by Holley Trent
He hated to admit she had a point there, so he didn’t.
“I would go myself,” she said. “If only to get this out of the way, so it’s one less source of stress for us. Your father is sick to his stomach over it. Do you know what it feels like to have someone you thought you could trust betray you after so many years? Soren, we’ve done everything to make this man’s life better. We paid his bills. We made sure his mother was cared for. We even paid their daughter’s college tuition. He smiled in our faces, took everything our Bears handed to him, and then slammed the door down on our hands at the first opportunity. We need to neutralize him. This is a security issue, not only revenge.”
“Ugh.” Soren pressed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and closed his eyes as Marcella made yet another wild left turn that made the sedan tilt off the right wheels.
If he couldn’t drive on the way back, he was going to walk. She was a first for him. First woman to ever refuse him so consistently, and the first woman to make him carsick.
“Again, will you consider this favor?” his mother asked. “If you want us to leave you alone, I understand. Really, I do. We will work out an arrangement so we don’t call on you as often if that’s what you want.”
“That is absolutely what I want. I told you that months ago.”
“Why now?”
“Why?” He dropped his hand onto his lap and, as Marcella prepared to make yet another left turn, reached across her body to stab his index finger toward the middle of the block on the left side. “That building,” he said. “The one with the pinkish stone. Find someplace to park.”
“Oh,” she said. Her shoulders fell from her ears, and she perked up.
“What do you mean, why?” he asked his mother. “You had to suspect that eventually, Peter and I would decamp.”
“Honestly, we didn’t. We knew Tamara would probably never come home, and that was ideal for us because we didn’t want her entangled in Bear business.”
“Da, and you see how that worked out.”
“Don’t get rude with me. I’m still your mother.”
As if he could forget.
“Of course we assumed you and Peter would return home. We thought you’d take mates here and be accessible.”
“Fate had other plans.”
“Apparently. If you want to stay in the U.S. and limit your international travel—”
“No, no, no. You’re missing the point. I’d like to limit all travel. It’s one thing to take the occasional job for Dana. With those jobs, I know I’ll be off the hook in a reasonable amount of time, and rarely do I have to call in favors with local law enforcement to get them to look the other way while I work. I’m tired of being a moving target.”
His mother let out a ragged exhalation and then was quiet.
Darkness loomed ahead as Marcella drove them down a steep ramp into an underground parking garage.
“I hate these things,” she whispered to herself. “So cramped.”
He pressed the pad of his thumb over the phone mic. “You don’t have to try to squeeze into the first open space. Keep going until you find a gap that’s comfortably wide. There’s nothing wrong with our legs. We can handle stairs.”
She nodded.
“Soren?” came his mother’s voice from the phone.
He put it back to his ear. “Yeah? Sorry. We’ve got a parking situation. What did you say?”
“I said that I remember your father experiencing a similar sort of disenchantment with his job when he was about your age.”
“And what happened?”
“We decided we were long overdue to start training our children to handle our dirty work for us.”
He waited for his mother to laugh, but she didn’t.
Marcella pulled into an open row and, sighing with relief, swung the car into the space at the end. “Easy to get out of, too,” she murmured.
“And near the staircase,” he said.
She nodded.
“Who are you talking to?” his mother asked.
“Marcella. We’re working.”
“On what?”
“A job, and we’re about to go into a building, so you’ll have to excuse me if I end the call now.”
“Fine. Think about what I said. Do this, and you won’t hear from me again about errands.”
“Until…”
There was no way in hell his parents were going to let him off the hook for good, and he knew better than to expect peace.
She let out a breath. “I can’t make you any promises, but I’ll talk to Peter. Perhaps between the three of us, we can work out a system where I’ll only have to call you once a quarter.”
“Wait. Are you implying that Peter’s already told you to go to hell?”
“Goodbye.” She disconnected.
He growled, turned to Marcella, and held up a finger to bid her to wait. “I am sorry, I need to do this.”
Then he realized the gig was hers, anyway, and she didn’t need him.
“If you want to go on ahead,” he said, “I’ll catch up.”
She lifted an eyebrow as she reached for the AUX cord that connected her phone to the car speakers. “Really?”
“I need to make a call.”
“Oh. Fine.” She pulled the cord from the phone, put the device into the pocket of her faded Army jacket, and then leaned between the seats to reach for her bag. As he dialed his brother’s number, she dug into the seemingly bottomless thing.
He put the phone to his ear and waited.
She opened her wallet and pulled out a stack of ID cards. The best he could tell, all the pictures were the same, but the originating locations were different. She selected a South Carolina driver’s license, returned the rest to the wallet, and put the card into her coat pocket.
“Fake name?” he asked.
“Mm-hmm.” She put the wallet away and resumed her digging in the bag.
“Yeah?” Peter answered.
Soren grunted. “Did you tell our parents to fuck off?”
“What is that question regarding?”
“Don’t play stupid with me. In spite of what I may tell you at times, I happen to know you’re quicker on the draw than most people, so you know exactly what I’m getting at.”
Peter let out a frustrated breath. There was beeping in the background.
“What is that? What are you doing?”
“I’m at the store. I needed to run errands. Drea needed shampoo, and I told her I’d get some on my way home.”
From the bag, Marcella had pulled a folding knife, which he took from her before she could tuck it into her coat pocket.
Wood handle. A sharp blade made of some material that most certainly wasn’t metal.
Brow furrowing, he handed the knife back to her. “What is that?”
“Ceramic.” She folded the blade back into the handle. “Won’t show up on metal detectors. I also have a bone one, but I’m rather fond of that knife and don’t like getting it messy unless I have to.”
Frightening witchy woman.
He shook his head. To Peter, he said, “To get right to the point, did you tell our parents, explicitly, that you wouldn’t do any more of their jobs?”
“Soren, you know damn well I’ve been telling them that for the past year. They’re only now getting to the point that they’re starting to believe me.”
“What deal did they make with you?”
As Marcella opened her door, Soren’s thumb moved instinctively to his seatbelt buckle, but before he couldn’t depress the button, he stopped.
Chasing down information about Wes’s scheme was her job, and he was going to let her do it.
He settled lower into his seat and shifted the phone to his other ear.
Marcella closed her door and took off, sending a single curious glance over her shoulder before she disappeared into the garage’s stairwell.
If he needed to, he could catch up to her. Her scent trail would either guide him to her, or
logic. She may have been a maverick investigator, but there was still a sensible order to things that even he followed most of the time.
“It wasn’t a deal so much as a last-ditch compromise to keep me onboard,” Peter said. “I don’t know how the last conversation went. I was a bit in a rage and often can’t remember anything I’ve said when the Bear is in control of my faculties. Yes, ma’am, excuse me, do you have the volumizing version of this conditioner? The one that comes in the green bottle?”
Soren needed a moment to realize who the hell his brother was talking to with his last couple of sentences. He envied his brother for his relationship and had never pretended otherwise. Peter and Drea were good for each other in the same way that Tamara and Bryan were. Connecting was easy for them.
Why the hell is so hard for me?
“Yes, that’s the one,” Peter said. “Thank you.”
“Years ago,” Soren said, “if a woman had sent you out on a hunt for toiletries, you would have picked up the first thing you could find on the shelf that did the job.”
“I’ve matured, and I love Drea. She’s not an unreasonable woman. She hardly ever asks me for anything. The least I can do is get her what she wants on the rare occasion she speaks up.”
“And she’s another reason you don’t want to do jobs for our parents anymore.”
“Of course. We’re trying to buy a house and such, and we spend so much of our free time organizing the Ridge Bears that we don’t have much leeway for extra things. By the way, did you take my deodorant?”
Soren considered lying because that was a pretty fucking pathetic thing to steal.
“Just tell me so that while I’m here, I can get another.”
“Yes.”
“Ass. Look, our parents are going to press you, but you don’t have to back down. You don’t want to do the work? You tell them it’s time to train up some people. Assassination doesn’t have to be our family business anymore. I’ll keep telling them the same as well.”
“She told me if I do this job, she’ll work something out between the two of us.”
“She’s bluffing. I gave her a firm no. Don’t accept that offer. Tell her you’ll do that last job, and then that’s it. She’s good at guilt, but if you give her a few weeks, she’ll get over the fact you refused her.”
“If this blows up in my face, I’m kicking your ass.”
“Well, you can certainly try, brother, but you know damn well you won’t succeed.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Marcella was sitting in the waiting room of CarrHealth’s study recruitment office with her legs crossed at the knees and a tablet computer propped on her lap when Soren strolled in and sucked all the air out of the room.
Or at least, it seemed that way to her.
Damn him.
Without thought, she pushed out all compulsion magic meant to discourage curiosity from the others in the front office. For the most part, the place was empty. After coasting through the lobby in the most casual gait she could and heading straight to the elevators, Marcella had walked into the office and waited only ten minutes to get to the front of the reception line. Apparently, most walk-ins came right at opening.
Only one other person was waiting to be seen by a study assistant, and she looked to be in some kind of daze that most certainly wasn’t of Marcella’s doing. She had her knees pulled up to her chest and was chewing her nails as she rocked back and forth, back and forth, her gaze flitting wildly.
Soren looked from Marcella to the unmanned reception desk, back to Marcella.
Well, come on.
She waved him over. There was no good reason for him to be looming in the doorway. Likely, there was someone back in that maze of cubicles who had a monitor that displayed video footage of people walking in so they wouldn’t have to keep standing up and looking down the hall.
“If you’re going to be here,” she murmured through clenched teeth, scrolling down the participant input study, “sit closer so I don’t have to work so hard to confuse that lady.” She looked toward the wired lady, and she was still totally out of it. If she’d noticed Soren’s presence at all before Marcella pushed a waft of her forget-this magic out, she’d quickly forgotten.
He settled into the chair two seats away from her and draped his hands over the rests. “Fill me in,” he said in an undertone.
“I’m going through intake.”
“Real info?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Don’t—”
“I don’t need the warning.” She already knew what he was going to say. He wasn’t an idiot, and naturally, the next warning a man like him would have made would have been not to give them any spit, hair, skin cells, urine, blood, or even any fingerprints.
“Just checking. Doesn’t hurt to make sure you’ve covered all bases.” He leaned forward and snatched a dog-eared copy of Scientific American from the coffee table.
She held back a retort by pressing her molars firmly together and navigating to the last page of the intake form. Ostensibly, once she hit the “Send” button, the perky young assistant who’d greeted her earlier would return and escort Marcella to the back for an interview. Marcella didn’t plan to undergo an interview. She would be the one asking the questions. If she’d known how empty the place was, she would have compelled the woman to take her straight to the back upon arriving, but in a way, she was glad she didn’t. She’d had time to take a picture of every page and every question of the intake form, even changing her answers and backtracking so she could see how the questions changed depended on response. For example, people who disclosed that they were married were taken immediately to a wind-down section. For reasons that were clear to Marcella and to anyone who knew about the dirty shit the lab was doing, they didn’t want attached people in their studies. People who didn’t have husbands and wives or who otherwise lacked family structures were probably easier to take advantage of. No one advocated for them.
“As soon as I hit this button,” she murmured, already getting her leather glove ready to put back on, “the assistant will probably come fetch me. I don’t imagine I’ll be able to make you stay here.”
“Probably not.”
“Oh?” Digging deep into what she liked to visualize as a big trough of energy, she directed a wave of magic at him to see what would happen.
He should have set the magazine down and stood. That was the suggestion Marcella had planted in his mind. Instead, he squinted over the stop of the magazine and muttered, “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Whatever you’re doing. The Bear in me doesn’t like it. Makes me want to run in circles to expend the energy I’m absorbing.”
“That’s not the way that’s supposed to work.” She’d made the throwaway comment for her own benefit, but she should have expected that he’d follow up. After all, he wasn’t a man who held his tongue.
“The way what’s supposed to work?” He tossed the magazine onto the table and leaned to the right, and she was grateful there was an empty chair between them. If he’d been a smidge closer, he wouldn’t have been doing things he’d been compelled to do by a stronger second party, but she would be. Shaking his head, he clucked his tongue in rebuke. “Are you using magic against me? I’m reasonably sure that’s against the company’s code of conduct.”
Probably was.
Clearing her throat, Marcella shrugged and directed her magic elsewhere. The fact that particular kind of magic had no effect on the Bear unsettled her. She couldn’t help but wonder what other modes of her craft he was immune to. And whether he was immune to them for any special reason. Perhaps all Bears were unaffected.
The theory needed testing.
Later.
She hit the “send” button on the form, held the tablet against her belly, and waited.
Sure enough, the pat-pat-pat of soft-soled ballet flats slapped the laminate floor a few seconds later, and the intake assistant, Cortney, appeared at the end of the cubicle w
alkway.
Her face tilted in Soren’s direction—she’d probably noted him in the video feed but figured she’d greet him when she fetched Marcella—but using magic, Marcella pushed the thought of him out of the forefront of Cortney’s mind. Her gaze homed back in on Marcella, and her smile broadened. “Okay, Miss Meeker!”
Soren snorted.
Shush, you.
“Come on back with me, and we’ll see what kind of good stuff we can get you into.”
“I can’t wait,” Marcella said flatly. “I hope you have something that pays a ton. Maybe a live-in study. I have lots of bills to pay off.”
A blind man wouldn’t have missed the glint of interest in the woman’s eyes. She probably made a little kickback for every recruited participant.
Soren stood up as casually as a Bear could manage, and ambled to the water cooler set up near the cubicle wall. He pulled a paper cup out of the dispenser and scanned over the wall while filling it.
Marcella would have been surprised if she could see anyone. In the twenty minutes she’d been sitting in the lobby, she’d only heard one voice that wasn’t Cortney’s, and that seemed to have originated from a far corner of the office space. The place was a ghost town, which seemed odd for a pharmaceutical company that was actively rebuilding its research department.
“We might be able to accommodate you with something like that.” Cortney emitted a phony titter that probably put actual desperate people at ease. All the laugh managed to do for Marcella was make her stomach turn.
“Is that so?” Marcella handed the tablet computer to her and cut Soren a warning look before following Cortney into the passage. Her glare was supposed to communicate that she intended for him to stay put.
He followed anyway.
She could sense his energy looming behind her.
She sighed.
Cortney patted her arm. “Everything will be fine, you’ll see. This’ll be easy-peasy.”
“Oh, good,” Marcella murmured. “I worried about that.”
Cortney stopped at the back wall and gestured to the cubicle on the left. “You can have a seat in that green chair there, and I’ll sit here.” She giggled as she took her seat behind the desk and shook her mouse to wake up her sleeping computer.