by Mikayla Lane
“Then why didn’t he snap your neck and just run?” Mojo asked, refusing to look at the giant in the holding cell.
“I don’t have a clue,” BJ whispered as she dug through her desk for a fingerprint card and her ink pad.
She found what she was looking for and held them up triumphantly.
“I’m going to get some answers now. Power up all your toys and download everything while we wait for Buford to get Irwin,” she said and stood, taking long strides to the holding cell.
“Be careful, girl. I got a bad feeling,” Mojo whispered as he watched her go.
Mojo made the sign of the cross and said a prayer before he clapped his hands together and opened up his laptop. His long, fingers deftly skated across the keyboard as he did his part to help BJ with her new case.
Nik watched the female stride into the cell area with a small metal tin, a folder, and note pad. He’d heard everything she and Mojo had been saying in the outer office and tried to suppress his sudden urge to goad her. He ran a hand over his head instead and listened to his newly-awakened beast tell him that he was running a check of his body and brain systems.
I just gotta hang in here until Targe gets back on the shengari’ so I can talk to Grai. Then wait until they get me the hell out of here, Nik reminded himself as he watched the cop pull a chair up to the cell and sit down in it.
He tried not to smirk when he saw that she’d placed the chair out of his arm’s length.
“Nik, I need to get your fingerprints and ask you a few questions. Are you feeling well enough for that? Do you need to see a doctor from the Taser or the mace?” BJ asked him gently, hoping that he would continue to be a gracious prisoner.
Nik rubbed the rapidly healing spots on his forehead and shook his head.
“No, I’m fine,” he muttered.
Nik was quickly realizing just how out of control the situation had become and was deeply regretting his decision not to knock her out and leave when he’d had a better chance of escaping.
“Nik, I really appreciate what a gentleman you’ve been. I’ve been a cop a long time, and I’ve never encountered the kindness and compliance you’ve showed,” BJ said, then wondered if she’d said it as a tactic to get him to talk or because it was true.
Nik sighed and rolled his eyes even though he was glad she wasn’t afraid of him. Without understanding why, he put his right hand outside of the bars. When she gave him a bright smile, he found himself grinning back before he carefully controlled his expression into one of indifference.
“Thanks, Nik,” BJ said, wishing he’d smile again.
He looks a lot less intimidating when he smiles, she thought, and completely drool worthy.
BJ quickly grabbed the fingerprint card and opened the ink pad. She smiled up at him as she took his finger and gently pressed it into the ink.
“So, what’s your name?” she asked conversationally, keeping his mind off the fingerprinting.
“I already told you; it’s Niklosi,” he said, keeping his eyes on what she was doing.
“Ah,” BJ said with a smile at him. “You said it was Nik. But I like Niklosi better, it’s unusual. Is it Russian? Armenian?”
She finished up with the fingerprints and handed him a few wet wipes to get the ink off.
Nik gently took the small wipes from her hand and tried to ignore the curious energy he could feel emanating from her, but he found himself looking up into her hazel eyes anyway.
She was a beautiful woman. It was the first thing he’d noticed about her after he saw the Taser in her hand. She was small, but not the too-skinny type that most humans found attractive. She looked more like a real woman to him with rounded hips and a little extra padding on her thighs and stomach.
Under any other circumstance he would have actively tried to bed her, but these were not those times, and he needed to keep his attraction tamped down and his senses open for his inevitable escape.
His gaze held hers, and with a smile of his own he shook his head.
“I think I’ll take that advice to keep silent,” he said then leaned his back against the bars that divided his cell from the other one.
BJ sighed dramatically and shrugged her shoulders.
“I can’t imagine killing someone is easy, and if you need to talk, just let me know. Until then, Mojo is working on a few things, and it’s tying up the phone lines. The second he is done, I’m going to bring the phone in for you,” BJ said then waited to see if Nik had anything to say.
“You don’t have a cell phone?” Nik asked in surprise.
Not that he cared, Nik knew Targe would be ready to contact Grai any minute now.
BJ blushed a little and shrugged.
“Sorry, we don’t have any towers around here, and believe it or not, we all like it that way. Regular old land line phones work just fine for us,” BJ said, not apologizing for the simple way they lived.
“But your boy Mojo out there has a top of the line laptop, there was an ultra-high definition camera in your car, and there’s some pretty sophisticated surveillance around here for such a small place without cell phones,” Nik noted with curiosity. It didn’t make sense.
BJ nodded her head in respect for his situational awareness, but it only fueled her curiosity to learn more about who he really was. She’d bet money that he was a mercenary or ex-military.
BJ headed back out into the office and handed the fingerprint card to Mojo, who took it and immediately ran it through the scanner on the desk.
“Give me 10,” Mojo said without even looking up from the screen of his laptop.
“No worries, I’m going to start logging the evidence,” BJ said and moved over to the box Buford had dropped off while she was fingerprinting Nik.
She’d just gotten through the murder weapon and the knives when she heard something. BJ leaned over to look in the cells and saw Nik was still sitting on the bunk before she turned to Mojo.
“Did you hear that?” she whispered.
“Hear what?” Mojo asked, still staring at his screen.
BJ looked around, convinced she’d heard something although she couldn’t figure out what it was. After a few seconds, she shrugged and pulled out the bag with the strange stone inside.
She had just felt the weight of the stone in her hand when the lights went out. The building went dark, and BJ stood, drawing her weapon as she unconsciously clenched the stone in her hand.
“What the hell?” Mojo whispered as he closed the top of his laptop, extinguishing the only light in the building.
BJ heard the whisper of a sound coming from the holding cells, and she worked her way across the room in the dark. She heard what sounded like someone trying to open a cell door, and she holstered her gun and drew the spare Taser she’d grabbed when she’d come in the building with Nik.
Damn, I wish I could see, she thought.
She gasped when the stone in her hand burst into a brilliant white light and illuminated the room.
BJ immediately saw a man trying to open Nik’s cell, and she depressed the Taser and watched as the young man hit the floor screaming.
“Mojo, go outside and check the power box!” BJ yelled out.
She clutched the still-illuminated stone in one hand while dropping the Taser and pulling her gun on the newcomer with her other. She heard the front door slam as Mojo ran out.
BJ sighed in relief when the lights came back on, and she watched in surprise as Nik stared at the young man on the floor and slowly shook his head.
Suddenly the illuminated stone in her hand stopped shining and went back to being a dull, milky white stone in her hand. BJ looked at it curiously for a moment before she slipped it and the evidence bag into her pocket.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Nik said to the man before he turned to look at BJ. “You may want to make sure you put him in that cage, or you’ll be charging me with another murder.”
BJ just nodded her head and turned her attention to the dark-haired young man who was no
w glaring at her.
“Yo, Hill-Da-Bitch! That shit wasn’t fucking cool!” Traze huffed out as he reached behind him to yank the Taser barbs out of his shoulder.
BJ wasn’t sure who was more surprised when Nik grabbed the guy from behind and slammed his back into the bars. Nik put his arm around the Traze’s neck.
“Show some fucking respect, or I will pick you apart and chuck your pieces in that cell for your brother to find,” Nik growled in the man-child’s ear.
When Nik saw a confused BJ moving towards them, he let Traze go with a shove and stepped back from the bars.
“You can shoot him. I won’t tell anyone I saw it,” Nik assured BJ with a wink.
“Fuck you!” Traze barked out as he rounded on Nik. “That was bullshit when I was in here trying to rescue your ass to begin with!”
“So you admit you’re here to break him out of jail?” BJ asked as she came up behind the young man. “Put your hands up.”
When Traze looked like he was going to laugh at her, Nik grabbed hold of him through the bars again and held him still while BJ disarmed him of a cache of weapons almost as large as the one she took from Nik.
“Go in there,” BJ said as she nudged the young man into the cell next to Nik’s.
Traze glared at Nik as he walked into the cell and BJ closed it, the lock clicking into place.
“BJ, are you OK?” Mojo huffed out as he ran into the room.
“Oh you’re fucking kidding me?” Traze barked out a laugh. “Your name is Blow Job? Gods, you really are inbred . . .”
Traze didn’t get to finish his insult before Nik lunged at the bars between them and tried to reach for his throat.
“Hey, hey! Chill out,” BJ said as she spoke to Nik. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard that, and it stopped bothering me long ago. But I appreciate you coming to my defense.”
BJ cursed that her voice shook a little, not only from how close they came to pulling off an escape but over how easily Nik could have killed her if he’d wanted to on the drive here. She’d known how dangerous he was with a gun, but seeing his massive arms trying to squeeze the life out of the young man had been more than a little eye opening and seriously confusing.
Why would he react that way to his rescuer? she wondered. And who the hell are they?
“You all right?” Mojo asked as he put his hand on her shoulder, pulling BJ from her thoughts.
“Yeah . . . yeah I’m good. Guess I need another fingerprint card,” she said as she pulled on the cell doors to make sure they were locked before she looked over at the open side door.
“What the hell . . .” BJ gasped as she saw the melted door handle.
Mojo whistled low when he saw it and turned accusing eyes on the strange men in the cells.
“What did you use that could melt steel like that?” he asked.
When neither of the men would answer, Mojo moved over to where BJ had piled Traze’s weapons on the floor. He pulled a pen from his pocket and moved around the various guns and knives before he looked up at BJ.
“I’m going to log these in next. Get me the fingerprint card when you can,” he said before he left the room.
BJ waited a few seconds and watched him come back in with a box and pair of gloves on. Mojo quickly placed everything into the box and headed back into the outer office before BJ looked back at the broken door.
“How many more of you are there? Who the hell are you?” she found herself asking Nik, trying to ignore the rude, younger man.
When Nik remained silent, BJ looked at the broken door handle again.
“Mojo!” she called.
Mojo came running and watched the two prisoners warily. BJ handed him her gun, and Mojo looked at her with shocked hazel eyes.
“What the hell are you doing? You know I hate guns!” Mojo whispered.
“Yeah, but you know how to use one. Watch them,” BJ said before she stormed out of the holding area.
Mojo held the gun in steady hands and kept a watchful eye on the two strangers while Nik ran his hands over his head, wondering what the hell he was doing.
Nik didn’t bother to look over at Traze; he was still pissed off at his treatment of the female cop. If there was one thing Nik couldn’t tolerate, it was the abuse of a female, and Traze’s mouth had pushed him too far. At least that was what he was trying to convince himself.
“What the hell, Nik? Since when does some hillbilly pussy make you forget what team you’re on?” Traze growled. “I was trying to help.”
“Kid,” Mojo whispered as he pointed the gun at the larger of the two men who looked ready to rip apart the bars. “I think you’d shut up if you could see the look on his face. You may want to move away from the bars.”
An engine gunned outside, and lights flashed through the melted door handle and partially opened door before they saw the door pushed closed. The lights went out, the engine stopped, and Mojo grinned as he realized that BJ had moved her car in front of the door and prevented it from being used for another escape attempt.
“Fuck!” Traze growled before he glared at Niklosi.
“If Grai doesn’t kill you, I will if you don’t behave yourself until he gets here,” Niklosi warned the youngest T’Alq brother.
Traze moved over to the other side of the bars, away from Niklosi, and flipped him off.
“He’s going to be just as curious as to why you didn’t extricate yourself from the situation,” Traze countered, even though he knew Grai would never be upset with Nik’s decision not to take a chance on harming the humans.
Niklosi snorted as BJ came back into the room with a grin on her face.
“I hope they shoot you,” Nik told Traze before he sat back on the cot and leaned back against the bars.
BJ grinned as she walked up to Mojo and gently removed her gun from his stiff fingers.
“Do you have any more friends that plan on coming by to see if you need a ride?” BJ asked, walking over to Nik and avoiding the irritating younger man.
Niklosi ran his hands over his head in frustration before he turned to her, his dark eyes appearing sincere.
“I don’t think anyone else would be stupid enough to try and break me out of jail when a lawyer will suffice,” he admitted.
BJ nodded and turned narrowed eyes on the adorable, but apparently stupid younger man.
“What’s his name?” BJ asked Nik.
“It’s Trey,” Nik said, giving her the name he knew she would find when she ran Traze’s prints.
Traze shook his head and snorted as he threw his hands up in the air.
“What you fool?” Nik asked, turning to Traze as he stood. “You don’t think she’s going to know it when your brother gets here? You’re an even bigger idiot if you think that being a dick is going to make this better! This is your bad, not hers.”
Traze moved to the bars near the broken door and growled as he pulled on them in anger.
“So is it his brother who ordered you to kill that man? Who was the man you killed?” BJ asked Nik, hoping to get him to talk.
“This is where I leave,” Mojo said as he checked the broken door, then went back into the office.
Niklosi sighed and sat back down on the cot before he looked into BJ’s pretty hazel eyes. There was something about her that tugged sharply at him, but he pushed it out of his mind and shook his head.
“He’d love to play Truth and Share, but he’s got a bigger commitment to worry about,” Traze snapped.
Niklosi came off the cot so fast that BJ jumped back from the bars. He turned angry eyes to Traze as his fists came through the bars and shook at the man-child.
“I suggest you practice some silence,” Nik warned Traze with a growl. “Those bigger commitments are aware of what happened and aren’t happy.”
Nik felt better when he saw the blood drain from Traze’s face. He hadn’t been giving Traze a useless threat either, Targe had gotten hold of Grai, and Nik knew their people were coming for them. Grai wasn’t happy at a
ll.
BJ watched the silent and not-so-silent communications going on between the two men, and a shiver ran up her spine at the potential meaning of their conversation.
“Who is coming for you both?” she asked. “Is it his brother?”
“It’s the boogeyman,” Traze muttered as he slid down the bars and sat on the floor.
All hopes of commanding his own team evaporated rapidly, and the fight was sucked out of him.
Nik almost felt sorry for Traze until he realized neither of them would be there if Traze had let Decano call Grai earlier. He had no idea what it was going to take to get them out of this situation, but he knew it wasn’t going to be easy.
BJ looked at Nik with narrowed eyes, her fear not the least diminished by the conversation.
“Is someone else coming to try and break you out?” BJ asked Nik, knowing Trey wouldn’t be helpful.
Nik snorted and shook his head.
“No, I can promise you that the only people coming are our lawyers,” Nik assured her.
BJ nodded her head in relief, unsure why she believed him, but she did. Then a thought hit her.
“How did you contact an attorney? You haven’t made a phone call yet,” BJ said a little suspiciously.
Traze burst out laughing.
“She’s a little smarter than the average hillbilly cop. Yeah, explain that to her,” Traze said, irritating Nik further.
Nik growled at the infuriating man-child and turned to BJ.
“Once I didn’t return, my people would have initiated a search and realized what happened when they couldn’t contact me,” he said, trying to ease the distrust and fear he saw in her eyes. It rankled him to think she was afraid of him.
“Your people?” BJ asked, her concern not alleviated in the least. “Who are you? Where did you come from?”
Chapter Four
Niklosi shook his head and sighed at BJ’s questions. A part of him wanted to tell her everything—mostly because he knew she’d never believe him. Luckily, common sense won out, and he smiled up at her questioning look.
