a nice way, this was more of a bug-under-a-microscope examination. Then he moved away and the cover slid shut again.
The breath I hadn’t realized I was holding rushed out of me in a noisy whoosh as I slumped back against the wall.
I turned to my rat. “That’s one bad man, Hersh—”
The bolt slid back and the door swung open.
Hershey abandoned me on a squeak as two large men squeezed into the confined space, grabbed me under the arms and hauled me out into the brightly lit corridor.
No! I needed to stay in the hole. That was the plan! I kicked out, earning a satisfying grunt from the man on my left, and a slap from the man on my right. Ears ringing, I twisted and kicked, but they held me between them so I floated through the air and down the corridor like a human sacrifice just waiting to be served.
“Enough.” The bad man with the brown eyes said. He didn’t shout, didn’t even raise his voice, but his words carried a quiet vicious steeliness that I couldn’t miss. “Put her down; she’s not going anywhere.”
We were in a room about twenty times larger than the one I had just been evicted from, but apart from that it was pretty much the same. Exposed brick, low ceiling, cement floor. Oh, and two chairs. At his pointed finger, I slumped into one of the chairs, crossed my arms and bared my teeth at him. After giving the two men who’d manhandled me the finger, that is.
“I’m Mr. Getts.” He had a slight accent, a sharpness to his voice that set my teeth on edge. I knew that voice.
“I know who you are.” He was the boss. The big man in charge. He was the Agency.
“Good. That should make this easier.”
Silence filled the space between us as his eyes roamed over me in a creepy clinical way with an undertone that hinted at depraved inclinations.
Whatever he wanted, this wasn’t good. Abel would be looking for me, and now we didn’t have the element of surprise—
“You have a very expressive face, Frankie.”
I jerked to attention at his use of my name, the subtle way he let me know I was on his radar. That he had noticed me. Not good. “What’s it saying now?” I quipped, forming my lips into a knowing smirk.
“We know about Abel.”
Panic slammed into my chest, stealing my ability to breathe. How did they—? “Who?” was what I actually said. Or more like stuttered.
“You’re not a very good liar, a detriment in your line of work I would imagine?”
“A werewolf, who would have thought that they actually exist?” He spoke as if musing to himself, but his eyes were fixed on me, monitoring my reaction.
Sweat beaded on my spine, but I hooked a leg over my knee, picking at my laces as if bored. “Honestly? I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re sounding a little crazy, you might want to get that checked out.…”
“I know you’re fucking him.”
The way he said it: fucking, like it was vile and exciting and the ultimate sin all rolled into one.
I shrugged, wondering how fast my heart could beat without triggering a colossal heart attack. “I’m fucking a guy, so what? It’s none of your business, unless I missed the memo that the Agency has to vet every man I take to bed?”
“No, Frankie. You are fucking him, the werewolf. Some might call it depraved, or kinky, but that’s okay. We approve.”
Whoa! What? They approve? Yup, not good. “I’m not—”
“Did you really think that we didn’t know? Every time you fell into bed with the animal, we knew. Every time you two crossed paths, it was because of us. We wanted you to seduce him. You weren’t the first operative we served up to him, but you were the first one he showed the slightest interest in.” He chuckled, the sound sending a shiver of panic shooting down my spine. “You surprised us; he was so much more than interested.”
I stiffened, I couldn’t help it. If what they were saying was true, then …
“You’ve done well, Frankie. You’ve delivered him right to us.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Abel
Every muscle in my body twitched with the need to move, my wolf clawing at my skin with every second that passed, howling his protest at the need to wait.