by Lisa Kessler
He smiled without looking at me. “No trips to exotic places or diamond jewelry?”
I chuckled, shaking my head. “I’ve already traveled the globe, and I’ve spent my life as an assassin blending in so bling really isn’t a draw.”
“Have you ever thought about changing careers?”
I shrugged. “Little late for that now.”
He tipped his head. “What did you want to be when you were kid?”
“When I was in high school at Brightwood, I dreamed about being an interior designer. I saw all these colors around people, and I daydreamed about using those colors in their homes. I thought it might help people connect with their living space.”
I had never shared that dream with another soul. It was so easy to talk to Dex. I was going to miss him.
And that was terrifying.
CHAPTER 14
Dex
By the time I took the freeway exit in Phoenix, the last thing I wanted to do was find the judge. The ninety-minute drive wasn’t long enough. I wanted more time to get to know Tash. I hadn’t meant to shorten her name, but she hadn’t corrected me.
I’d heard so many stories about Natasha Sokolov. She was deadly, cold, calculating. But after finding out she had lost her parents, had a psychic gift, and had once dreamed of being an interior designer and using her ability to see auras to bring people happiness, I knew fate had done something right. This was my mate, my Tash.
And I didn’t want her to leave. Ever.
I shoved the thought away. I’d face it when it happened. We were going to try to abduct a judge. No sense wasting energy worrying about her leaving when we might never get out of Phoenix.
She guided me to the neighborhood where Judge Mitch Jones lived, and I parked down the street. The second story windows were lit, but the ground floor was dark. I checked the time on my phone. It was only seven o’clock.
I frowned. “It’s early for him to be going to bed.”
“Yeah.” She took out her new phone. “Let me get my e-mail on here. Maybe I can find out when he’s leaving in the morning. We could find a place to stay tonight and catch him on his way to the courthouse.”
I kept my eye on the house in case anyone went in or out. “You think your ex-compatriots will give us a tip like that? Do they want him out?”
“Yes, I think so.” She peeked from over her phone. “But they’re scared enough him not to cross him. Gil warned me that the judge was acting erratic and paranoid about Sloan coming after him. He was the one who mentioned I should warn your pack. His aura was off so I knew he was lying about something. It hadn’t occurred to me that he was trying to get the pack to help me because he knew I was about to be arrested the night before the new moon and he was giving me a chance to save myself.”
If he hadn’t given her that advice, we never would have known she’d been arrested. By now, shifters would’ve been in every headline. I tipped my head from one shoulder to the other, cracking my neck to release the tension.
She typed for a few seconds and finally looked up from her phone. “Okay, Gil says they’re leaving for court tomorrow at nine o’clock. That’ll be our best chance to grab him.”
“Will they fight us?”
She shrugged. “Not for long.”
“Dark humor.” I chuckled. “I like it.”
“I’m not kidding.” She glanced at me. “I’ll kill them if they get in my way.”
I raised a brow. “In the pack, we try not to take a life if we don’t have to. Fewer bodies means less clean up and lowers the chance of the police showing up on our doorstep.”
She seemed to ponder my words while I took in this assassin side of her. Did she enjoy her work? Did I really want to know?
“I don’t leave any evidence behind. They’d never trace anything back to us.” She studied my face, her tone softening slightly. “Have you ever taken a life?”
I clenched my jaw as I nodded. “Yes.” I’d gone to Washington, DC, with a few members of the Sedona Pack to help the Alpha of the Reno Pack find his daughter and destroy the Nero Organization. “My brother and I were trained in mixed martial arts, but I know how to fire a gun, too.” The night we destroyed Nero had been the first time I’d ever shot someone. I hadn’t even gone to check for a pulse, and I did my best not to think about it now. Since then, I’d killed a couple of the guards at Evolution Defense the day they abducted Gage’s little boy, but I was trying not to keep count. “But I’ve only taken lives while defending my pack.”
“Are you telling me you have a code or something?”
I pulled my hair back from my forehead. “I’m telling you I’m not comfortable executing people to get to our target. Unless they threaten you or me, I’m not going to take a shot.”
She tucked her phone into her pocket and met my eyes. “Your aura is throwing off all kinds of red sparks. Are you worried or angry with me?”
My gaze remained locked on hers while I tried to imagine some force field of color around me. “I’m curious, that’s all. How do you…do your job without second-guessing yourself?”
She focused on the judge’s house. “I cried after my first few assignments, but over the years, I guess I convinced myself that this person must’ve done something bad in order to get their name on my list. My services were expensive. They couldn’t be completely innocent if someone really thought the world would be a better place without them in it.”
“After Severino was dead, why did you keep working with the other jaguars?”
I didn’t need to be able to see her aura to recognize the wall she’d just erected between us.
“Save your judgment. I told you who I was and what I did before we fucked in your shower.” She narrowed her eyes, scanning the house in the distance. “Don’t act all surprised now.”
I grabbed her hand, but she jerked it free, looking at me over her shoulder. “No. It’s better this way. I’m leaving town after this job anyway.” She faced the house again, closing me out. “You should find someone who really deserves you.
Dammit. I rubbed a hand down my face. “I’m not judging you.” I stared at the back of her head and spoke my heart. “I trying to understand you. I want to know why you didn’t step into a new life when you had a safe-deposit box with a new identity, cash, and a burner phone. You could start over as an interior designer or whatever you might want to be.”
Very slowly, she turned around to face me, all the cold indifference gone from her eyes. “I’ve been asking myself that same question. Why didn’t I take my savings and buy a house instead of living in a dorm room in the satellite facility? The only answer I can find is, I don’t know how. I’ve lived in a cage my entire life, with someone always telling me where to go, what to do, and when to do it. I went from my parents’ to Brightwood to Nero, and when it all crashed down, I clung to what I knew and headed for the satellite facility in Flagstaff.” She stared down at her hands. “The only skills I have involve weapons.”
“Vance was in the same boat, and he owns a rock shop now.” I took her hand, and this time she didn’t pull away. “You have choices, Tash.”
She slid her hand free of mine. “I wish it were that easy.”
We could fight about this all night. I checked the time. “How about we find a hotel in Phoenix? We know when he’s leaving in the morning. We can get here at sunrise and stake it out again.”
She nodded. “Maybe some food, too.”
“Definitely.” I started the truck and circled around the street when a man in black raced out in front of us. I slammed on the brakes. His scent came through the vents.
Jaguar.
“You know this clown?” I asked Natasha.
“Yeah.” She unlocked the door. “I’ll handle this.”
She got out of the truck. I put it in park but left the engine running. When I got out, the cold barrel of a gun pressed against the back of my neck. Fuck. There were two of them. This bastard must’ve come up behind us.
“Don’t move, as
shole,” the jaguar behind me snarled.
Natasha spun in front of the truck, landing a solid kick to the other guy’s solar plexus. He stumbled backward a few paces. She pursued him, snatching a knife from his belt. He reached for her, but she ducked under his arms and caught him from behind, pressing the blade to his neck.
She lifted her eyes to the guy behind me. “How do you want this to play out, Gil?”
Gil must’ve been the one holding a gun on me. He grunted. “Let him go, Natasha.”
“Put away your gun.” She pressed the knife against the other guy’s throat. “I won’t ask again. Three. Two—”
I slammed my head back into Gil’s face and dropped to one knee in case he pulled the trigger. While I was down there, I turned around, wrapped an arm around each of his legs, and yanked up. He landed on his back, dropping the gun. I picked up the weapon and went to my mate’s side.
She released her hostage, giving him a shove toward his partner. “Shouldn’t you two be inside guarding the judge? You said he was leaving for court in the morning.”
“Change in plans.” Gil glanced at the house, then back at her.
She rolled her eyes. “You could’ve sent another e-mail and avoided all this.”
He shook his head. “This can’t wait. Mitch is sick. He wants to go to the hospital, but they’d be able to tell his DNA is altered.”
“Shit.” I took out my phone. “I can call our pack doctor.”
Gil frowned. “I thought you came here to kill him.”
Natasha’s brow furrowed. “We promised him to General Sloan. Alive.”
Gil put up his hands. “If the general wants to get information, he better get in that house fast.”
But I didn’t have Sloan’s number and I couldn’t call Asher because he was still in a fucking cell. Had the general contacted anyone else in the pack? I scrolled through my contacts and pressed Gage’s name. He worked with Deacon and me doing construction now, but he used to serve in the military under General Sloan. They had a history. Maybe he had Sloan’s number. It was worth a shot.
“Hey, Dex. Are you okay?” For a split second, I couldn’t understand why Gage would be asking me that. Then the sucker punch to the gut came. Gage had been standing around that circle last night when we said goodbye to my brother. Fuck. Would I ever get used to idea that Deacon was gone? It was so much easier to breathe when I could pretend he was off having a beer someplace.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah. I need to find General Sloan. Any idea how I might contact him?”
“Shit. Asher was his contact.” He sighed. “Hold on, I think he gave me a business card when he got to town.”
“And you kept it?”
He chuckled. “I probably spit on it first, but I think it might be in my wallet.”
Little boys giggled and squealed in the background. Gage must have been walking through his house. “Got it.”
He gave me the number, and I ended the call, then punched in Sloan’s cell before I forgot it.
The general answered on the first ring. His deep baritone commanded authority even though I couldn’t see him. “Miller Sloan.”
“It’s Dex. There’s a change of plans with the judge.”
“Dammit. Did she kill him? I thought I was clear—”
“He’s sick.” I interrupted before he said something about my mate that would require me to kick his uptight military ass later. “The serum is probably killing him. You’d better get over here.”
“On my way.” The call ended.
I looked over at Natasha, but she was staring at Gil’s partner. There was something about the concentration on her face, the way her eyes narrowed. She had to be reading his aura. Her green eyes met mine, but she didn’t say anything. My wolf growled from the shadows of my soul, his wariness pumping adrenaline into my muscles. I’d follow her lead, but I was ready to tear these jokers apart if they tried to hurt her.
“Where is the judge right now?” Natasha asked.
Gil pointed to the lights upstairs. “Master bedroom.”
She looked at Gil’s partner. “You must be disappointed to be losing your gravy train here, Ray.”
Ray shrugged. “We’ll get another job.”
Her gaze flicked to me and then back to Ray. “Why are you lying to me?”
This was a trap. Gil reached for another gun at the small of his back, but I tackled him to the pavement before he could pull it free. We wrestled on the ground, and a blinding pain shot through my shoulder.
The fucker had stabbed me.
But I didn’t let him roll me. Grinding my teeth, I slammed my forehead into his nose so hard I saw stars on the edge of my vision. The scent of blood had my wolf clawing to the surface of my consciousness, bringing his strength and aggression with him. Gil’s head smacked against the pavement, and all the fight drained out of him. I scrambled to my feet to help Natasha just as she Tased Ray. He crumbled to the ground, quivering.
She grabbed a zip tie from her pouch and tossed it to me before quickly cuffing Ray. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, just pissed.” I rolled Gil over and bound his wrists together behind his back.
I stood and grasped the handle of the hunting knife sticking out of my chest, steeling myself.
“Wait.” She rushed over and grabbed my arm. “Do you have a med kit? We need to get pressure on the wound as soon as you take it out just in case…”
Her words faded, but we both could fill in the blank. If he’d hit an artery, I could die. We healed faster than humans, but we didn’t have instant healing. I could bleed out.
“Yeah, under the seat of the truck, but it’s for construction injuries. There aren’t any sutures.”
She went to the truck for the kit, and Gil groaned at my feet. I nudged his ass with my shoe. “Shut the fuck up or we can gag you, too.”
She came back with some compresses, Bactine, and butterfly bandages. “This will have to hold you together until we can stitch it.”
Clenching my jaw, I jerked the blade free and managed not to scream and give our position away. Blood ran down my chest, and I shook my head. “Fuck. I liked this shirt.”
Natasha pressed the compress to the wound. She finally peeked at the wound and looked up at me from under her lashes. “You’re lucky he didn’t hit an artery. Two inches lower and you could’ve been bleeding out instead of just ruining your shirt.”
She finished placing the butterfly bandages, and I tugged my shirt down and rotated my shoulder, wincing when it pulled at the wound.
Headlights came up the quiet street, and I tensed. Was it Sloan or a resident? We should’ve put the jaguar shifters in the back of my truck before tending to my wound. We’d have trouble if someone drove by and saw two guys facedown on the pavement with their hands zip-tied behind their backs.
A black sedan with tinted windows rolled past us and pulled over in front of my truck. It had to be Sloan. I looked over at Natasha. “I take it these two were lying?”
She nodded. “And nervous. I think we’re being set up.”
“For what?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure, but they were baiting us to lure Sloan here.”
Speaking of Sloan, the general got out of his car and stopped beside me, eyeing my shirt. “Had some trouble?”
“It’s just a scratch.” I pointed at the men on the ground. “We’re not sure what’s going on inside the house, but these guys really wanted you here.”
Sloan crouched down and grabbed a handful of Gil’s hair, pulling him up until he was back on his feet. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Fuck you.”
Sloan punched Gil in the mouth. He stumbled backward, but I caught him before he crumpled to the ground. The general still had a solid jab.
Blood dripped down Gil’s chin as Sloan came closer. “Let’s try this again.” His eyes flicked to the house momentarily. “Why are you protecting this guy? He can’t possibly be paying you enough money to buy this kind of lo
yalty.” Sloan looked at me and shook his head. “Get him out of my face.”
I shoved Gil against the bumper of my truck while Sloan approached Ray. He used his shoe to roll Ray over, then crouched beside him, smacking his face to wake him up. When he groaned, Sloan grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him upright. “What’s the judge got on you? What’s worth risking shifters being in the world spotlight?”
Ray tried to turn his head, looking for Gil, but Sloan’s grip kept him from finding his target.
“I’m talking to you,” Sloan growled. “Did you hear me?”
I clenched my jaw as I scanned the shadows. We needed to question these guys someplace else before a neighbor drove by.
“He’ll kill her.” Ray stammered.
“Who?” Sloan asked.
“Don’t you fucking say a word!” Gil shouted.
Natasha came straight for us and hit Gil with the Taser, dropping him to his knees.
Sloan stayed focused on Ray, his voice tightening to a deep growl that was laced with…Alpha energy. “Who is the judge going to hurt?”
I blinked, and inside, my wolf backed off, submitting to the Alpha’s dominance. Only Sloan wasn’t my Alpha. He didn’t even have a pack.
“All of us.” Ray gasped. “He has a list. My mom is on it.”
“A list?” Sloan asked.
He nodded. “I don’t know how he got it. Maybe from the senator. He calls it his insurance policy. If we betray him, our families are dead.”
“Your parents are still alive?” Natasha asked.
“They’re jaguar shifters.” Gil’s hands were still trembling from the jolt as looked at her with a bloody smile and swollen eyes that still held a glint of defiance. “We didn’t have to be bitten. We were born this way.”
She grabbed him from behind and pressed her blade to his neck. For a second, I thought she was going to slit his throat. Maybe she was.
Her gaze locked on mine, and time seemed to stretch out. She threw him down on the ground. “You’re not worth it.”
Inside my chest, a tiny shard of hope glowed. She didn’t enjoy taking lives. She wasn’t as far gone as she thought she was. And if we lived through tonight, I’d prove it to her.
