Code Name: Fox / Mind Games (Syndicate Series Book 1)

by A. L. Kessler

  Zeek headed toward the elevator from the interrogation room. The little fox didn’t know what the Agency was about if she believed that they simply wanted the information to help get drugs off the street. No, there was another angle they were playing at, and now they were sending untrained and uninformed people into the field.

  “Where’s the shifter?” Tessa asked as he stepped out of the elevator.

  He shook his head. “She slipped through my grasp and disappeared. She knew what she was doing.” Tessa wouldn’t pick up on the lie or know any better. “It doesn’t matter; I got the information from her that I needed. The Agency wants our contacts in the drug world. I need to make sure I switch them to a different server off site.” He wouldn’t risk the little fox getting back in and getting her hands on the files. Or having someone come in and finish her mission, someone with more experience than her.

  How could she not know what the agency did? He shook his head. “Sorry to have you go through all that work.”

  “Not a big deal, Remus wants you back in the meeting though.” She tilted her head to the door. “Sounds like something big is about to go down in there.”

  He could hear the muffled voices through the supposedly soundproof doors. There was no doubt in his mind that all the leaders were getting rowdy over something stupid. Territory expansion. Jobs. Goals. Who knew?

  “There’s never a dull moment when all the leaders are together.” He laughed and walked into the room. Everyone quieted down and stared at him.

  “Did you get anything out of her?” The werewolf leader, Dugan, stood. “Having a shifter sneak in here is a huge breach in security.”

  No shit. “I got some information out of her.” He wouldn’t be able to lie to the entire group without someone catching on, especially Remus, there was no lying to the demigod. “The Agency is after the contacts we have in the drug world. The woman truly did not know what they wanted with the information. She was simply sent to fetch the files because hacking didn’t work.”

  “So it wasn’t your firewalls that failed, but someone let her breach the security of the building.” Siofra tapped her long nails on the table. As the representative for the changelings, she constantly changed her appearance for what she needed. Today her hair was black and her eyes blue.

  Zeek nodded. “Exactly. So we fire whoever was on security tonight.” They all knew what he meant by fire. Security for the night wouldn’t be seen or heard from again. “But the point is, the Agency is stepping up their game and putting more innocent lives on the line.”

  “Where are they recruiting from?” Dugan shook his head. “If they are pulling random paranormals off the street, this is going to become a problem.”

  “I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s not hard to find easy targets. With the paranormals coming out in the open, a lot of people are going to want to find ways to help out their own kind.” Just like the little fox had told him. So what was the Agency up to? Was it to protect their own information? Minimize the leaks of information through interrogation? The fox hadn’t been trained to resist it; that was obvious by the way she gave him information in exchange for clothing.

  There was some hmming through the group until Remus stood up. “It’s time that we all return to our own territories until we can discuss this matter further. You all have your tasks, make sure you keep up on your businesses.”

  They stood, and one by one they filed out of the room leaving Zeek and Remus alone.

  “The fox in keeping?”

  He shook his head. “She’s gone, but it doesn’t matter. She didn’t get any information off the computers. She’s not one of the Agency’s finest. That’s who we want.” He flexed his hands. “I need to go feed before heading back to my territory. Your permission to feed here?”

  Remus bowed his head. “Tessa might be willing, if not, check with the succubus. I’m sure she has some willing sirens.”

  “I’ll do that. Thank you.” Zeek bowed his head. “I’ll see you next time there’s a crisis.”

  Remus chuckled “Let’s hope that’s not too soon.”

  Zeek walked out without responding. The paranormal mob was a mess, especially now that the humans knew about them. For years they penetrated and took over mob activities from the humans and used them to their advantages. Then the Agency came around and started fracturing the mob, sometimes with spies on the inside and sometimes with outside influences. Either way, the mob had to get their shit together.

  From the outside, everything seemed evil, wrong. But what the humans didn’t know was that the mob was keeping the balance. And the balance between good and evil was very important.

  Skye didn’t stop running until she made it to her house. She scurried into the cat door she’d installed for herself and shifted back as soon as she got into the living room. He’d let her go. All because she truly believed that the Agency wanted to get the drugs off the street and that’s why they wanted the info. So why did he want her to look into the Agency?

  “Did you complete your mission?”

  The male voice had her spinning around. She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Travis, you could have at least mentioned you were here.”

  “I expected you to smell me when you got home. You always complain that I smell like wolf.”

  He pushed off the wall. His blond hair had been gelled away from his hazel eyes. His slim jaw locked, waiting for her answer. She shook her head and grabbed her robe off the back of the couch. “I was distracted.”

  “Apparently.” He put a hand over hers. “Why so quick to cover up?”

  She shook his hand off. “If you came here for a late night booty call, I’m afraid you’ve picked the wrong night.” She slid into the plush red robe. “Besides, you made it clear when I joined the Agency that we could no longer be in a relationship. Conflict of interest, I believe is what you called it.” She tied the sash. “Now, no, I didn’t complete the mission.” What else was she supposed to say about it? She couldn’t tell him that she was captured and let go.

  “You’re hiding something, Skye.” He spun her around to face him. “What happened?”

  “I was interrupted while getting into the system. There was some type of meeting going on, and a vampire walked into the server room.” No lying here, just omitting information. It wasn’t going to give off the same type of physical reaction lying would. So she hoped.

  “You escaped?”

  For a moment there was a bit of worry in his eyes, and she caught a glimpse of the man she knew before. “Yes, back out the vent I came in.”

  “You need to go back. The Agency needs those files.”

  She turned away from him and sat down. “What do they plan on doing with the information?”

  “Use it to bring down the drug lords.”

  There was a slight tremor in his heart when he spoke. “And from there?”

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the Agency is out to help. It’s not smart to question them.” He sat down next to her.

  “Maybe they should inform and train their employees better.” She shot back without thinking then let out a sigh. “Sorry, it’s been a long night. I need to get some rest.”

  “Yes, you’ll have a debriefing in the morning to go over what happened tonight. You’ll want to be well rested for that.” He stood. “Don’t forget Skye; you need this job.”

  He let himself out and she got up to lock the door behind him. The wolf was the reason she got the job, they’d been dating at the time, but now there had been a change in him. Something colder that came out to play since she learned he worked for the Agency.

  She walked over to her table and sorted through the mail, bills, bills, more bills. Some junk mail. Advertisements for voting for paranormal rights or against paranormal rights. The world was a mess as they learned paranormal creatures existed. She tossed the junk in the trash and opened a statement from her mortgage company. One payment behind and they were already sending her letters.

>   She closed her eyes and sighed. She needed to not let the vampire’s words get to her. The Agency was the good guy; they were working to help the paranormal creatures, to get the crime rate down, to show the humans that they weren’t all evil. She double checked her door and then went to bed. Things would look brighter in the morning.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The only thing that was brighter that morning was the sky. Skye laid in bed, soaking in the rays. The alarm went off thirty minutes before, but she couldn’t find the motivation to get out of bed yet. The warm blankets wrapped around her and the soft mattress hugged her, mixed with the sun, it was the perfect combination to not give any fucks for the day and sleep.

  The chirping of her phone cut through the silence and ruined the moment. She swiped it up and answered it without looking at the screen. “Skye Lannister speaking.”

  “Your briefing is in an hour, I do hope you’re ready to come in.” Travis’ voice came across the receiver. “I thought we could carpool today.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that. There was something in his voice that was unreadable. “I can drive myself, thanks.”

  “Are you sure? Isn’t your car up for repo?”

  She tried not to growl. “No, I worked it out with the loan people. It’s none of your business anyways.”

  “Just let me drive you. I’ll bring you coffee.”

  Coffee. The way to her heart and the way to bribe her. “Fine, I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes.” She hung up and rolled herself out of bed. A quick shower and blow dry of her dark hair, put on clothes, and she was ready to go.

  She scrolled through social media on her phone, sitting on her porch until Travis pulled up in his red Camaro. She jumped in.

  He put a packet in her lap and then motioned to the cup holder. “Coffee and some light reading.”

  “What is this?”

  “It’s the training you asked for last night. You want further into the Agency; this is where you start.” He gunned the engine, the tires squealing as he pulled into the road. “It talks about high-security clearances and background checks, of course with working as a government-contracted IT person, you shouldn’t have any problems with passing that.”

  She snorted. “As long as it doesn’t matter what I am.”

  “No, the Agency prefers paranormal people on their payroll. You’re safe there.”

  She started flipping through the papers, glancing over the words. “Blood tests?”

  “Yeah, they compare it to the DNA that they have on some of the mafia members, to make sure you aren’t related in anyway. You know, members of the families and some of the packs can’t be trusted in the Agency.”

  Interesting. She didn’t think it would matter since the Agency was there to police all creatures, not just the mob. “As far as I know, I have no mob connections.”

  “Good. Once your clearances come through and you successfully complete your mission, then you’ll have your initiation and you’ll learn the interworking.”

  He put a hand on her knee. “Just know that once you’re in, there’s no way out.”

  “As long as the paycheck is good.” She muttered and reached for the coffee. “You talk like it’s some big secret club.”

  He smirked. “Maybe it is, fox, maybe it is.”

  The way he said fox reminded her of the vampire from last night. What had his name been? Zeek. That’s right. He’d been the one to put the firewall up and keep her out.

  “Fox?” Travis asked, pulling her attention back to whatever he was babbling about.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you prepared to explain that you failed your mission?”

  “Yeah, I think I am.” Her stomach twisted in knots. She didn’t want to screw this up. “Are they going to fire me?”

  He snorted. “No, you might get put on desk work, but no they won’t fire you. I can’t believe they sent you out that early anyways.”

  “It was supposed to be a hacking job.” She muttered. “But their firewall was too good. So I was told to go onsite and do whatever it took to get those files.”

  He hmmed for a moment. “Yeah, they’ll probably just put you back on a desk job maybe hacking some easier things.”

  “Yeah, I hope so.” She watched the buildings go by until they came to the center of downtown. They got out and she followed Travis into the tall office building. It reminded her of the mob’s building, just a few stories shorter and full of life. People bustled around the lobby, some with bounds of paperwork in their arms, many of them talking on phones, and some just rushing from place to place.

  They all had their own part to play, and Skye wondered for a moment if this was really where she needed to be. Being here would let her help her kind, take down the evil in her world, and make it a safer place for paranormals and humans to live together in harmony.

  “They aren’t what they seem.” Zeek’s voice echoed in her head. Just words trying to make her doubt everything, she knew that and yet…it worked. She’d jumped into this job head first because it met her skill set and she needed a paycheck. Maybe she jumped in a little too fast.

  She glanced at the hustle of the building. The Agency was supposed to be only a few years old, yet it ran like a well-oiled machine. Missions in place, information on the mob that could only be gathered from years of intel, and a well-established reputation in the human world already. Maybe that was just a little suspect.

  “Skye?” Travis’ voice caught her off guard. “You’re due in the office in ten minutes. You better head up there.”

  She nodded and walked to the elevators. She pressed the button and thought back to the office building that the mob used. What the hell was Zeek on about? Why would her assumption of why the Agency wanted the data tip him off to something?

  She rode up to the top floor and walked down the hall. Awards she'd never bothered to look at when she was here for her interview plastered the white walls. Now she found herself questioning every detail, all because of a vampire telling her to.

  She’d lost her damn mind.

  She came to dark wooden doors that hid the top office behind it. She knocked and permission to enter echoed from the other side. She opened the door and closed it gently behind her. The room was surrounded by huge windows looking out over the city. A woman sat in a tall office chair staring at Skye.

  Emily Brooke ran this branch of the agency, and Skye had only met the tall woman once, back when she had her interview. The woman’s appearance seemed slightly different this time, maybe the shape of the jaw, or the eyes. Something was different for sure, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  “Travis told me that you failed your mission.” Her voice was soft but held the sharp tone of a disappointed adult talking to a child.

  “I was interrupted by a vampire while I was trying to get into their system.” Skye tried not to cross her arms and become defensive. “I hadn’t expected anyone to be there, nevermind checking on the server room.”

  The woman made a noise of disapproval, somewhere between a snort and a short laugh. “Did you learn anything at all?”

  “Nothing on the drug lords like you wanted. They were having some sort of meeting though. There was a room with several different paranormals and a secretary there.” She wasn’t sure if that counted as useful, but she thought she’d try. Maybe it would save her job.

  Emily leaned back in her chair and turned to face the skyline. The skyscrapers laid against a smoked sky but hid the filth below. “How many?”

  “Six or so? There was a guy who had swirling eyes at the head of the table. One of the men called him ‘boss.’”

  Emily cursed. “If I had known he was in town, I would have sent a changeling, not a newbie like you.” She snapped. “Now they know that we’re after information.”

  Skye hadn’t said anything about getting caught. “I saw them while I was in my fox form.” It wasn’t a lie, she had been in fox form, but she wasn’t going to expand on it, or that would have made it
a lie.

  “Very well, but chances are they knew you were there. Try hacking their system again, if you need help, get one of the other hackers from IT. I want that information by midnight. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now go. I don’t want to hear anything else about this failed mission. Just make it right.”

  Skye’s heart jumped in her chest. “Of course. I’ll do what I can.” She spun and left.

  “Oh, and Skye, if I find out that you’re lying to me, then you better be prepared to face the consequences.”

  She nodded and walked out of the office. That was such an odd way to put it, but she wasn’t going to turn around and ask questions right now. She rushed back to the elevator and hit the button for the third level where her office was.

  She plugged away all day trying to get into the server without setting off Zeek’s digital alarms. Every way she turned she ran into something else. There had to be another way into the system that she wasn’t thinking of, and going back to the physical location wasn’t an option. A little black box popped up on her screen and she cursed. She set a trace on the IP address before reading the box.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be looking into something else? -Zeek’

  The trace came back with a physical address, and she moved the cursor to respond to his message. The computer shut down with a whirling noise, leaving her staring at a black screen.

  “For the love of all that is fucking holy.” She went to power the system back up, with the whirl of the hard drive a new message appeared on the screen. “No boot system detected” The bastard had hacked her back and erased everything.

  “Hey, you ready to go?” Travis peeked into her office.

  She sighed. “No. My computer crashed. I have to fix it and see what I lost. You go ahead; I’ll call a taxi.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I need to make sure to get the system back up. Emily demanded the information by midnight.” She picked up her phone to call the IT help desk. Zeek had known she’d try again. Did that mean he knew she wasn’t going to listen to him about looking into the agency?