The Syndicate
Code Name: Fox
Book One
By A.L. Kessler
&
Mind Games
Book Two
By Mia Bishop
Copyright © 2017
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced without the authors’ expressed permissions.
Code Name: Fox – Amy Kessler
Mind Games – Mia Bishop
Editing – Jasmyn Novachek with Off the Shelf
Cover art – Mia Bishop
Formatting- Imagine Ink Designs
Table of Contents
Code Name: Fox
Mind Games
Code Name: Fox
Book One
A.L. Kessler
CHAPTER ONE
Skye looked up at the looming office building. Her intel told her that this was where the mafia kept the server she needed to access. Lights lit up the top floor, but at this time of night, certainly it was only maintenance cleaning offices. She’d originally tried to hack into their database, but they had better protection than she had the skill set for. As her first mission with the Agency, she wouldn’t let herself fail.
The Agency had been put into place to police the paranormal creatures since mainstreaming had started. Once paranormal creatures had been outed, the government had decided there was a need for such a task force, especially when people discovered that the mafias, all of them, were run by paranormal creatures. One of the Agency’s first tasks was to take down the drug dealers and clean up the streets. But to do that, they needed to know which creatures were running the circuit and who the contacts were, which is where Skye came in.
As a shifter, it’d be easy for her to sneak into the building, snag the information she needed, and get out. Hacking the system from the inside would be easier than hacking from the outside.
She took a deep breath and shifted into her favorite form. Her bones slid and muscles popped painlessly. Her back bowed as her hands and feet became paws, and red, black, and white fur flowed over her new form. Her fox nose twitched as scents of the city assaulted her nostrils. Trash, filth, humidity, and the stench of humans all flowed in as she breathed. Her tiny claws made no noise as she skittered across the asphalt and around the building looking for a way in.
In the back of the building, she found an exhaust vent without the covering. Careless on the mafia’s part. She crawled her way in, her paws making more noise than she’d like against the metal shaft. She sniffed each vent she passed making sure each room was empty to keep her escape options open.
The vent sloped down, leading her into the basement. Her ears picked up the whirl of server fans and cooling systems. She had found the computer room or the server backup, either way, it was her jackpot. She nosed open the vent and crawled out into the room. She shifted, at ease with her naked body.
Her heart pounded in her chest as she rushed to the main terminal and woke the computer up. The login screen popped up and she had a moment of panic. She had no idea what they’d use to log in, especially since they had such perfect protection from outside hackers. She glanced around hoping that luck would be with her and found a sticky note under the mouse pad. In plain neat handwriting:
Username: GraysonWolf
Password: Server6Moon!
What kind of idiot would actually leave this info lying around? She took a deep breath hoping it wasn’t a trap. Her fingers flew over the keys. Holding her breath, she waited for the screen to give her access. The login screen disappeared, opening to a UNIX based system. The black screen with white cursor blinked at her. She could do this, it’d been a long time since she had to use terminal, but the commands had to be in her mind somewhere.
Footsteps sounded outside the room. She froze with her fingers poised over the keyboard. The squeaking of the hinges was unmistakable. She shifted into a fox again and squeezed herself into the shadows of the server racks.
Heavy boots entered the room, blocking her path the vent. She’d have to make a run for the door and risk getting caught or wait and hope whoever entered wasn’t going to find her.
She sniffed the air to get an idea of what she was dealing with. The scent of death and blood hit her nose hard. Vampire. Panic filled her and she shot for the door. She rushed passed his feet. He snagged her by the nape of the neck and pulled her up off the ground. “What do we have here?”
She twisted and turned in his hand, trying to get free. He held her up to look at her. “A fox, such sly little creatures.” She met his dark brown eyes set deep in a sharp face. His jawline was dusted in a five o’clock shadow in the same chocolate brown shade as his short hair.
He walked out of the room with her, his fingers digging into the skin under her fur, showing no signs of letting up. The only helpful thing he did was cradle her body with his other arm, so he wasn’t holding all her weight with the one hand. They walked into the elevator and he pushed the button for the top floor.
Skye thought her heart was going to jump out of her chest during the ride to the top. What on earth had she walked in on? It’d been a rookie mistake to think that it was just janitors working on the top floor. Of course the mafia employed vampires. They were one of the fiercest paranormal creatures and perfect for conducting night time activities…like drug deals.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad; maybe there would be information she could learn from this.
“Maybe I can keep you as a little pet.” He whispered. “Little sly shifter.”
Her heart fell. She squirmed more, trying to turn around and bite his other hand. He tugged on her just enough to be painful. “None of that now.”
The elevator doors opened and he stepped out, taking her down a long hall and finally into an office room. At the round conference table sat paranormal creatures of all kinds, most of them appeared to be human, but the energy in the room raised the hairs on her body.
“Caught our intruder. Someone was fucking stupid enough to leave their login information lying around. When I find out who it was, I will pin them to my table for dinner.” He snarled and threw her on the table.
Skye shrank back, trying to decide what to do. Her mind raced to check her available exits and calculate her chances of getting out and surviving. Six creatures surrounded the table, all the scents mixing to keep her from telling what all was there.
The man at the head of the table grabbed her by the neck. His silver hair caught the lighting in the room. His swirling misty eyes pierced her gaze. “Change back little fox.”
Energy crackled between them, and she cried out as her fox form disappeared and her human one took shape. She panted, trying to catch her breath from the forced shift and clear the pain in her bones and muscles. Had she not been so shocked by the transformation, she would have cried. What the hell was he?
His fingers still dug into her neck, keeping her off the ground. Her toes brushed against the cold tile of the floor. “We have a little Agency spy. Zeek, you caught her, you get to do the interrogation.”
She glanced at the vampire who had caught her. A wicked smirk crossed his face allowing his fangs to peek out from under his lips and his eyes flooded to red. She was in trouble. Big trouble. She had no idea if the Agency would send someone after her or not, or if they’d just let her die at the hands of these monsters.
“It’d be my pleasure, boss.” He grabbed her hair and yanked her away from the creature holding her. “Come on little fox, trust me, you don’t want to stay in here.” He forced her out of the room and into the hall.
Humiliation flooded through her as he
dragged her naked body back to the elevator. He slammed his thumb onto the down button and waited. She tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Let me go; I didn’t get anything. I promise I won’t return.” At this point, she was thinking another career change was needed.
“Oh little fox, it doesn’t work that way. The only way you’re getting out of here is if you give me the information I need, or in a body bag. The choice is yours.”
She didn’t know what information she could supply him. What on earth did a mob boss think he could get out of a simple hacker? “I don’t have anything that’d be useful to you.”
He dragged her into the elevator. The doors slid shut before he made the selection for the floor he wanted: B. Basement. The only thing she had seen down there was the server room. At least she hadn’t seen any other doors while she was being dragged out of there.
He switched his grip on her hair and shoved her forward the moment the doors opened. His massive fist pressed against her head causing her to wince. He nudged her to the left, opposite of where the server room was.
He flung open a heavy metal door and shoved her inside. The door closed behind them with a thump making Skye’s racing heart skip a beat. She spun around to face him.
No windows. One door. No way to escape unless he left her in here alone. He pulled out a key and locked the door.
There went that idea. Seeing as she stood naked in front of him, she didn’t have anything on her to pick a lock. She wrapped her arms over her breasts to cover herself. “Could I please have some clothes?” Maybe manners would get her somewhere.
“No.”
So he was an asshole. Great.
“I’ll provide you one piece of clothing for every answer you provide me.”
She glanced around. “Where are you going to get this clothing?”
“We have women who work here; I’ll be able to find something.” He leaned against the door. “So, Fox, what will it be? An answer for a shirt? Or perhaps…” his gaze dipped lower. “Pants?”
Her face flushed and she found herself torn between covering her crotch or her breasts. Modesty wasn’t her normal go-to as a shifter, but the heat in his gaze made her want to hide. “Again, I don’t know what information I could provide you.”
“What were you doing here?”
She debated on answering him or just shifting into a fly to keep from having to answer. Flying creatures weren’t her favorite. They took more energy and her flying skills needed work, and there was no promise that it would secure her escape. A fox came much more natural to her, which is why in a panic she shifted into it.
Metal drawers lined the walls, while a simple chair sat in the middle of the floor. There were no windows to help with the low light of the room. Stains marred the concrete floor. She took a deep breath as she tried not to imagine what kind of things happened here. He pushed off the door and walked over to one of the metal drawers on the far side. He opened it and dug through the contents. He turned around holding a silver collar while wearing leather gloves. “Do you know what the great thing about shifters and werewolves are?”
Skye took a few steps back and shook her head.
Zeek moved too fast for her to see and snapped the collar around her neck. She hissed in pain as it stung her skin. “You both react to silver, and it just takes a slim circle of it to keep you from shifting.” He held up a key. “And I have the only way of removing it.”
He left her no choice but to play his stupid game of twenty questions. “I was hired to retrieve some files from your computer system.”
He waited a couple of seconds. “By whom?”
“That’s one question. I want a shirt.”
He bowed his head. “That’s fair, that was the deal after all.” He pulled out his phone. “Tessa, bring our guest an outfit, please. Yes, we’re exchanging questions to satisfy her modesty.”
He shoved the phone back in his pocket. “Clothing is on the way.”
She crossed her arms. “I’ll wait for it to get here before I answer another question.” She didn’t think it would work, but Zeek crossed his arms as if mocking her and leaned against the wall.
“Fine.”
It was only a couple minutes before there was a knock on the door. If she had been able to shift, she could have escaped, but the damn silver allergy kept her from it. A knock came and Zeek spun around to unlock and open the door. A woman dressed in a pencil skirt and a white blouse stepped in and handed Zeek a pile of folded clothes. He bowed his head and she left without a word.
Skye didn’t recall the woman being in the office room upstairs, yet the woman knew who Zeek had been talking about.
“Tessa is our secretary.” He said as if reading her mind. “None of the others would bother coming down to just deliver clothing.”
A simple errand was beneath mob members apparently. He tossed her a shirt and she caught it mid air and pulled it over her head.
“Now who sent you?”
She shook her head. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Then give me the shirt back.”
“Come take it from me.” She growled.
“Do you really want to play that game fox? I move faster than you do.”
It was true, and she couldn’t get out of the room. She could choose to be standing there totally naked and refusing to answer questions, but that wasn’t going to help the situation.
“I swore myself to secrecy.” She locked her jaw. “They won’t leave me here to be tortured by you.”
He rushed her and slammed her against the wall, his cold hands wrapped around her neck. His eyes bled back to red as an air of coldness surrounded him. “I could do unimaginable things to you fox. Make it so the Agency will never find you.”
Her eyes grew wide. He’d already known who sent her. So why ask the question?
“Yeah, I figured it was them.” He tightened his grip on her neck. “Now tell me what files you were after.”
“User names and passwords.” She squeezed out. Her pulse drummed against his fingers.
He let out a wicked grin and leaned in. “Lies,” he whispered. He pressed against her, using his body to pin her to the wall. He let go of her neck and his cold fingers were replaced by the warmth of his breath as he scraped his fangs over her pulse, avoiding the metal collar. “Have you ever been fed on by a vampire, fox?”
Shivers marched down her body. “No.”
“I could make your wildest dreams come true, or I could drown you in a nightmare of pain.”
How the hell was she supposed to react to that? The Agency hadn’t trained her on how to survive a situation like this. Her mission had been pretty clear…get the information at all costs.
He didn’t move away. “Answer, fox. What information were you after?”
Survive or die for a mission she’d taken on a whim… “I was trying to get the files on the drug dealers that you work with.”
He pulled away and she relaxed a little. “Why would you need those. Why would you be so stupid to come into the building for those?”
“Because your firewalls were too tough to hack.” She didn’t miss the gleam of pride in his eyes. “You set them up?”
“You were the one attempting to hack them all week.” He stated. “You were good; I almost had to call in reinforcements to keep you out.”
She felt a bit of her own pride. “There, you have your information. Now give me pants and let me go.”
“You don’t get to make those kinds of demands.” He shook his head. “You work for the Agency; you can provide so much more information than just what you were doing here.”
His phone rang and he cursed. He pulled it out and answered it. “What?” He waited a few beats, tapping his foot against the concrete. Despite her enhanced hearing, she couldn’t hear the other person. “I have someone down here right now. Yeah. No. I’ll be up there in a minute.” He glanced at her. “She’ll survive the day. Might give h
er some time to think about what information she can provide us. Yes, have Tessa prepare a silver cage. Thank you.” He hung up and shoved the phone in his pocket. Picking up the pants, he tossed them towards her. “Looks like you’re spending the night.”
“I’ve told you everything I know.” Skye shimmed into the pants and tried not to let out a groan about how long they were.
“You haven’t told me why the Agency wants those contacts.” He chided. “So no, you haven’t told me everything.”
“I assume it’s so they can take them out. Get the drugs off the street, start taking out your territory.” She stared at him. “What else would they do with that information?”
He backed up a step. “You aren’t lying.”
“Of course I’m not lying. Why the hell would I lie? You’re threatening to leave me in a silver cage for the day!”
He stood there for a moment, just staring at her. “How long have you worked for the Agency?”
“Just a couple weeks. Maybe a month since I signed paperwork with them. I wanted to do something to help my kind out.”
“Shifters.”
“Yes.”
He shook his head and reached out to the collar. She flinched, unsure of what to expect. He unlocked the device and let it drop to the ground. “I’m letting you go, under one condition.”
She swallowed. “What?” Why would he be letting her go? Shouldn’t he be torturing her for more information? Her mind spun, but she knew that she would agree to whatever he said so that she could get out.
“Look into your Agency. They aren’t what they seem. Now, run little fox. Because the moment you step out of that door I can’t protect you.”
She shifted into her fox form and skittered out of the clothing. He unlocked the door and threw it open. She shot out of the room and back to server room. She glanced at the computer wondering if she should risk it. No, better not test her luck.
She climbed up the server rack and shot through the vent. Running through the shaft, she disappeared into the night.
Code Name: Fox / Mind Games (Syndicate Series Book 1) Page 1
