by Paige Tyler
When Trevor finally turned his attention to Dick, he noted with pleasure that the director looked a little pissed off sitting there behind his ridiculously large desk. If Trevor was lucky, maybe the man would blow a gasket the more he aggravated him. Then again, Trevor might not get the chance to hang around here long enough to do that. There was a good chance Dick had called him in here specifically to fire him.
Trevor sauntered over to the empty chair in front of Dick’s desk, passing his other least favorite person, Thomas Thorn, on the way. The well-dressed former senator was leaning casually against the edge of a low bookcase, regarding Trevor with something more than mild interest.
Regardless of the man’s posture, there was nothing relaxed and casual about Thorn. While Dick liked to think he could make himself more impressive with a fancy office and a big desk, Thorn demonstrated that truly powerful people needed none of that. You could put this guy in green tights and a pink tutu, and while he might look ridiculous, there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind about which man was in charge…and which one was more dangerous.
Thorn was nearly sixty years old but could easily have been mistaken for a man ten or fifteen years younger. He was very fit, with a head of dark hair that didn’t have even a sprinkling of gray in it yet, although that could have been because he dyed it. His dark eyes were as sharp and intense as a hunter’s, and he had no problem giving away the fact that he was studying Trevor as much as Trevor was studying him. But while Thorn exuded the pure charm and charisma that many politicians possessed, he also had the cold, detached aura of a psychopathic killer. Thorn might not have set off the bomb that killed John, but he’d ordered the hit.
Until recently, Thorn and his head of security had never hung around the DCO training complex, but since John’s murder, they’d both become regular features. Their excuse was that, in times of crisis, the DCO needed superior guidance and leadership. That was bullshit of course. Thorn was hanging around to make sure his plans—whatever those might be—went off without a hitch.
It was difficult seeing Thorn and knowing what the man had done, not just to John, but to the whole DCO. One friend was dead, and the rest were on the run for their lives, all because Thorn wanted them out of the way. The urge to rip out the man’s throat was frigging hard to resist. The only thing that stopped Trevor was the knowledge that killing Thorn wasn’t what John would have wanted.
A slow, evil smile curved Thorn’s lips, as if he realized the struggle going on inside Trevor. The arrogance in the man’s eyes damn near pushed Trevor over the edge, and he felt his canines elongate, aching to tear into some meaty part of this a-hole’s anatomy.
Trevor took a deep breath and forced his fangs to retract, pushing down the urge to kill and instead turning his attention to the woman sitting in front of Dick’s desk as he sat down beside her.
She was undeniably attractive, with long, strawberry-blond hair tied back in a professional-looking bun, perfect fair skin, and some seriously pink bee-stung lips. She also had the most unusual green-blue eyes he’d ever seen. They were kind of mesmerizing, actually.
Since she was seated, he couldn’t tell exactly how tall she was, but he was guessing five ten or so. While he couldn’t be sure of her height, he was definitely sure the woman was fit. Not even the professional-looking pantsuit she had on could hide the fact that she had long runner’s legs.
She also had the familiar scent of smokeless gunpowder clinging to her. It was mostly covered up with some kind of fruity bodywash and a flowery shampoo, but he could smell it. She’d fired a weapon recently, probably that morning. She was almost certainly a field agent of some kind, though what the hell any of this had to do with him, Trevor didn’t have a clue.
He turned back to Dick. “Someone mentioned you wanted to see me? I would have come sooner, but they were serving hot dogs in the cafeteria.”
Dick’s jaw tightened, and for a moment, Trevor thought the man might explode, but instead, he got a grip on his anger and gestured to the woman. “Trevor Maxwell, meet Alina Bosch.”
Trevor glanced at her. “A pleasure.”
Alina nodded in return, but before she could say anything, Dick spoke again.
“She’s former CIA and your new partner.”
Trevor waited for the punch line. Because one had to be coming. There was absolutely no way in hell Dick was ever going to voluntarily put him back in the field, so why waste time giving him a partner? But after a staring contest with the man, he finally realized Dick wasn’t joking.
He hated doing it, but he was gonna have to bite on this one. The curiosity was just too much for him. This was like giving in and admitting you couldn’t find your four-year-old nephew during a game of hide-and-seek—it just plain sucked.
“Okay, Dick. I admit, getting someone out of the CIA is a big win for the team,” Trevor said, giving him a thumbs-up. “But why partner her up with me? I mean, you’ve had me on the bench for a while.” He threw Alina a glance. “No offense. I’m sure you’re a wonderful agent and all. Your parents must be very proud.”
Alina shrugged. “No offense taken. You’re not exactly my first choice in partners, either.”
Snarky and blunt. Two qualities he appreciated in a woman. Throw in the fact that she was also hot as a blowtorch, and Trevor had to admit he was disappointed she was on Thorn’s payroll. It made him wonder if the man had chosen Alina through the use of some crazy software program that said she possessed all the qualities necessary to trick him into being stupid in her presence, because she definitely did.
“Oh, and just to be clear,” she continued, “my parents don’t know I’m CIA. They think I’m a barista at a coffee shop.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Trevor saw Thorn regarding him and Alina with the same detached expression he probably used when pulling the wings off flies.
“You’re right,” Dick said. “I have been keeping you on the shelf lately, and with good reason. We just had six of our best shifter teams conspire to kill the former director of this organization. I haven’t been able to bring myself to put you out in the field since John’s murder because I simply don’t know where your loyalties lie.”
The fact that Dick was even having this conversation with him and bringing up the subject of trust was significant. The man instinctively didn’t want to trust Trevor because he was a shifter, but something else was going on that had him questioning that. Something serious enough to make him pair Trevor up with a new partner and put him back into the field.
Trevor had no idea what that something was, but if it meant getting out from under Dick’s constant surveillance—even for a little while—it would be worth it to play along.
“You want to know where my loyalties lie?” Trevor asked bluntly. “That’s easy. They lie with John Loughlin, the man who recruited me and taught me most of what I know. The man who was killed by a bunch of fucking cowards that I’d do anything to hunt down and gut like the pieces of crap that they are.”
Dick didn’t say anything, but his heart sped up a little. No doubt because Trevor had let out a menacing growl at the end there as his anger got the best of him. Then again, maybe Dick’s heart was beating a little faster because he knew Trevor was pointing those threats directly at him.
After a moment, the director looked at Thorn, who gave him a barely perceptible nod.
Dick opened a drawer along one side of his desk and took out a thick file folder, dropping it on the desk in front of Trevor with a thud.
“As I’m sure you already know, the DCO has expended a tremendous amount of time and resources in the hunt for the rogue shifters, especially Ivy and Landon, whom we consider the ringleaders of the conspiracy. Unfortunately, those efforts have been a failure. Regardless of our commitment to finding John’s killers, the time has come to realize that our traditional agents simply don’t have the tools necessary for the job.”
Trev
or almost laughed. Considering that the operatives Dick had sent out weren’t even real agents but hired muscle, it was an understatement to say they didn’t possess the tools to catch Ivy and Landon. Hell, those meatheads weren’t just missing the right tools to catch a shifter; they didn’t even own a fucking toolbox.
“So you want me to track them down?” Trevor asked, figuring that was what Dick wanted to hear.
“No, I want you and Agent Bosch to track them down,” Dick said. “Together.”
Trevor turned to regard the former CIA agent sitting beside him. Alina returned his gaze. There was only one reason Dick would team them up—so she could keep tabs on him. That meant she was already deep in Dick’s pockets—or Thorn’s. While he seriously wanted the chance to get out and do a little digging on John’s killer, he wasn’t thrilled at the idea of having to deal with a partner who’d be on the phone reporting everything he did to Dick five times a day.
“Before you bother asking what Alina brings to the table, I’ll clarify that point right now. She’s very good at digging out traitors,” Dick said succinctly, and Trevor had to wonder if that was a little jab at him. “It’s one of the things she’s excelled at the past few years in the CIA.”
Trevor didn’t say anything. This was obviously a done deal. If teaming up with Alina was what he had to put up with to get back in the game, he’d make it work.
“Fine,” he said. “If it’s settled then, I’d like to head out immediately. I have a couple of leads I’d like to look into this afternoon.”
“What leads?” Dick asked.
“I’ve heard rumors about some people down in Fredericksburg who got into a scuffle in a restaurant with a couple of guys they described as…odd. I think it might be the rogue shifters.”
Dick eyed him doubtfully. “Why the hell would any of the rogue teams stay this close to the DCO training complex? That seems incredibly foolish.”
“That’s only because you seem to think they’re out there running scared,” Trevor said. “They’re not. Ivy and Landon would almost certainly have left at least one team close to DC so they could keep an eye on what we’re doing. I’m sure you’ve already realized they likely still have people on the inside feeding them info, right?”
Trevor felt a slight twinge telling Dick this kind of stuff, but it wasn’t like it was a big secret. Dick might be a moron, but Thorn was smart enough to know at least some of the shifter teams were likely nearby. Part of staying on with the DCO was playing the game and making it look like he was actively engaged in catching his former coworkers.
Not that he was really leading Dick anywhere near his friends. In truth, he wanted to get down to the Fredericksburg area so he could check out a guy that Evan had stumbled across while reviewing video footage from the DCO’s front gate on the morning of the bombing. The guy had only started working for the DCO three weeks before John’s death, had driven onto the complex insanely early that morning, and had quit two days after the bombing. Even better, the man had a direct connection to Thorn. He’d worked IT support at one of the local Chadwick-Thorn subsidiaries before showing up at the DCO. With his background, Trevor doubted he was the man who’d built the bomb that had killed John, but he definitely could have been the one to plant the device in the director’s office.
It was someone they should have looked at a long time ago, but it had taken forever for Evan and Skye to find him, since they were dealing with their own trust issues within the remains of the DCO analyst section. It was a given that some of the people who’d stayed there were on Team Thorn. Any digging they did had to be accomplished slowly. But if this was the man who’d delivered the device that had killed John, it would be a good first step toward finding that link to Thorn.
Dick threw one of those what-do-I-do-now glances in Thorn’s direction. The former senator responded with another imperceptible nod. Thorn should rig up some marionette strings for the director. They could take their act on the road.
“Do it,” Dick said in his best imitation of a man who knew what the hell he was doing. “But I want you two to keep me informed of everything you’re doing at all times.”
Trevor snorted. “Of course you do—since you trust me so much now.”
Dick didn’t take the bait. “I don’t trust you. And I won’t until you give me reason to. Until then, you two should consider yourselves on a short leash.”
Chapter 2
“I thought we were going to Fredericksburg?” Alina asked as they passed straight through the town and kept going until they hit Highway 2 and headed south.
After leaving Dick Coleman’s office, Trevor had told her he’d meet her in front of the admin building, then disappeared. When he showed up fifteen minutes later in a black Suburban, she’d noticed he’d changed out of the black tactical uniform he’d been wearing and into cargo pants and a button-down.
Trevor glanced at his rearview mirror before giving her a smile. “We did go to Fredericksburg—and now we’re leaving. I figured since it’s such a nice day, why not enjoy ourselves with a leisurely drive through the country?”
She lifted a brow. “That’s what this is all about…a nice drive in the country?”
“Yup.”
“Yeah right,” she muttered as he checked the mirror again.
Sighing, Alina turned her attention back to the fat file folder on her lap. It was stuffed full of reports related to all the places Ivy, Landon, and the rest of the rogue shifters had supposedly been sighted. Dick had told her they were a slippery bunch, but she found it difficult to believe they could move from location to location as fast as the DCO agents trying to track them down claimed. It was like they’d put a map up on a wall somewhere and thrown darts at it.
She flipped the page, frowning as she read over the various performance records of the operatives Dick had called “shifters.” To say it read like something out of a movie was putting it mildly.
“Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it,” she told her new partner. “I’m not so sure I buy all this shifter crap. Dick made it seem like it was the real deal, but I gotta tell you, it sounds like BS to me.”
“It’s real,” Trevor said.
Alina waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. “Show me.”
He slanted her a look. “Excuse me?”
She closed the folder and tossed it in the backseat. “You’re supposed to be a shifter, right? So show me what the heck the big fuss is all about.”
Trevor’s jaw flexed. “I’m not a trained monkey at the circus. I don’t do tricks.”
Okay, maybe demanding he perform for her had been uncalled for. She would have said as much when she caught him checking the rearview mirror again. She wanted to ask him who he thought was following them but decided that would be a waste of time. Trevor obviously didn’t trust her enough to tell her what time of day it was, much less who might be following them.
That was okay, because she wasn’t sure she could trust him much either.
It was one more thing that had her once again questioning her decision to leave the CIA. Taking a job in a classified department of Homeland Security she’d never heard of was bad enough, but chasing rogue government agents with a partner she didn’t know the first thing about and couldn’t trust was completely insane.
But then she remembered how much she’d hated her job at the Agency. She’d gotten so burned out on the crappy work they’d had her doing lately it was a miracle she hadn’t gotten herself—or someone else—killed. That’s when she took a breath and told herself that while her first day at the DCO was going a little rocky, she’d made the right choice leaving the CIA. She probably should have done it a long time ago, right after Jodi and the rest of her team had been killed.
“You okay?” Trevor asked suddenly as he drove down the tree-lined rural road.
Alina looked at him, not sure where his question had come from. �
�Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, but your heart rate just shot through the roof, so I figured I should ask.”
All she could do was stare at him in confusion, not sure what the hell he was talking about. “How do you know how fast my heart is beating?”
“It’s a shifter thing,” he said casually, as if he were talking about the weather. “My hearing is good enough to pick up the beating of your heart, and it’s going a little crazy about now.”
She eyed him skeptically, wondering if he was messing with her. Dick had tried to explain the basics of the shifter genetics, but he’d made it sound like they were part animal. None of it made any sense to her. Now she wished she’d asked more questions.
She and Dick had talked for quite a while about Trevor before he’d shown up for the meeting. While Dick hadn’t gone into great detail about what a shifter was, he’d told her repeatedly that she couldn’t trust Trevor and that there was a good chance her new partner was in league with the rogue DCO agents who’d murdered the previous director. After hearing that, she’d expected Wade’s double to walk through the door.
But Trevor wasn’t anything like her old teammate—at least not physically. Wade had been average in every way possible. Trevor was anything but. He was tall and athletic with a wiry build and short, black hair that seemed to be in a permanent state of casual bedhead. Alina had met men who spent a lot of money to get their hair to look like that, but Trevor’s seemed to be completely natural. With lips that quirked constantly, a little scruff covering his jaw, and mischievous, hazel eyes, he seemed like a man who rarely took things very seriously. He’d definitely vexed the crap out of Dick, and even if he was supposed to have been part of a conspiracy to kill the former director, Alina had had a hard time keeping the smile off her face as he’d poked and prodded his boss.