by Amelia Jade
The man gasped and pried at his fingers, but Justin only squeezed tighter, his grip stronger than a vise.
“Where are they keeping her?” he roared again, pulling the man forward and slamming him back into the wall.
By that time the others had recovered from their shock and worked to separate him from Shay’s father. The human fell to the ground, color returning to his face as he gasped, tenderly holding his neck. Justin could already see marks forming there where he had choked him.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Jared growled, eyes blazing as he got in front of him, muscles in his neck bulging with anger as he stared down his charge.
Justin didn’t speak, but he didn’t back down from Jared’s glare either. His only concern was finding Shay as fast as possible, by whatever means necessary.
A soft voice somehow managed to make itself heard. “Wait.”
All eyes spun to focus on Shay’s father, now pushing himself up against the battered wall. “Wait,” he repeated. His voice was a little stronger this time. “I deserved that,” he said after clearing his throat with a wince. “Hell, I probably deserve a lot more than that,” he said, trying to stand, but his arms were too shaky to propel him.
Josh leaned over and helped him to his feet, then grabbed the chair and gave it back to him, but the Agent waved him off.
Agent? Former Agent?
“What are you doing here?” Justin asked, shouldering his way past Jared, but doing so calmly to show he was no longer going to beat up the man.
“They have Shay,” he said without preamble.
“Yeah, not news,” Justin said. “Try again.”
“I know where they have her.”
He stood up straight. “Better. Where?”
The man shook his head. “Not without a few promises first.”
“You want to make a deal?” Jared asked, speaking before Justin could.
The Agent nodded. “I’ll tell you all I know about the Agency—which I’m warning you now isn’t much—and in exchange you rescue Shay, and you go easy on me.”
“Done,” Justin said before anyone could say otherwise. “Where are they holding her?”
“How do we know we can trust you?” Jared asked a split second later, glaring over at him.
Justin just shrugged, but he let his leader proceed. It was a valid question.
The man swallowed, grimacing in pain as he did, but Justin didn’t feel any remorse from knowing he had caused that pain.
“After I fled the warehouse, I thought about what this one had told me,” he said with a nod in Justin’s direction. “Before I could make up my mind on where to go, one of my very few friends called me. He told me that a woman had been asking after me at one of our facilities, and that she was being held until I could come identify her. After a few questions on what she looked like, I realized it could only be Shay. So I came right here. Justin had promised money and protection if I left the Agency and kept Shay safe. It was my only option.”
“What facility?” Justin prodded once more.
The Agent looked up at him. “The Shipyard.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Connor shouted at the same time Justin spun and drove his fist into the wall.
“I’m really beginning to hate that place,” he growled, visions of Shay being tossed over the side running through his head.
“Agreed,” Jared said, leaning back. “It’s been a thorn in our sides for a long time now.”
The door opened just then to admit Madison, Arianna, and Ajax. They were quickly brought up to speed on what they had found out from the former Agent.
“What else can you tell us?” Madison asked, crossing her arms as she leaned against the wall, evaluating the man.
Justin turned his own gaze on him as well.
“The big boss, the guy who runs it all, he’s in town,” he said at last, having met all of their eyes first, likely trying to gauge if he should just lay all his cards on the table or not.
“We knew that already,” Justin said, banging his fist angrily onto a countertop. “We need more. What can you tell us about the Agency as a whole? How did you get recruited into it, for example? We’ve always wondered how it seems to have so many men at its disposal.”
“They aren’t as limitless as you might believe,” he replied with a ghost of a smile. “You’ve certainly put a big dent into their manpower over the past few months. But they get the majority of their new recruits—and all of the Extremis teams—from men who wash out of the military for psychological problems.”
“Great,” Jared said without hesitation. “They’re hiring the psychopaths who want to murder people. That’s just great.” He shrugged. “Makes sense though.”
Justin wandered into the common room attached to the kitchen and all but threw himself down into a spot on the couch. The metal frame creaked under his size, but it held, the dark brown leather adjusting to hold him comfortably after a few seconds.
“So, what do we do?” he asked firmly, making sure everyone knew they would be doing something.
“I say we wipe it off the map,” Madison said strongly. “We already took out their warehouse after the rescue mission. Which, Justin, since you left early, you’ll be glad to know was a success after all. With that burnt to a crisp, if we do the same to the Shipyard, we’ll have put a serious dent into the Agency’s operations here in King City.”
Shay’s father perked up at that. “This is the Agency,” he said.
“What?” No single voice spoke, it was a mixture of all of them.
“If you eliminate J and their presence here, to my knowledge you will eliminate the Agency, or at least reduce its effectiveness to zero. There are no other bastions outside of King City. That headquarters building downtown is it.”
The other people in the room stared at each other in shock. They had assumed that King City was just one of the stopping points, that they would have to eliminate cells in any number of cities. To be told that King City was it was a huge boost to morale no matter how it was looked at.
Ajax spoke at last. “The Coleforn Shipyards are built like a fortress,” he said cautiously. “Assaulting there would result in heavy casualties. We might not even be able to breach the gate. I must caution against this plan.”
“You don’t have to come,” Shay’s father said.
Justin snorted. “You aren’t coming yourself. Sorry, but you’re staying here under guard until we get back. If you lied to us, you can trust that I’ll be coming for you myself, and I’ll be putting aside any convictions I may have about killing.” His eyes narrowed into slits until the former Agent nodded and sat back quietly.
“This is a bad idea,” Connor said. “Getting in there is going to be tough.
“I have an idea,” Justin said with a smile, a plan beginning to form in his head.
“You do?” Madison asked, looking over at him.
He nodded.
“What is it?”
His grin turned almost evil. “Can your contacts that got you the minivan get you anything bigger?”
Chapter Fifteen
Shay
The plan that was swirling around in her head finally coalesced with a selfish thought.
Why hadn’t Justin rescued her yet?
It was absurd. Preposterous. Completely inconceivable that he would rescue her. Sure, they shared a bond.
It’s more than that, it—
“Not right now, I’m plotting,” she muttered aloud to herself. She couldn’t let herself dwell on her feelings for Justin. Not until she got herself out from the utterly moronic predicament she’d gone and gotten herself into in the first place, by being too damn stubborn for her own good.
It all centered back on that line though.
He hadn’t rescued her yet. He had left her here so that she could be at the mercy of the Agency. Justin was a player who used his good looks to get whatever he wanted, and now that he’d gotten what he wanted from her, she was just being cast off and l
eft to drown on her own.
It was a little over the top, but Shay thought she could make it work. Possibly.
She walked over to the door and rapped lightly on it three times, trying to make her motions as ladylike as possible, instead of clubbing it with her fist as hard as she could, which is what she wanted to do.
Patience. I need patience and excellent manners. Be polite to the devil when he enters your home.
Outside her porthole the sun was setting, and her room had become draped in shadow quite quickly. She wondered if she could get a light brought in, or if that would be too much.
The door opened several minutes later, sliding aside to admit Mr. Gray, as she had taken to calling him. He entered with graceful ease, sketching her a short bow, as if to mock the fact that he was actually in control of her.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“I want to make a deal,” she said bluntly.
Gray frowned. “We already have a deal in place.”
Shay shook her head. “New deal, dependent on your answer to one question.”
The scar stretched across his face even further as he narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “I make no promises to anything, but in the context of good manners, I will listen to your question.”
She smiled, dipping her head in thanks, trying to remember to be polite. It wouldn’t work if she let her temper get the best of her.
“Has he come for me yet?”
Gray opened his mouth, then closed it, looking at her. Shay had tried to inflect the right amount of patience and irritation in her voice, acting as if she couldn’t believe she was still there. Gray picked up on that, and she saw the gears turning in his head as he realized she was seriously contemplating betraying Justin and the others.
“No,” he said, and she detected no hint of a lie. “They did spoil a trap I had set for them earlier, in a manner to which I must give them credit, but I can honestly say no attempt has been made to retrieve you, my dear.”
Shay nodded thoughtfully. “Figures,” she said, crossing her arms unhappily. “I wondered, after he dropped me off this morning. His attitude was quite different. I guess he was just ready to throw me back in the pond and go after another one.”
“So you will make the call?” Gray asked, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a phone.
“What makes you so sure my father still has his phone on him?” she asked.
Gray shrugged. “Nothing, but call it a gut feeling.”
She frowned. “Okay, but let’s up the ante here.”
The bushy black eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch at her confident tone. “I’m listening,” he said, then rocked back on the heels of his shoes and waited.
“Not with you,” she told him, playing her—hopeful—trump card.
Gray blinked.
Internally Shay celebrated, pumping her fist as he revealed what she had hoped.
He wasn’t the boss.
She wasn’t sure what had tipped her off to that fact, but she had vaguely become cognizant of the fact that, although he may be in a position of command, he wasn’t the guy.
“Who, exactly, do you plan on telling then?” he said coolly, trying to play it off, but they both knew it was too late.
“Whoever’s yacht this is,” she said, spreading her hands.
“And what makes you think that he would deign to speak with you?” Gray asked, conceding the point without further argument.
Whatever he was, he was smart, and Shay began to wonder if he was already planning something else, something she wasn’t seeing.
“Shifter-boy talks in his sleep,” she said with a sneer. “There were a few things that he let slip that didn’t make sense to me then, but make more now, and probably would be clear as day if you heard them.”
“You’ll have to give me something to go to him with,” Gray said.
Shay frowned. He had a point. So shit, what the hell did she have? Her entire plan had been to get to meet the boss to either open up an avenue of escape, to try and kill him, or to stall for more time. Not necessarily in that order.
But if she were to see him, she had to give up something. How could she do that without endangering Justin? There had to be something! She thought furiously, going over every individual conversation and statement she had had with Justin about his team.
“Anything?” Gray prodded.
The problem here was she didn’t actually know anything. So, that led to the question, how could she make it sound like she knew something they would want to know? What would they want to know? What information could she hint at knowing that they would be interested in?
Their headquarters. The base of their enemy, a place they could strike at Justin and his friends. That would be tantalizing. It had to be.
“I know where to find their headquarters,” she said at last, trying to sound reluctant at giving up even that bit of information.
“And where would that be?” he pressed.
She snorted audibly, the sound echoing off the walls around them. “Do you seriously think I’m that dumb?” she asked. “Bring me your boss first. I’ll talk to him. Not you.”
Gray smirked. “We shall see. Don’t forget though, confident as you may be now, that you sneaked in here. We didn’t have to do anything to capture you.”
Shay had seen that one coming, and didn’t acknowledge the remark. Instead, she just made a shooing motion toward the door.
Gray laughed aloud and nodded at her. “You certainly had me fooled,” he admitted, heading toward the door. “When you first got here, I thought you just a weak little thing. Perhaps there is an inner fire in you after all.”
“You have no idea,” she said, fire burning in her voice as she sat back against the wall, waiting for him to return.
To her surprise, he was back in less than ten minutes, as best she could judge.
“Come,” he said brusquely, with little of the politeness he had shown earlier.
Trying to conceal her frown at the change in his demeanor, she followed him from the room, and then off the yacht entirely.
Where is he taking me? Shay had assumed all along that his boss was on the yacht. What she had seen before being shoved inside her prison cell was rather opulent. Far too fancy for her own tastes, that was for sure.
As she was pushed forcefully onto the pier, she saw an expensive-looking silver SUV pull through the gate in the distance and head down the pier toward them. Gray must have called his boss. That was how he got such a quick answer.
Things seemed to be moving so fast now that Shay wasn’t sure what to expect to happen next. Her bluffs so far had all paid off, and now she was going to get the meeting she wanted with the big boss.
Wanted? I think we’re being a little hasty here. I don’t want to meet him at all! But if I can keep stalling, hopefully I can come up with another plan to help keep me alive.
Shay was under no preconceptions about the ruthlessness of these men. Justin had killed their men, and made it clear that a war was being waged in King City between his team and this Agency. At night, the back alleys and abandoned buildings was where they fought and killed each other regularly. The death of one more person, a woman nobody knew from out of town, wouldn’t even make them blink. She had to tread carefully, and hope that whatever it was her father seemed to know would be enough to keep her alive when this plan fell through. If it could be called a plan.
They walked along the pier to where the SUV had stopped.
“Couldn’t it have come to us?” she complained. “It would have been faster.”
Gray smiled coldly. “I do not tell Mr. J what to do. If he chooses to stop there, then there is a reason for it.”
A chill ran down her spine at the way he referred to his boss. The reverence and respect in his voice almost masked something else, something that she was sure Gray would prefer she didn’t know.
Almost.
He was afraid of this J. Not just nervous, but flat-out terrified of him. Whi
ch meant that Shay should be going away from him. Not toward him. She was scared of Gray—whatever his real name was—let alone his boss. What was it about this man that made him so intimidating to his employees?
Her stomach tightened into knots as they neared and the rear door opened. From inside a man lithely stepped out, his every move a thing of grace and beauty. There was something raw and powerful about his grace that made her shudder. It was equal parts a dancer’s fluidity combined with the all-powerful look of a god.
“What are you?” she whispered as his unnatural orange-brown eyes locked on to her.
The man smiled, the whites of his perfectly ordered teeth so brilliant it was almost blinding.
“Why, what does it look like I am?” he asked, eliciting a more powerful tremor within her at the sound of his voice, a mixture between the powerful roar of a waterfall and the silky smoothness of some sort of fantasy creature.
She just stared until he responded with a slightly disappointed tone.
“I am human, just like you,” he said, spreading his arms wide. Then he winked at her and added. “Well, maybe not quite like you.”
“That’s for sure,” she said softly, surprised at her own confidence.
It apparently caught Mr. J off guard as well. He rocked back slightly, fixing another smile in place. “Why, you were right, Cronin. She does have spirit in her. I like her,” he said, clasping his hands together in front of him. “Come, sit inside,” he said with a gesture at the vehicle behind him.
Shay hesitated, looking around furtively, trying to seek any source of escape. All she could see were containers to the left of her, and water to the right. There was the yacht and the speedboats next to it, but they may as well be on the other side of the world at that distance. She would never get there in time. Even if she could, she noticed a big cargo ship was anchored very close in the middle of the harbor. Getting past that would be a nightmare as well.
“Inside,” Gray—no, Cronin, she corrected—said and shoved her forward none too gently.
The force of his push made her stumble and she banged into the open door hard enough to open a cut on her arm. “Ow,” she muttered, shaking the limb slightly.
