Bolt Saga, Volume 2

by Angel Payne

I wince, hating that I already know the subject of her comment—and worse, that I allowed my claws to show that clearly when April played so obvious-and-desperate with Reece. Don’t get under the bridge with the trolls. It ruins your shoes. It’s a nugget I inherited from Mom, who sometimes isn’t all about keeping up with Newport Beach optics.

  “And I’m sure her CV is impressive,” I issue. “But Miss Fresh and Freckled can do her cute little dance far away from my radar.”

  “That’s the spirit!”

  I almost envision Neeta’s fist pump, which I accept as a needed bolster. For the plan I have in mind, it’s going to be needed. “I need to know about Richards Research,” I declare. “Well, specifically about their building.”

  “What about it?” Confusion clouds over her enthusiasm. She knows I’m well aware of all the obvious details. The building is a newer Richards Enterprises purchase, bought for a steal in the Los Angeles real estate market because of the property’s age—but because it’s just three blocks away, the potential to the corporation can’t be ignored. Much to the city’s relief, Reece chose not to demolish the building but to restore it to its forties-era glory. Though the top floors of the twenty-story structure are still under construction, Richards Research has already gotten comfortably settled into floors one through ten.

  “The hotel is housing a lot of people traveling into town for research, right?” I dive right in, alerted by the heavier whirs and grinds of the elevator gears. Once the car arrives back up here, I might lose her when I board the lift. “So, is there a ‘back way’ they use to access the building? Maybe something not so…monitored by a million cameras?”

  Neeta releases a knowing hum. “Where someone could walk in, perhaps accompanied by someone with a key card, and not be detected right away in the security office?”

  “Something exactly like that.”

  “Hmmm. Yes.” There’s a distinct squeak. The woman enjoys playing mogul at her desk when she can but refuses to get her executive chair oiled. “Perhaps something like…a direct-access tunnel.”

  She finishes with a chuckle—maybe because she’s just watched my jaw plummet past her office window.

  “There’s a tunnel between the Brocade and Richards Research?”

  A new laugh. “You think they were just attracted to that place’s history?”

  At the moment, I’m not concerned about the why of the acquisition.

  Only about fighting off the onus that I’m really about to exploit the hell out of it.

  By spying on my own boyfriend.

  The elevator arrives with ideal timing. No more time for second guesses or guilt. “Put on some shoes you can get around in,” I direct Neeta. “As in, sprinting if you have to.”

  Through the phone, I weather another loud squeak of my friend’s chair—right before her triumphant little snort. “Now you’re talking, sister.”

  Chapter Four

  Reece

  I’ve enjoyed working with Sawyer Foley for several reasons. He’s quiet but laser focused, literal but intuitive. And the best part of the whole package? He’s prettier than me, which means nobody in the lobby of the Richards Research building even notices I’m here, waiting next to the coffee and magazine kiosk, as he strides over and pretends to read the morning’s issue of the Times.

  “Where the hell have you been?” His charge seems disembodied, a ferocious bite that doesn’t match his casual pose, board shorts, and form-fitting short-sleeved rash guard. Ink that matches the dark-blue of his shirt extends down both arms—a dragon on his left bicep and a wolf dominating his right. His legs are free of tattoos but dark with tan. Sun streaks are rampant in his mop of dark-blond hair—and that “mop” shit isn’t a metaphor. The stuff cascades everywhere, almost making him look out of place in the corporate lobby. Only in California.

  “You remember the part where I told you I was taking my girl to Santa Barbara?” I snarl back.

  He flips a couple of pages. There’s a cologne ad on one with a guy who could be his doppelgänger. At least I now know what he’d look like cleaned up. “So…what? You came back and then screwed her anyway?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “Not particularly.”

  He shoots out the retort so fast, I go for the obvious conclusion. “Hey, whatever floats your boat. Love is love.”

  “And business is business.” He slides the magazine back into the rack and turns a glance out the window. “And the day is burned, so let’s not do the same to the night.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he scoops up a pack of breath mints, tosses a five on the little counter, and doesn’t wait for change, thanks to the three secretaries exiting the elevator and eyeing him like the token surfer boy in a Magic Mike review. All three of them stop as he strolls into the elevator they’ve just exited. As the doors slide shut, I watch him pull out his phone and single-thumb a message.

  Two seconds later, my phone vibrates with an incoming text.

  12th floor. Right turn off the landing. Keep going until the plastic ends.

  “And the crow flies at midnight,” I mutter beneath my breath while swinging a careful gaze around the lobby. There’s no other way to ward off the strange current that sprints up my spine, as if picking up on a similar frequency from the air itself. The energy races back down below my belt, reaches under my ass, and grabs me by the center of my balls. Christ. I’m usually the one emitting this kind of shit, not enduring it. The only other time I’ve been on the receiving end of a zap like this? The night I first met Emma. When she stepped off the elevator in the penthouse, bringing me that report…stepping toward me like a bunny toward a wolf…electrifying everything in my body…

  Changing my whole damn world…

  But not now. Not here. Thank fuck.

  Shaking off the random scrotum jolt as being anything from an energy surge in the building to my body’s own greed from thinking of Emma, I stride into the other elevator and jab the button for the twelfth floor. The sooner Sawyer and I get this business handled and done, the sooner I can actually get back to my woman and sate that hunger.

  And damn, do I plan to have a feast.

  Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m going to do. I fill the elevator car with a long, low growl as I contemplate how many times I’ll be able to make her come for me, her gorgeous cunt spread as my continuous banquet…

  The peal of squeaking gears slices into my fantasy. While the city’s historical society might worship us for updating the vintage elevators instead of replacing them, I make a mental note to order that they’re tuned not to sound like it.

  At least Foley knows I’ve arrived. And, as I hook a right off the elevator landing and push through makeshift walls of long, hanging construction plastic, he knows I’m a good fella about following orders—even if I don’t like or understand them.

  “What the hell?” I grouse after pushing through the last layer of the plastic bayou and making it to where Foley leans against a small ladder, gazing out over the sea of moonlight and streetlights. Behind him, a single lightbulb on a stand still seems a ghostly sentinel, not easing an inch of the pressure my gut’s endured since he dropped his text bomb this afternoon. And yeah, I mean bomb. The verbiage is our encoded version of drop everything you’re doing and get your ass here, but now that I’ve done so, I’m growing weary of all the Mission: Impossible tactics. “You couldn’t do this in the lobby? The entire building is private.”

  “Yeah? You really think so, eh?” He side-eyes me. Bastard even has me aced in that pretty-boy department. His gaze is that mossy-grass kind of green, lending his stare a piercing memorability. But I didn’t hire him for his eyes. “While I was waiting for you, three delivery guys were buzzed in through the front door. The security guards changed shifts. Dude at the newsstand ordered a pizza. That’s five not-so-private intrusions on your lobby in just under two hours.”

  I hired him for reasons like that.

  Nevertheless, I growl, “Shit.”

&
nbsp; He jerks up a shoulder. “Don’t stress. You’re not operating an FBI field office or anything—though even when I was a G-dude, we needed good pizza instead of the cafeteria mystery shit.” He grimaces. “Though why your guy ordered from that rat hole down on Fig instead of Papi’s, I’ll never understand.”

  I pace over to the window. “You know, I’d love to get poetic with you all night about downtown pizza joints…”

  “No, you wouldn’t.”

  “Yeah. Okay. I really wouldn’t.” A fast flip of balance has me facing him again. “So let’s get on with it so we can both go back to our Friday night plans.”

  Foley snorts. “In what universe do you think I get to make Friday night plans, man?”

  “I’d start up the violin, but what I’m paying you will buy an orchestra.”

  “Good point.”

  “Now that we’re on the subject of good points…”

  “Smooth,” he comments on my segue, pushing away from the ladder. “You have game, Richards.” Though his demeanor remains beach-bum cool, there’s no mistaking the thumbtacks beneath his tone. My observation is confirmed when he moves to jab hands into his back pockets but takes them out a second later, flexing his fingers wide. “And now I’m going to request you keep walking that cool-boy line—while keeping a very open mind.”

  Well…shit.

  “Why?” I poise my own hands at my sides, forming two half fists next to my thighs. If I have to punch the wall, I’m ready. “What have you learned?”

  “This isn’t about what I’ve learned.” Weirdly, Foley continues his little stroll. “It’s about who I’ve found.” He pushes through another wall of plastic perpendicular to the forest through which I just walked, revealing a door to office space that’s already been installed. With a minimalistic jerk, he twists the knob. The panel creaks open, cracking the air with way too much haunted house vibe for my liking.

  Especially as a creature from my darkest nightmares appears in the doorway.

  Not just a monster.

  The monster.

  Looking like she’s just stepped out of my phantasm again. Her white-blond hair is styled in the same seductress waves. Her sex harpy curves are again poured into long leggings, with a tight black top allowing no guesses about her bra cup size. The only difference between now and when she led me to hell—twice—are her shoes. Gone are Angelique La Salle’s man-killer stilettos. Now she wears functional black boots that consume half her calves. They’re even a little dirty.

  Perfect.

  Because when I throw her into the wall instead of punching it with my fist, there’ll be no stress about the mess.

  Excellent plan.

  I don’t think twice. I don’t think at all. I’ve already thought long and hard about what I’d do if fate ever brought me this moment. The first time, I squandered it away. I’d actually deluded myself, thinking Angelique had come all the way to LA to clear her soul and make amends. Instead, she’d run a shell game on me much worse than the first, and I’d nearly paid for my gullibility with my life. Of course, I wondered how she hadn’t paid for it with hers—but that detail didn’t matter when she resurfaced days later with Emma in her crosshairs.

  Now, she’s firmly in mine.

  And I couldn’t be more fucking giddy.

  Until I take two steps and am ramrodded to a violent stop. Shit. For being a good twenty pounds leaner than me, Foley is deceivingly mighty. His hair tumbles into his eyes, now gleaming as bright as lasers, as he shoves me back into place with an economy of motion.

  “Whoa, cowboy.”

  I bare my teeth. “Fuck you, Foley.”

  Angelique has the audacity to bite her lip, feigning contrition. Are those tears gleaming on her eyelashes? “Listen to him, Reece. Please.”

  “You.” I lunge at her again. “Shut. Up.” Then again only to be held back harder. Foley’s wrapped himself around me in a demented version of a bro hug, planting the ball of his shoulder into the gap of my ribcage. “Let me go, Foley. I swear to God, you’re going to be eating your own balls—”

  “Nom nom.” He’s unnervingly oblivious to my rage. “But you’ll still be watching me scarf them up from right back here.”

  “This is fucking ridiculous.” I fight him, tightening my fists, ready to deflate one or both of the man’s kidneys. Foley only intensifies his hold. “She’s got you whipped, doesn’t she? Well, I hope her pussy is worth the price you’re paying, asshole!”

  “Reece!” Angelique jumps her plea to heights I’ve never heard. Goddamnit, I almost believe her desperation. “S’il vous plait. Je vous en supplie. Arrêtez!”

  “Stop? Seriously?” I spear her with a damning glare, making the rest of my meaning clear. Just because I’ve never heard her sound so desperate doesn’t guarantee my mind won’t twist it—and then it does. She’s the bitch who betrayed me. The Consortium’s temptation trinket. And from what I remember, which was a hell of a lot in a hell of an ordeal, she wasn’t doing so with a gun to her head. “I don’t fucking believe this.” With the profanity, I let my wrath take over—at least enough to pulse through my hands and blast Foley off me like a spider monkey on an electric fence.

  “Well. That makes two of us.”

  The comment lands on the air so unexpectedly, I wonder if my mind has channeled Emmalina into this mix as a coping mechanism for my sanity. But after taking in Angelique’s dropped jaw, backed up by Foley’s stunned stare, I whirl and confront the disgusting truth.

  I’m standing in a bog of what-the-fuck between the bitch of my nightmares and the goddess of my dreams.

  “Christ.”

  Foley snorts. “Not sure he’ll be much help, but if you say so…”

  I silence him with an energy pulse to his Adam’s Apple—without my stare faltering from the woman I’d love to snatch up and throw over my knee right now.

  “Emma.”

  I stomp forward, but she halts my charge with a furious lift of her chin. Only then do I notice Neeta, key card still in hand, which explains the how of their intrusion. But that’s not the most important question at this point, which I issue at full growl.

  “Why the hell did you follow me?”

  A weird sound spurts from her. Not a sob, but sure as hell not a laugh. “Why the hell do you think?”

  I raise an admonishing finger. “Velvet…”

  “Do not go there.” Her returning jab goes for flesh, stabbing my bicep as viciously as a punch. With the added impact of her pale-pink fingernail, I’m certain she’s out to break skin. “You do not get to do ‘Velvet’ right now.”

  “Fuck.” It’s becoming a favorite word tonight, for all the wrong reasons. “It’s not what you think, okay?”

  “Oh, God.” Her high laugh is like a wineglass shattering in my ear. But that’s not the driving pain in my mind. That agony comes from understanding every ounce of her reaction—and the justification she has for clarifying it in biting syllables. “Well, that’s original. Haven’t heard it for at least a couple of hours…since we dropped everything and raced back here from freaking Santa Barbara.” As if someone’s smashed the glass in her ear, she jolts. “We…raced back here…for your precious…Sally.” She rivets her glower onto Angelique. “Shit. Sally. Was I that naïve? That stupid?”

  “No.” Foley, thank fuck, steps around me. Gone is his Malibu Ken ease. He approaches Emma with posture I didn’t know he was capable of. “I’m Sally.”

  Neeta, who politely stepped a few feet away during the Showdown at Richards Corral, mumbles nearly beneath her breath, “Hel-lo, Sally.” Her lips quirk bashfully, leading me to believe Foley rewarded that with some charming smirk or wink.

  “Sawyer Foley.” He extends his hand toward Emma. Though the move is professional, a new tone in his voice makes me battle the craving to beat his arm down. And the rest of him. “I’ve heard a lot about you in the last month, Miss Crist.”

  Emma returns the greeting but jerks out of his hold as soon as she can. Her gaze has turned th
e shade of icicles. “Then you’ve probably heard that I don’t like being out of the loop, Mr. Foley—especially when the loop includes people who work for batshit rogue scientists fond of seducing and then kidnapping their live experiment subjects.”

  And this is the moment—either the worst or best call of the night—that Angelique picks to step up too. Every pore in my body pricks at the same rate Emma’s tension heightens, an impression exacerbated by the fact that in the past, I’d been used to hearing Angelique before seeing her. Damn her for choosing now to go high utility over fashion. “Emmalina,” she intones with equal practicality. “I know this is strange for you.”

  “Strange?” Emma wheels on her with deceiving calm. “‘Strange’ is when the four-oh-five is traffic-free at six p.m., okay? ‘Strange’ is when I can go to the dry cleaners without three photographers snapping my dirty clothes.” Her veneer starts dissolving as she takes another step toward Angelique. “This isn’t strange, Angie. This—you—are creepy. And scary. And infuriating. And disgusting. And—”

  “I want to help.”

  Well. Angelique always did know how to deliver a good shocker.

  I’m just not sure whether this is good shock or a complete disaster. Emma appears mired in the same strange dilemma, mute and gaping as Angelique swings a gaze as fortified as a sword made of green steel.

  “I…want to help.” Her second assertion is even firmer—but that’s where Angelique’s surety ends. The woman has, for all intents and purpose, willingly stepped into the noose of her accusers. “I know there is no logical reason to believe me, but I mean it. With every bone in my body…and crack in my heart.”

  Silence.

  A long, uncomfortable one.

  Until Foley draws in a grimacing breath and utters, “Damn it. I don’t want to believe you.”

  “But you do.” Emma’s features bunch up in a similar way. “And so do I.”

  Fuck it all.

  I believe the bitch too.

  But I’m not ready to give Angelique the courtesy of the spoken concession. The woman should be damn glad I haven’t picked up the phone and called every law enforcement agency in the state on her deceitful ass—no matter how huge a dose of contrition she’s gulping down now.