by Nalini Singh
“It seems even this was a waste of time.” Glancing to her left, she gave a curt nod. “Cut the connection.”
Bonner’s face twisted to reveal the monster within for one violent second. “Ms. Russo, I don’t think you realiz—” The empty slate of a blank screen.
“I want to kill him with my bare hands,” Max said in a voice so calm it made every single hair on the back of her neck rise in warning. “It’s not a need for justice or anything pure. I want vengeance. I want him to suffer as those women—those girls—suffered.”
“We all have the capacity to kill,” Sophia said, telling herself to stop, but unable to keep quiet—she needed to know what he thought of the broken part of her that knew only the most lethal kind of justice. If he was going to reject her, better that it be now, when she’d only touched the wild heat of him once, when she’d just begun to learn him . . . when she might survive the denunciation. “The lines are simply different for everyone.”
Max’s eyes met hers, piercing in their intensity. “And yours involve children. Sometimes women, but most often, children.”
Sophia swallowed, uncertain how to answer, uncertain how to read his answer.
Bartholomew Reuben’s face reappeared on the comm screen at that moment. “He’s pissed. Never saw that ugly face of his until today.”
“Not even at trial?” Sophia asked, her confused terror translating into a rigid composure.
“Cool as a cucumber, that one,” Reuben said. “Smiled at the jurors, flirted with the gallery. If we hadn’t had airtight evidence, he might well have charmed himself out of a conviction.” A small pause. “Please be careful, Ms. Russo. Bonner is under constant supervision, but he does have rabid fans. If he manages to get out a message to one of them, you could be in danger.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Reuben.” Sophia took the small, folded note Max passed her under the table. “Right now, he needs me alive. He wants to awe me with his brilliance.” After that . . .
Max felt his gut grow painfully tight as he thought back to the expression on Sophia’s face before Bart signed off. He’d known exactly what she was considering, his complex, dangerous J, knew, too, that he couldn’t let her do it. But they were geographically far enough from Bonner right now that Sophia’s tendency to hurt nasty people in creative ways was something he had time to deal with.
He knew it wouldn’t be easy. Not when her actions—and the crimes of those she’d punished in that peculiarly J way—all added up to a past that spoke of a brutal kind of hurt. Those scars, he thought, were invisible. But they were far more important than the thin lines that marked her face.
“Max,” she muttered under her breath as they headed up to Nikita’s office.
He knew why she was giving him that perplexed look—and it soothed him to know the ploy had worked, drawing her back from the edge of the void. “Hmm?”
“You can’t write me notes like that.” It was a hissed order as the elevator doors opened on the correct level. “What if someone had seen?”
Max shot her an innocent look. “I just asked a simple question.”
“What do you think of boardroom sex?” A raised eyebrow. “That is not—”
“Well, since you asked,” he interrupted, walking into the outer section of Nikita’s office, “I vote in favor.”
At that moment, his entire being filled with the sensual delight that came from teasing Sophia, Max had no idea of the bloody consequences that would result from this meeting.
CHAPTER 15
Some women are not meant to be mothers.
—From the private case notes of Detective Max Shannon
Councilor Nikita Duncan, he thought as they entered her private office, was a beautiful woman. If you liked beauty cut in ice. Perfect. Distant. Cold. According to public records, she was part Japanese, part Russian. That explained the combination of high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, above-average height. She’d passed on the height to her daughter, but from the images Max had seen, Sascha’s black hair curled rather than ran a slick dark rain, her skin a warm golden brown to Nikita’s flawless ivory.
“Detective Shannon, Ms. Russo.” She gestured for them to take the chairs in front of her desk.
“Actually, Councilor,” Max said, “I think better on my feet.” Walking to the huge plate-glass window that was the back wall of her office, he looked down into the active buzz of San Francisco and played a hunch. “I need you to share the information you’ve withheld.”
He felt Sophia’s eyes on his back, and had it been any other woman, he’d have been prepared to get a royal reaming later on for springing this on her. But Sophia was unlike anyone he’d ever before met. He had no idea how she’d react—and that both delighted him and frustrated him.
“It would,” Nikita answered, “be illogical of me to conceal information when I’m the one who requested this investigation.”
Max turned enough that he could meet those cool brown eyes. “Three deaths—one car accident that you weren’t sure was suspicious, one suicide that could’ve been caused by mental illness, one heart attack—that’s not enough for you to pull in an outsider.” A human.
Nikita stared at him, a lethal adversary for all that she wore a crisp skirt and shirt, her makeup professional, her hair perfect. “It’s gratifying,” she said into the silence, “to know that you have the intelligence to get this task done.” With that, she tapped something on her desk—Max guessed she’d activated some kind of an aural shield as a defense against high-tech spies. “There was an attempt on my life approximately four months ago.”
“I heard rumors. Something to do with the Human Alliance?” he said, referring to the most powerful human organization on the planet. On the surface, it was all about business, but word was, the Alliance had a strong paramilitary arm.
Nikita gave a regal nod in response to his question. “They placed an explosive device in the elevator I use to access this office and my penthouse, their apparent plan being to detonate the charge while I was inside.”
“They hooked into your surveillance system?” Max asked, supremely conscious of Sophia’s silent presence, though his eyes remained on Nikita.
“Yes.” Nikita rose from her chair and, using a thin silver remote, activated a comm panel on what had appeared to be a blank wall.
The boy in Max was intrigued enough to have him walking over. “This isn’t on the market yet.”
“I purchased a small company last year—their engineers are brilliant, but it’s the designers who have proven truly exceptional.”
Another click in the back of his mind, another piece of the puzzle coming into view. “A human company?” He caught a hint of vanilla and lavender as Sophia moved to stand on Nikita’s other side, and the scent was a slow stroke across his senses, a sensual reminder that his body had chosen this woman and had no intention of changing its mind.
“Yes,” Nikita said. Then, using the command pad on the side of the screen, she brought up a three-dimensional model of the Duncan high-rise, drilling down until they were staring at a cross section of the relevant elevator shaft. “Access to this elevator is difficult but not impossible. However, access to the shaft itself is strictly controlled—computronic security, twenty-four-hour surveillance.”
“Emergency hatch in the elevator?” Max asked.
“Sounds an immediate alarm if it’s so much as touched.”
Max understood the import of her statement when she used a red X to mark the place where the charge had been laid.
Above the elevator.
Mind beginning to hum with the exhilaration that came from knowing a case was starting to take shape, he tapped the screen, rotating the image until he could’ve drawn it from memory. “Someone inside had to have either greased the wheels for the saboteurs or done the job himself.” And the two, he thought, weren’t necessarily connected. A smart man might’ve become aware of the Alliance’s plans, used them to further his own agenda. “Surveillance footage?”
; “By the time I realized the significance of where the charge had been placed, that footage was gone, erased.”
Sophia stirred, bringing up something on her organizer. “The list of those with the security clearance to successfully execute such an erasure is very short and includes every individual in your inner circle.”
“Precisely, Ms. Russo.”
“I don’t seem to have the name of your security chief.”
“He’s dead.” Brisk words coated in frost. “He was killed in an accidental fall three weeks before the assassination attempt.”
Max folded his arms, his gut tight. “He was the first victim.”
“Yes, I’ve come to believe so.”
Sophia looked up from her organizer. “You haven’t hired a replacement.”
“No—I haven’t found the right candidate. The assistant chief is doing an unobjectionable job at present.”
Max stared at the image of the Duncan building, but he wasn’t really seeing it. There was dedication here, he thought, a long-term commitment that had to rise from a very specific motive—and whatever that motive was, it was about more than the thrill of murder. “You’re telling me,” he said to Nikita, “that you no longer trust anyone in your inner circle.”
“No. I—” She cut herself off as her phone began to beep. “It must be something critical. I ordered no interruptions.” Picking up the handset, she said, “Yes?”
Max glanced at Sophia, caught by the way a sudden sliver of sunlight glimmered off the rich ebony silk of her hair. He could play with the soft strands for hours, intended to do exactly that once he’d coaxed his J into bed.
“Don’t disturb anything. Don’t enter.”
Nikita’s words had his attention whiplashing back to her. “What is it?”
She hung up. “It seems you will no longer have to satisfy yourself with cold case data. My international financial advisor, Edward Chan, has just been found dead.”
This time, Max thought, there was no question of it being murder. Either the people behind the acts were getting impatient, or this was a message. “Sophia, you recording?”
“Yes.” She’d clipped a small wireless camera over her ear, curving the lens in front of her left eye. “Go.”
Having barred anyone else from entering, Max took his time looking over the scene, which happened to be on the second-highest floor of the Duncan building, right below Nikita’s penthouse. The murdered man lay on the otherwise undisturbed bed, his legs hanging over the side. His pants were slate gray, his belt sedate black leather, his white shirt stained like a Rorschach painting in red.
“No bruises, no defensive marks on his hands.” The only evidence of violence was the bowie knife thrust hilt deep in his sternum—solid, thick, and Max guessed, with a wicked curved edge. The kind of knife you might use to bring down game or skin the pelt off a downed animal. “Looks like a single blow, directly to the heart.”
Sophia continued to film as they spoke. “Either the victim allowed his attacker close, or the killer used Tk to punch the blade home.”
“Tk—telekinesis?” That would explain how the knife had ended up buried so deep—though a burst of cold rage might well have sufficed to give the killer enough strength.
“Yes. I’ll go through the personnel files”—Sophia moved to his left, capturing images of the body from every angle—“find out how many telekinetics the Councilor has in her organization.”
“Nikita said Chan got in from Cairo last night,” Max murmured, “but that he had a number of informal meetings scheduled here in his home office this morning.” Which meant someone had known his schedule well enough to time the murder when Chan would’ve been alone and vulnerable.
As she shifted position again, the clean purity of Sophia’s scent swept over him, providing a much-needed antidote to the ugliness of death. Psy, human, or changeling, Max thought, murder always had the same putrid stench. And the dead always screamed for the same justice. Edward Chan was one of Max’s now, just like every single one of Bonner’s lost victims.
“It was an individual he trusted,” Sophia said. “That’s the only way a telepath of his strength—8 on the Gradient—could’ve been taken by surprise.”
Raising his gaze from Edward Chan’s cold flesh, Max put his hands on his hips, pushing back his jacket. “One problem though—even the most perfectly aimed stab wound wouldn’t have caused death instantaneously and a telepath could get out an emergency message within seconds, if not less.” Unlike with the Vale scene, everything here suggested a quick, brutal operation. No time to drug the victim into compliance. “Why didn’t he call for help?”
“Turn his head a fraction.”
“What’re you looking for?” He saw nothing remarkable except for a couple of droplets of blood below the—Damn. “Telepathic blow.”
“If someone hit him with a hard enough one at the same instant that he was stabbed, while his attention was splintered by shock, it would’ve torn through his shields, destroyed his mind.”
“Cold, calculated.” A one-two hit to ensure success.
“Max.” Sophia’s voice was almost soundless.
Spine prickling with awareness, he followed her gaze to the bathroom mirror—just barely visible through the half-open door on the other side of the bedroom.
The single word was written in blood that had dripped onto the white porcelain of the sink. But the accusation was still very legible.
Traitor.
CHAPTER 16
The space for your father’s name is blank in our records. Such an action is permitted in some limited circumstances, but the cause must always be noted. There is no such note on your file. We apologize for the error.
—Office of Births and Deaths: City of New York, to Max Shannon, June 2079
Nikita handed Max a data crystal as soon as they returned to her office. “I’ve downloaded the security footage for you—it covers the period since Edward’s return from Cairo.”
Max slipped it into his pocket. “Are private comm conversations backed up on your main servers? The killer dropped a corrosive acid in the computronic ‘brain’ of the system in the victim’s room.” And they’d found neither a cell phone, nor an organizer.
“Edward’s entire file was wiped using his own security override,” Nikita said, the words succinct. “The murderer must’ve torn it from his mind.”
The callous nature of it all might’ve shocked other men, but Max knew that no matter the race, some were always born with a capacity for evil. “We thought we might have a pattern of deaths—each of your other advisors was hit before a major deal. Does Chan fit?”
Nikita was shaking her head before he finished speaking. “Edward had a lot of things in play but nothing close to completion.”
Frustrated at the sudden end to that line of inquiry, Max focused on another. “Sophia says the victim was high profile enough that he was known outside business circles?”
A quick nod that sent her glossy hair swinging. “It was part of his job description to wine and dine human and changeling businessmen and women. As a result, he occasionally found himself in the society pages.”
Max felt Sophia glance at him with those amazing, perceptive eyes, knew she’d made the same cognitive leap he had. “Would it be fair to say he’d made some personal connections within those groups?”
Nikita took a moment to think about it. “Not in the human or changeling sense. However, certain individuals had come to have a measure of trust in him because of a shared history of successful deals.”
“An unquantifiable loss,” Sophia said. “One that you will feel the effect of for some time.”
“Yes.” Nikita looked at Sophia for a long, quiet moment before returning her attention to Max. “I’m beginning to see the pattern it appears you already have, Detective.”
“So my next question won’t come as a surprise—who doesn’t like you getting into bed with the other races?” Edward Chan, Max was certain, had only been considered a trai
tor by association. It was Councilor Nikita Duncan who was the key.
“That,” Nikita said, “is something I’ll have to think about.”
Sophia spoke into the small pause. “I’ve heard rumors of a group called Pure Psy—the members seem to believe that contact with the other races is tainting the purity of our Silence.”
“Yes. They’ve begun to gain a measure of support in the Net.” Nikita returned to her desk. “I have some additional data on them that I’m sending you now—please brief the detective, Ms. Russo.”
It was a dismissal from a woman who was used to obedience, but Max wasn’t finished. “Whoever’s behind this, he or she is getting bolder—they’re going to come directly after you sooner rather than later.”
“I’m protected. That’s why Edward and the others are dead—the assassin went for the next best thing.” A razor of a glance. “You’d do well to protect yourself. You are, after all, only human.”
Sophia didn’t say anything to Max until they were in the car heading out from the Duncan building. “Does it bother you?”
“What?”
“Being thought of as less because of your humanity?” It bothered her a great deal. Max was worth far more than any other man she’d ever met.
But he shook his head, his lips curved in a distinctly satisfied smile. “Nikita felt the need to point out my humanity because she’s been forced into a position where she has to rely on a measly human. That has to bite.”
“It’s an irony, is it not?” Sophia murmured, thinking of connections, of mothers and fathers. “She’s one of the most powerful people in the world, her net worth in the billions—and yet she doesn’t have a single person in her life whom she can trust not to thrust a knife into her back.”
“She made her choices.” Max had no sympathy for a woman who’d disowned her child. He knew exactly how bad that had to have hurt Sascha.
When Sophia didn’t say anything, he glanced at her. “What about you, Sophie? Who do you trust?”