‘Well, it’s one step up from “fucked up”, I guess. But that’s professional psych reports for you these days.’
Sirius offered a fleeting smile. ‘Besides, whatever she is, she’s still female. And you, Eden Reece, with your looks let alone your charm, have those two clear bonuses on your side. Not everyone gets the boss’s daughter into bed, do they, Eden?’
There was no accusation, no threat, just amusement in Sirius’s eyes. For now. Because Eden was already being cornered. There was no way he was going to be left to just walk out of there after what had already been disclosed – not without saying yes.
‘So I’m the eye-candy honeytrap? I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.’
‘How about just being smart about this? I’m only making the offer once.’
Eden looked back at the photo of the girl. ‘When do you need someone in there?’
‘Tonight.’
His attention snapped back to Sirius. ‘Tonight?’
‘I need your answer in the next two hours. I have an important meeting at dawn that’s dependent on me knowing if I have someone going in or not. If you say no, I’ll have no choice but to make the offer elsewhere.’
‘And if I do say no?’
‘We both know you’d be a fool to.’
‘Timescale to get the job done?’ Eden asked, looking back down at the picture of her.
‘Three days.’
Eden looked back up at him. ‘You’re fucking kidding me?’
‘I fuck you not, Eden,’ Sirius said, sitting up and interlacing his hands again. ‘I cannot stress how important timescales are to me.’
‘Why? What’s the urgency?’
‘A lot can happen in Blackthorn in three days. I want her out of there as quickly as possible.’
Eden dragged his gaze from the photograph back to Sirius. ‘If I agree, what are the rules?’
‘Rules?’
‘The conduct rules.’
Sirius smiled. ‘Ah,’ he said, sinking back in his chair. ‘Whatever you need to do, you do. Whatever is required to blend in. You’ll get full immunity from anything you do in there, so play it whatever way you deem fit. All you need to do is keep her and yourself alive. The rest is down to your professional judgement. But there is one rule – you talk of this to no one, not even your family. We cannot risk anything leaking out there. Which is why, once you sign up, there’s no going back until the job is done.’
‘What are those?’ he asked, looking at the other two piles of files.
‘Files on Nathan Stark as well as a few significant members of his crew that you’re more than likely to come across. There are also blueprints of the row, the area, that some of my agents have been compiling should we ever need to breach the place. You’ll have until midnight to study it all and retain what you can. I shouldn’t imagine it will be any great problem for someone of your IQ and memory. So,’ he said, sitting back up again, lacing his fingers together on the table like a poker player about to lay down his winning hand, ‘are you going to ask where you sign?’
15
Jessie had stayed down in the lock-up, perched on the edge of the sofa, for another hour after Eden had left. Aside from the fact he’d walked away, the way he’d held her to the floor had been as confusing as the rest of his handling of her – the intention cold and calculating but the execution surprisingly gentle. The way he’d looked at her only exacerbated her confusion, because he didn’t look at her like the others did.
There was something different about him, something she couldn’t work out – and it wasn’t just because of the prospect, amidst his revelation, that he might actually be capable of caring for someone. Eden Reece was an enigma. An enigma she had to concentrate on not letting near her again. He’d get bored or accept he was onto a loser. Then, as soon as her blood evaporated from his system, their connection would be severed. To that extent, the ball was very much in her court – a good thing considering she had equally pressing things to deal with in his absence.
The prospect of that severed connection left a hollowness that consumed too big a chunk of her chest though. He’d been in her home only a matter of hours but already his absence left the place feeling even more cold and empty. More troublingly, she felt a pang of concern for his welfare out there on the streets of Blackthorn trying to get the items on Pummel’s list. Because whatever Pummel had had him doing, he wasn’t planning on making it easy for him. Eden was most definitely on borrowed time – all the more reason to sever those ties.
After leaving the lock-up, she’d crept back along to the exclusive end of the row. The nights seemed so long, but the days even longer. Only ever needing a couple of hours of sleep gave her extra hours of privacy over any of her housemates. It also meant there were times of the day where she could move around the row alone, when everything was locked up and a rare hush fell on it. And the quietest time was always those early hours between the late night revelry and the new day. She often wandered the corridors during that time, when most had dispersed to their rooms or back to their homes.
The solitude was usually comforting but now it felt painfully unsettling. Because amongst the crowd of familiar faces and predictable actions, the mundane tedium that shrouded the place like a stifling blanket, there was now a spark amongst them – a spark called Eden Reece. A spark she wasn’t even sure would return.
She listened through the gap in the ajar lounge door. There were no voices, but that was no guarantee it was empty. Pummel no longer used her simply to heal his injuries like he used to in the early days – he had also experimented. He’d learned that top-ups from her healed him in more ways than one. His physical composition was swimming with her cells, not changing what he was but renewing him, sustaining him. It didn’t reverse anything – but it meant he had the resilience and energy of someone half his age if not less, his need for sleep at a minimum.
Jessie crept past the door and into the, thankfully, vacant kitchen. The light seeped through the cracks in the boarded-up window ahead, igniting dust motes over the sink, giving the room that peculiar, mid-dream etherealness that accompanied the early hours.
She quietly poured herself a glass of water, glancing anxiously back down to the lounge to see if anyone had followed. The hallway remained empty.
She looked across to the wall adjacent to the kitchen door – at the larder.
With one more glance down the hallway, she left her glass on the central table on her way across the kitchen.
Using her skeleton key, the only one aside from Pummel’s crew to have one, she unlocked the larder door.
She scanned the space where Pummel kept the food and drink supplies – something he kept as much of a stronghold on as everything else in that place.
The cons got their hands on what they could in Blackthorn. Most of what was delivered to shops was barely worth eating; it was all laden with preservatives and other chemicals, nutritional balance meaning nothing. Even some products having reached their sell-by date were given to Blackthorn as part of “community projects” from more privileged districts. With fresh milk particularly sparse, there were at least two shelves dominated by the dried variety.
And there in the floor was the trapdoor: the only access she knew of to the cellar. From what she vaguely recollected, it only ever used to be bolted down. Now it was padlocked – not just with one, but three.
Peering back into the kitchen, she quietly closed the larder door, allowing just a sliver of light to filter in. Her day vision gradually switched to night vision as she knelt down to examine each padlock in turn. They were definitely new, not least given away by some fresh sawdust around one. Knowing Pummel, the keys were nowhere to be found.
She could have prized them off, but not without leaving a trail of evidence. What she needed was to unpick them – a skill she was void of. Jessie sank onto her haunches and sighed in frustration until she heard movement in the kitchen beyond.
She stood quickly to her feet, grabbed
the nearest item she could, clutching it to her chest as she shoved the door open.
Pummel’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you doing?’
She held the packet of cereal tighter to her chest. ‘I was looking for something to eat.’
‘There’s stuff in the cupboards.’
‘I’ve had the same thing for days.’
He raised his eyebrows a fraction. ‘So now what I provide isn’t good enough?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
She took a wary step back, bracing herself as he stepped into the larder. He glanced down at the floor, before glaring back at her. He yanked her out, slammed the door shut, locking it with his key.
‘Good,’ he said, backing her against the counter. ‘Because if that is what you’re saying, I’ll make sure you appreciate just how generous I am with you. You’re starting to get a little above yourself again, Jessie. You be careful to rein it back in now, do you hear me?’
‘I’ll check with you next time,’ she said, her stance tactfully submissive, but her eyes locked squarely on his.
He held out his hand. ‘Too fucking right you will. Key.’
She glanced down at his open palm, back into his cold eyes.
‘Key,’ he commanded, his tone lower.
She took it from her pocket, placing it in his hand.
‘Until I’m sure you’re behaving, you only use the key to your room,’ he said. ‘The rest of your privileges are temporarily revoked. Now get your cereal and get your arse in the lounge. I’m going to be keeping a close eye on you today.’
Her hand clamped the counter as she watched him leave. She narrowed her eyes, the temptation to childishly flip him her middle finger despite him not being there to receive it, overwhelming. She’d stay smart though – not least because she still had the spare key from when it was her house, her home, tucked safely away. All he’d done was give himself false assurance. And that suited her just fine.
16
Tatum hadn’t hesitated in sitting on Eden’s lap as soon as he’d returned, her body soft, warm and inviting as she’d pressed it against his, her high-thigh Lycra dress leaving nothing to the imagination.
Despite a glimmer of late afternoon daylight outside, the curtains in the lounge remained closed, their heavy dark fabric pooling to the floor behind Pummel’s sofa.
He’d seen the look in Pummel’s eyes at his return. Pummel hadn’t expected him to succeed. He hadn’t expected him to come back with the goods on the list – if at all. He’d glimpsed inside the four paper bags before his deliberating gaze had locked on Eden’s again. And then he’d smiled.
There were no questions from Pummel. Instead, he’d leaned back in his seat, indicated for Eden to take the sofa opposite, and they’d all fallen right back into the conversation his return had silenced.
There was someone who hadn’t uttered a word though. Someone who, on his return, had glanced up from her sofa chair only to snatch her attention back to the book in her lap the second their eyes had met. Clearly she’d got out of the makeshift binds and out of the lock-up okay. Clearly she was still irritated with him. Clearly she had still said absolutely nothing to Pummel.
His heart had flipped the moment he’d seen her again, his resolve to stay focused on the task melting just a little the moment he’d looked back into her eyes. It wasn’t helped by the fact he could almost touch the density of the atmosphere between them as he’d sat opposite her.
She was back in the mid-calve fitted trousers he’d seen her in the first night, an unflattering chunky sweater consuming her slender frame, her bare feet curled under her thighs as she sat cross-legged in the chair. Earphones in, she’d barely looked up since her initial glance. From what he could see behind her mask of ringlets, her expression was subdued, her shoulders tense beneath her cascade of dark hair.
Whatever she was, that iridescent substance was a clue. When Cass had first shown it to him, he’d assumed it was artificially created. But unless Jessie had a lab all of her own somewhere, it seemed the substance in that vial was very much natural.
Cass hadn’t explained where it was from, only the strength it evoked. And if she’d taken it from the labs, the labs owned by Sirius, then he had to know more than he was revealing. More to the point, he had reasons to keep it from Eden. There was more to Jessie than just another temporary cure. And if it was something to do with that other liquid, if that was something more potent, he needed to know.
The relaying of stories and laughter, now secondary to the drug and smoke smog that whispered in the air, should have relaxed him. Tatum’s sensual lips working the back of his ear, her proficient hand massaging his swollen erection, should have been haze-inducing enough to absorb his attention. But all he could focus on was Jessie.
He’d sensed the tension escalate in her body as Tatum had sauntered past her to straddle him. He’d seen, by furtively watching across Tatum’s shoulder, that Jessie’s jaw had clenched, that she had stopped turning the pages of her book as Tatum ground against him.
From the moment he’d laid his head on the pillow in the dark and isolated basement dive that the TSCD had put aside for him, she’d haunted his mind. Once the official business was over, once Sharner and the others had left, once he’d settled down for a few hours’ sleep while he waited for the items on the list, his thoughts had lingered on what had happened between him and Jessie in the lock-up that second time.
He’d thought it was going okay. He’d clung to her hesitancy to kill him. He’d moved gently and softly to draw her in, trying to work out what made her tick whilst, to avoid blowing his cover, maintaining the edge she’d expect – at least until he was more confident of whom he was dealing with.
Then she’d thrown him the curveball with the tainted seduction routine. Unfortunately for her, the switch had been too much of a contradiction to her behaviour in the bedroom, her awkwardness too transparent to someone of his experience.
He’d understood why she’d planned what she had, but the set-up had still left a bitter taste in his mouth – more so because he’d started to believe she really was different. He’d been uncharacteristically naïve. If she’d been in that row all the decades they suspected, she was bound to have learned a trick or too.
Still, he hadn’t expected it to go as far as it had – hadn’t expected her to linger so long in his touch before calling time. He’d done it to call her bluff. Instead, he’d caused her to lose her focus for just a short while. There was no way he could deny it had turned him on too. That, as he’d slipped his fingers between her legs expecting them to be shoved away, he’d instead felt her arousal.
Discovering her tension hadn’t been of repulsion but anticipation, he too had taken his attention off the task. He’d wanted to relax her; he’d wanted to show her he was nothing like the rest of them. When he’d sensed the innocence of her responses, the almost undetectable trembling of the strong and defiant female in his arms, felt her lose herself on the crest of the wave of her own curiosity, something unfamiliar had stirred inside him. And he’d let himself indulge for a short while.
But he’d managed to pull back, had recognised the stirring she’d incited in him could make his job more difficult. A stirring that had briefly made him take his eye off the ball.
Coming back to his senses, he’d pinned her face first down on that pool table. In part, it had been out of irritation. More so, it had been to prove what he could do but chose not to, in an attempt to salvage the situation and maybe gain a fragment of trust.
For purely selfish reasons, he had subsequently mocked her for wanting him to persist, only to see into her eyes as he said it – the fist that had instantly met with his jaw proving that he had got dangerously close to the truth.
And it was that truth that lingered in his mind as much as having seen her drawings of him. Her fight had revealed even more. Because no matter how strong she was, how quick when taking people unsuspectingly, it wasn’t just that she wasn’t used to combat with people like
him – she hadn’t wanted to hurt him.
Jessie didn’t belong there. More and more, he saw it. The girl was the refreshing breeze in a stagnant room. She was the shard of light within a bottomless abyss. She was intriguing him beyond physical attraction. She was burrowing somewhere deep – somewhere few did.
She’d burrowed deep enough that when he’d lay on that bed, staring at the smoke-stained ceiling, still reeling from the putridness of the environment he’d taken on, thinking of her had made him feel better. Thinking of her had caused his thoughts to drift, to wander back to the pool table; of what could have happened had he not chosen to expose her plan when he did. If she would have stopped him. How he could have had sex with her right there in that lock-up – unplanned, raw, instinctive. Taken her over the pool table that was as dented and damaged as him.
Lying on that bed, he’d unfastened and opened his jeans, taking hold of what was already rigid against his shorts. And clutching onto the headboard behind him with one hand, he’d worked himself with the other – hard, brisk strokes, proficiently keeping himself at the brink for as long as he could.
Now, held by Tatum’s hand, he felt himself stiffen just at the recollection of it, the thought of how powerful it had been when he had come. Jessie had been vivid enough in his mind back then, but seeing her in the flesh again reminded him why coming just thinking about her had been so easy.
Blood Deep (Blackthorn Book 4) Page 16