by Lara Adrian
Sia glanced at him. “It may seem insignificant to us, but the contents on this card were enough to cause Gianni Tiaggi to fear for his life—and with good cause, considering his body was found in the river less than a week ago. Whatever information is here was enough for Santino’s men to kill Rosa just because they thought she might have it.”
“Sia’s right,” Trygg said. “And the emails aren’t the real piece of intel on this.”
“Then what is?” Lazaro asked.
Trygg didn’t answer. He was completely engrossed in his work now, his dark eyes laser-focused on the screen as he tapped out a few more commands. “There’s a hidden file here. I can feel it.”
“You can feel it?” Sia stared at the side of his rugged face, his scar gleaming in the light of the display. “What is that, a Breed thing?”
He gave her an askance look. “It’s my thing.”
“We’ve all got our unique talents,” Savage interjected. “My man Trygg here has a special connection to technological devices. If he can’t romance them with his fingers on the keyboard, he can undress them with his mind. Kind of makes up for his lack of finesse when it comes to people.”
Savage winked at her as he said it, which made Sia’s face flush with a fresh wave of embarrassment. Had Trygg told his friend about what they’d done last night? She lifted her chin as if she didn’t care one way or the other, but inside she was dying.
“What kind of hidden file do you think we’ve got here?” Lazaro asked, leaning one hand on the desk beside Trygg to have a closer look.
“Not sure yet,” he murmured. “Probably something Tiaggi didn’t want Santino to know he had even if someone did find the card. But I’ve got a way around that.”
Trygg accessed a program that split the screen. On one side was the list of six files. On the other was a working string of code that seemed to be connecting to the data on the card, searching for fissures in the encryption. Finally a window popped up, but instead of opening, it displayed a denied access error and password prompt.
“Another firewall,” Sia muttered, losing patience. It wasn’t only that she wanted the data as badly as any of the warriors in the room with her, it was the fact that being this close to Trygg was wreaking havoc on her senses. Her frustration came out of her in an exhaled huff. “I thought you said you could crack it.”
“I have.” He stopped tapping on the keyboard and closed his eyes for a moment, his face held in utter concentration. A moment later, the window disappeared and a file opened. Strings of multi-digit numbers filled the screen.
Sia peered at them, trying to find some logic in the sequences. “What are those?”
Trygg gave her a grim smile as they kept scrolling, page after page after page. “I’m guessing by the looks of them, it’s a list of Swiss bank accounts.”
“Holy shit,” Savage hissed. “If that’s true, we could be looking at potentially accessing billions of dollars’ worth of Santino’s assets. If we play our cards right, we could have his accounts drained in hours.”
“True,” Lazaro said. “And that is good news. But a broke Santino isn’t nearly as good as a dead Santino.”
Trygg was still skimming the list when he paused his cursor over one set of numbers with degree marks beside them.
“What’s wrong?” Sia asked, leaning in to read them.
“This set of numbers is different. They aren’t account numbers. They’re coordinates, followed by what looks like a date and a time.”
He opened a new window and typed one set of coordinates into a search engine. A second later, a map of southern Italy filled the screen with a pin right over the Sicilian port city of Trapani.
“These are delivery schedules,” he murmured.
“Two nights from now,” she replied breathlessly, catching on to the number sequence and seeing the date now, her body humming with energy and adrenaline. They were so close to being able to take that bastard down now, she could taste it.
Savage grinned. “Whatever Santino is up to with these messages, looks like it’s going to happen in Trapani.”
Lazaro clapped Trygg on the shoulder. “Knew I could count on you. I need to call Lucan and let him know what we’ve uncovered.”
The commander walked into the hallway, his phone already held at his ear. Savage left the room without any excuse at all, leaving Sia and Trygg alone once more.
“Admit it,” he said after a moment, swiveling around in his chair. “You’re impressed.”
She scoffed. “Just because you have some obvious skill with the rather rudimentary technology of this world? Hardly.”
He shrugged. “Well, you impress me, Sia. Looking for the data card in the baby blanket was… That was really smart. We’d have nothing right now if you hadn’t put that together. Thank you.”
She hadn’t expected his praise, nor his gratitude. The fact that he offered it left her confused and unsteady. She’d come here fueled on anger and a bruised sense of pride. More than that, she’d gone to Lazaro Archer with a bitter, wounded heart. Now, Trygg was acting as if they were still a team—albeit an unwilling one.
She couldn’t let herself fall for it so easily. Hadn’t she learned a thing after Elyon and the other men who had walked all over her to get what they wanted?
Now, it was her turn to win something just for her. Something she wanted.
And she had every intention of doing just that.
“I’ve asked Lazaro to let me assist in the mission to take down Santino.”
Trygg shot out of his chair, his dark brows crashing together. “You what?”
“I asked him, and he agreed.”
He gaped at her as if she’d just sprouted a horn in the middle of her forehead. “Why the fuck would he agree to that?”
Lazaro’s deep voice provided the answer. “Because Tamisia has already proven herself an asset to us on this operation. Without her, we’d still be chasing our tails looking for the slimmest threads to lead us to the son of a bitch. Now, we’ve got emails, account numbers, and a possible jump on Santino’s distribution schedules.”
Trygg looked positively furious. “I don’t like it. This is my mission, Lazaro. I don’t want a female standing in the way—”
Sia gasped. “Standing in the way? You just said yourself that I impressed you. You said I was smart—”
“Yes, you are,” Trygg interrupted. “So be smart, Sia. Let the Order handle this. We don’t need to be worried about you getting hurt.”
She glared at him. “I can take care of myself. I think I’ve already demonstrated that to you more than once.” Heat tingled in her palms. She didn’t have to glance at them to know they were filling with energy. “I’m not a weak little woman that you have to look out for, warrior. I could put you on your ass right now. I am your equal, Trygg.”
“I never said you weren’t.”
Lazaro’s gaze pivoted between them. “Good. Then that’s settled. Trygg, meet your new partner. I’ve already decided. She’s in. And frankly, we need her. Lucan just informed me that they’re hearing talk that Santino’s cousin, Marco Crespo, has returned to Italy.”
Trygg grunted. “I thought that dumbfuck moved permanently to the States six months ago.”
“Well, now he’s back for some reason. We need to find out why.” Lazaro looked at Sia. “That’s where you come in.”
Sia caught Trygg’s disapproving glare, but she tuned him out and smiled at his commander. “Tell me what I need to do.”
Chapter 10
It was a crisp night with a fat, full moon hanging in the inky sky. The kind of night that seemed to be begging for trouble, but Trygg shook off the sense of unrest as he sat behind the wheel of a nondescript sedan, counting down the minutes before he could enter the busy club a block up the street.
Tonight’s operation was already in motion, with Sia somewhere inside the building acting as bait to get close to Marco Crespo.
Trygg didn’t like it.
In fact, he fucking h
ated the idea of the Order using her for any reason. But she had other ideas—other plans of some kind, he suspected—and there would have been no talking her out of this assignment regardless of what he wanted. She’d made that perfectly clear. And he had no claim on her, so what the hell.
This was going to go nice and smooth, and then he would be flying solo again.
Still, he let out a low growl as he killed the engine and stepped out onto the pavement.
As they’d arranged, Sia had arrived ten minutes before he rolled up. If she was following the plan, she should be inside the club making sure Crespo noticed her. They wanted their mark to be thoroughly engrossed in a potential new conquest so he would be less likely to notice the hulking Breed male from the Order lurking in the shadows, making sure nothing went wrong.
Trygg crossed the parking area in long, unhurried strides, taking stock of the other vehicles in the lot. He smirked as he passed the poison-green Ferrari belonging to Crespo. Santino’s cousin had slanted the vehicle across two parking spaces just in case anyone didn't realize he was an asshole when they got a look at his toupee.
Crespo had a reputation as a basic slimeball, but he was also a shallow pool when it came to intellect—all good news as far as tonight’s op was concerned.
The rest of Santino’s inner circle were so careful, so well-trained, they rarely slipped up. But Crespo had a weakness for beautiful women, and that’s where Sia came in. All she had to do was get close enough to put a tracker on him without detection.
As paranoid as Santino was, just bugging the cars wouldn’t be enough. But tonight Trygg had something different for them. A new, microscopic bug he had created that clung to the skin like an undetectable burr and melded even more tightly when wet. The connection only lasted a week or so, but that was more than enough time to get what they needed.
Buoyed by the thought, Trygg reached the door to the club and went inside. Almost instantly, he was swamped with the smell of junkies, human and Breed alike. He stifled a cough as he breathed it all in. Heroin, crack, even Red Dragon.
All vile stuff, but it was the Dragon that turned his stomach most.
If any of the Breed males inside the club were high on that shit and decided they wanted a taste of Sia...
His fists clenched at his sides at the very idea. As crucial as this mission was, he’d cut a bloody swath through the whole damn place if it meant keeping her safe. Whether or not she needed—or wanted—his help.
He made his way toward a corner booth, determined to garner as little notice as possible. A waitress swooped in on him almost immediately. He placed an order just as an attempt to blend in, but all of his attention was focused on the other side of the crowded room.
Sia was impossible to miss, seated at a high table near the bar.
He hadn’t seen her arrive, so the sight of her dressed in a skintight black mini-dress that plunged low in front and down to the base of her spine hit him like a shotgun blast. High-heeled ebony boots completed the look, rising up over her knees.
Holy. Fuck.
To say she was hot was the understatement of the century.
Her hair was pulled back into a high ponytail that should have looked severe but only managed to make her face look that much more striking. Tonight those wide-set, sky-blue eyes were highlighted with shadow and kohl liner, the effect making them take up the majority of her preternaturally perfect face. Her lush lips were slicked with deep plum gloss and her already iridescent skin was dusted with something that made it glimmer like diamonds under the colored strobes as she threw her head back and laughed at something Marco Crespo whispered in her ear.
The bastard would’ve had to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to notice her.
Hell, she was having an obvious effect on every man in the club.
And Trygg was no exception.
As his drink arrived, part of him wanted to laugh at how easily she had reeled Crespo in. But the rest of him wanted to flip the fucking table over, march toward her, and drag her out of this place before Crespo or any other male decided to put their hands on her.
Too late for that.
His vision took on an amber haze as he idly held his beer bottle and watched Crespo’s arm go around her bare back. Trygg caught her subtle flinch, but only because he knew her lovely body so well. Crespo was too dense to notice her revulsion, and she was careful to cover it up with a saucy smile and a playful bat of her long lashes.
Trygg’s blood boiled.
How long would he have to endure this irritating act?
He had hardly completed the thought when Crespo stood suddenly, tugged a few bills from his pocket, and tossed them onto the bar. He gestured to the pack of four thugs who’d evidently accompanied him to stay behind, then he held out his hand and Sia took it, allowing him to draw her to her feet. The motion put them face to face, her mouth only inches from Crespo’s. A hot rage like Trygg had never felt rolled through his chest as his fangs punched through his gums.
No fucking way was he letting her walk out of here with that piece of shit. Letting Santino’s cousin take her out of the club was not part of the fucking deal.
But Sia was the one leading the way, shooting a coy glance over her shoulder at Crespo as she led him toward the back exit.
They disappeared and the sound of glass cracking jarred Trygg out of his rage. He glanced down to find his fist wrapped around a shattered brown bottle, blood and beer leaking all over the lacquered tabletop.
“Fuck this.” He swung out of the booth on a snarl.
Rather than stalk past Crespo’s companions, he slipped out the front of the club and rounded the building in a flash of motion. It took him a moment to find Sia. She was hidden in the shadows at the back of the parking lot, Marco Crespo’s hands roaming all over her like an octopus.
Every muscle in Trygg’s body vibrated with unleashed fury.
Sia must have caught the glow of his eyes in the dark. She shook her head at him as if she had it under control, but Trygg was already in motion.
“Get your fucking hands off her.” His deep snarl rent the night air.
He knew he was interfering with the operation, but damn it, he couldn’t help it. He didn’t care how capable Sia was of handling herself. He didn’t care how crucial this mission was, either. If the Order needed a female to act as bait for Santino or any of the scum who served him, they’d have to volunteer one of their own women.
Not his.
“I said hands off, asshole. Right. Fucking. Now.”
“Huh?” Crespo staggered around to look at him, his face twisted with confusion and anger at the intrusion. He took one look at Trygg, then glanced at Sia, his expression murderous. “You set me up, bitch?”
She stared at him coldly and took a step away.
But just as his reputation might have predicted, Santino’s dim cousin did the stupidest thing he possibly could. Pulling a gun from inside his jacket, he raised it in front of Sia’s forehead.
Hell, no.
Trygg pounced before he even realized his body was in motion. Leaping the distance between him and Crespo, he took the human down like a bear on a field mouse.
“Trygg, don’t!”
Sia’s panicked shout barely registered through the blinding red of his rage. He heard a gunshot crack louder than thunder as Crespo’s weapon fired a wild shot on his descent to the pavement, but not even that made a dent in his fury.
Trygg wrenched the human’s head so violently it was a miracle it didn’t separate from Crespo’s shoulders. He roared like an animal, barely leashing the urge to rip the corpse to pieces just for the offense of touching Sia.
But then Trygg caught a whiff of fresh-spilled blood somewhere nearby.
Sia. She was on the ground, her long legs gone out from under her when the bullet tore into her right thigh.
Son of a bitch. She’d been hit.
He knew she would heal on her own, but seeing her bloodied and down on the ground made his veins freeze.
The club’s rear door banged open several yards behind them, bringing the pounding beat from inside and the chatter of anxious male voices with it.
"Marco said to stay put,” one of the humans whined. “He’s not going to be happy if we interrupt him.”
Another man answered. “He’s gonna be a lot less happy if that Breed male I spotted came out here to try and steal that hot blonde tail he’s trying to lock up tonight.”
“I’m telling you, that vampire is from the Order,” a third male voice interjected grimly. “I think he’s that Gen One from the Rome unit.”
Someone else chuckled. “Better hope he’s not, or Marco and all the rest of us are—”
“Fucked,” Trygg answered, stepping into the light.
The men stopped abruptly and a lot of weapons were drawn. Trygg wasn’t sure who fired first. All he knew was that after a brief, chaotic hail of gunshots and pained cries, Roberto Santino was minus one dumbfuck cousin and four of his foot soldiers.
“I can’t believe you did this.” Sia came up next to him, already walking on her own. The look she swiveled on him was bleak, something more than incredulous. “You killed them all.”
“Yes.” He turned to her, sliding the hot barrel of his 9-millimeter into the back waistband of his black jeans. “Are you okay?”
In the end, that was the only thing that mattered. She didn’t answer right away, but he could see that her Atlantean skin was mending as he watched. The sweet honey-and-citrus scent of her blood still clung to her, making his senses throb and his fangs stretch even longer behind his curled upper lip.
He reached out to touch her, if only to reassure himself that she was fine. She flinched away from his touch.
“No one was supposed to die,” she murmured woodenly. “Those were our orders, Trygg. Plant the bug on Crespo and get out. That’s what Lazaro expected us to do.”
He shook his head on a curse. “I don’t give a shit about that right now.”
“Well, I do!” She shoved at him and started marching away from the carnage.