Her Rogue Alpha (X-Ops Book 5)

by Paige Tyler

  Hayes’s eyes narrowed when he saw them. Ending his call, he shoved his cell phone in his pocket and intercepted them before they got within ten feet of the body. “The DHS make it a habit of checking out every floater who washes up on the shore of the Potomac?”

  Landon returned his gaze calmly. “Only those who seem to interest a very particular Metro PD burglary detective.”

  Hayes frowned. “You two following me or something?”

  “Hardly,” Ivy said. “Our computers flag certain things from the Internet, newspapers, TV, and radio—including the MPD police channel. When your name popped up saying you were headed to a crime scene with a dead body, we thought it might have something to do with the theft at Thorn’s place.”

  Hayes stared at her in amazement. “That’s either the most efficient use of government assets—or the creepiest. Either way, I think those conspiracy people out there worrying about Big Brother watching them might be onto something.”

  “What’s the deal with the floater?” Landon asked, changing the subject.

  Hayes hesitated, then motioned them forward with a jerk of his chin. She and Landon followed him over to the body lying on a plastic sheet ten feet from the edge of the river. Ivy knew from experience that the longer a body was in the water, the more its natural scent was washed away. Since she could still pick it up, that meant the guy hadn’t been in the water for very long—three or four hours at the most.

  The detective nodded to the medical examiner crouched down beside the body. “Give us a minute.”

  The woman eyed Ivy and Landon for a moment, then nodded and walked off, leaving them alone with Hayes.

  “Joggers found him early this morning,” Hayes explained. “The officers who responded thought it might be a mugging, but he still had his license and wallet on him. When his name popped up as a known fence of stolen jewels, they called me.”

  Ivy crouched down beside the dead man, wincing as she saw how badly he’d been beaten. Despite being in the water for hours, there was no mistaking the bruising, swelling, and abrasions on his face. Someone had worked him over good. She surreptitiously leaned in a bit closer, hoping to pick up a trace scent of whoever had beaten him up, but couldn’t pick up anything. While the victim’s scent still lingered, everything else had been washed away.

  “Damn,” Landon breathed. “It looks like someone went at his fingers with a meat cleaver.”

  Ivy looked at the man’s hands—and wished she hadn’t. Someone had hacked off his fingers with a sharp-bladed instrument. At first, she thought the killer had done it to hide the victim’s identity, but that didn’t make sense, since they hadn’t taken his ID. They hadn’t taken all his fingers either, but instead cut off one or two segments from each. Whoever had done it looked like they’d been trying to inflict as much pain as possible.

  “Someone cut off his fingers to torture him,” Hayes said as if reading her mind.

  At the detective’s soft words, Ivy looked up to see him regarding the dead man sadly.

  “His name is Rory Keefe,” he said. “He handled most of the high-end stolen merchandise in this town. Never could pin anything on him though. Or get him to flip on anyone either. I talked to him yesterday about the diamond stolen from Thorn. He claimed he didn’t know anything about it, but I was in the process of putting a detail on him anyway. Guess I don’t need to bother now.”

  Ivy was surprised to hear genuine regret in the detective’s voice about a man who was a well-known criminal. Maybe Hayes was more complex than she’d given him credit for.

  “Did you notice anyone following you when you stopped in to talk to Keefe?” Landon asked.

  Hayes looked at him sharply. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re naive enough to think that Keefe ending up dead little more than twelve hours after you questioned him is a coincidence,” Landon said.

  “Are you trying to say someone followed me to Keefe’s place, then grabbed him and did this?” Hayes demanded. “Who the hell would do that?”

  When Landon didn’t answer, Hayes looked at Ivy.

  “You’re a detective,” she said softly. “It shouldn’t be that hard to figure out.”

  She and Landon had to make it look like they worked for Thorn, so they couldn’t say anything that could get back to the former senator, but at the same time, they needed to warn Hayes.

  Torturing Keefe and dumping his body where anyone could find it wasn’t only reckless, but it also seemed completely out of character for the same Thomas Thorn who was behind the hybrids. That man was cold and calculating; this one seemed desperate. She didn’t doubt he was responsible for Keefe’s murder though. It only made her even more convinced the shifter had stolen something way more valuable than a diamond.

  The detective looked around and lowered his voice. “Are you saying Thorn had his people do this just to get a family heirloom back?”

  Ivy didn’t say anything in answer to the detective’s question. Neither did Landon. Their silence spoke volumes though.

  “You might want to reconsider tracking down the thief,” Landon suggested.

  Hayes shook his head. “That’s not something I can do.”

  “Then spend more time reading through old case files and less time laying a trail of breadcrumbs to every viable suspect in the city,” Landon said. “Unless you like finding them dead.”

  “Of course I don’t want anybody dead.” Hayes clenched his jaw. “But you know it’s not that simple. I work for people. They expect me to figure out who did this and bring them in—fast. The fact that Thorn is a former senator and a major MPD supporter only makes it worse. If Thorn’s people are really out there grabbing any suspect they can get their hands on, the best thing I can do is catch the real thief as quickly as possible so I can protect them long enough for him to get his damn diamond back.”

  Landon glanced down at Keefe, then back at Hayes. “That’s a risky way to play it. You could end up getting this thief tortured and killed if you don’t move fast enough.”

  “Then I’ll move fast enough,” Hayes ground out. “I’m working through a list of the best second-story thieves in this city. If one of them did it, I’ll know the moment I talk to them. In fact, I’ve questioned two of them already—one late last night, the other this morning.”

  Landon exchanged looks with Ivy. She knew exactly what he was thinking because she was thinking it too. While they might not have had plans to let Thorn get within a hundred miles of the shifter, Braden Hayes was in full bloodhound mode. He was going to lead Thorn right to her.

  “Well, if that’s the case, maybe you’d better check in on those other suspects you already talked to,” Landon said, nodding at the corpse. “If they’re not already in the river, that is.”

  * * *

  Jayson leaned against the side of a stone building, his breath coming out in a fog in the early morning air. Dylan stood beside him, looking anxious. Layla, Mikhail, and Olek were across the street, chatting with a small group of Ukrainians. Mikhail and Olek were doing most of the talking, but with her dark hair and exotic looks, Layla could easily have passed for a local. He and Dylan, on the other hand, not so much. Which was why they’d been relegated to security duty, instead of helping snoop for information on where Anya was being held.

  He tensed as a trio of militia soldiers slowly walked past Layla and the others. The men didn’t stop, though one of them eyeballed Layla openly. Jayson slid his hand behind his back to grip the pistol hidden under his jacket. If the soldier decided to cause trouble, he’d be across the street in a flash. But the man only let out a loud wolf whistle and continued on his way. A few moments later, he and his buddies disappeared around the next corner. Jayson relaxed, slouching against the brick building again.

  Jayson looked around and noticed that he wasn’t the only one who’d been tense when the soldie
rs had sauntered by. Everyone else on the street seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when they left too. It was kind of surreal in a way. On the surface, this city looked almost normal—if you overlooked all the damage caused by rocket warheads and artillery shells. People moved up and down the sidewalks, cars drove along the streets, businesses advertised their wares in bright window displays. But beneath the surface, the city was on edge. Every single person he saw seemed to have one eye looking over their shoulders, as if they expected trouble at any moment. And from the number of poorly concealed guns Jayson had seen as they walked around town, it was easy to see that Donetsk was a tinderbox waiting for the match to set it ablaze.

  Jayson turned his attention to Layla and the two teens again. She’d tried to talk him into staying at the library and giving his leg a little more time to heal, but he’d nixed that the moment he heard her plan to come out here with the kids and help them track down Anya. Things may have seemed calm in the city right then, but it could change any moment. He’d finally gotten himself in position to be Layla’s partner. He sure as hell wasn’t going to sit on his ass and let her walk around Donetsk without protection—without him. If his leg started bleeding again, he’d deal with it.

  Beside him, Dylan shifted a little against the wall, his frustration obvious. He wasn’t thrilled to be stuck there with Jayson instead of helping find his girlfriend, but he hadn’t fought them when they’d said it was too risky. The kid was smart enough to know that his accent alone would be enough to tell everyone within ten feet that he wasn’t a local. He chafed at the short leash, but he dealt with it. He was a lot smarter and more mature than Jayson had ever been at his age.

  “I miss being able to talk to Anya at night before going to bed,” Dylan said suddenly. He’d taken a colorful scarf from the pocket of his jacket and was lovingly gliding his fingers along the silky material. “Back in Kiev, I’d hang out at her house until her parents chased me off at night. Then we’d talk on the phone for hours until we fell asleep. I hadn’t realized how much of a routine that had turned into until she wasn’t around for me to talk to. I haven’t slept worth a crap since she was taken.”

  Jayson felt for the younger man. He was no stranger to sleepless nights himself. Up until last night, at least. Despite the soreness in his back caused by the thin piece of carpet scrap he laughingly called a mattress, he’d slept better than he had since he’d gotten injured. And it was all because Layla had been beside him. They’d laid together in his bed back in DC before, but it had always felt different, like they’d both been holding back and keeping each other at arm’s length. But everything had changed last night, and whatever it was that had been between them was gone now. Jayson could feel it in the comfortable way they’d cuddled close without having to say anything, the way Layla’s fingers had laced together with his when he’d pulled her against his chest, and the way she’d murmured sexily when his mouth had traced a good night kiss along the back of her neck as she fell asleep.

  “How long have you and Anya been together?” Jayson asked Dylan, pulling himself back to the present. It felt wrong to think about how great things were going with Layla when Dylan didn’t even know if Anya was alive.

  Dylan smiled. “We’ve been dating pretty seriously for over a year. I’ve even talked to my dad about me staying in Kiev to go to one of the international colleges with her when he moves to his next state department posting. Dad’s worried about me, but he gets that I couldn’t do the long-distance relationship thing with her. Being away from her would kill me.”

  Jayson glanced at Layla. He could sympathize with that. “How did she get grabbed?”

  “We were down near the RSA,” he said, then added, “the regional state administrative building. It’s the local militia headquarters these days. We planned on taking a few pictures and maybe talking to some people, but then antimilitia protestors showed up and started chanting. Everything was really chill and no one was causing any trouble. It didn’t seem like that big of a deal, so Anya and Mikhail headed across the street to take videos for his blog.”

  Dylan paused, gazing off in the distance as some memory played through his head. He swallowed hard. “It went bad so fast,” he said brokenly. “One second, there were less than twenty antimilitia protestors chanting peacefully. The next thing I knew, the whole street in front of the RSA was flooded with people shouting at the soldiers along the front of the building. I don’t even know where they came from, but they got violent, and it wasn’t long before they started throwing things at the building. That’s when even more soldiers came out of the RSA and started hitting people with the butts of their rifles. Then it got really ugly. More protesters came running, then more soldiers.”

  “You couldn’t reach Anya?” Jayson prompted when it became obvious that the teen was lost in his memories.

  Dylan shook his head. “I tried. Olek did too. But there were too many people in the streets running around. By the time we got over there, Mikhail was in a fight with three militia soldiers who were trying to drag him away. Olek and I jumped in and got him free, but Anya was gone.” He held up the scarf. “All that was left was this. It must have fallen out of her hair. She loves wearing colorful things in her hair. She says it makes her feel like a bohemian.”

  “Did Mikhail see her get grabbed?” Jayson asked.

  Dylan nodded. “Mikhail said she was one of the first people the soldiers took, like they’d known all along that she was ethnic Ukrainian.”

  “What does the militia usually do with people they arrest, especially ones they think are pro-Ukrainian?”

  Dylan’s fingers tightened reflexively on the scarf. “Anything they want. There’s no one around here with the authority or power to stand up to them. They answer to no one but themselves. It’s the reason we came here in the first place, so people could see how out of control they are. They could lock her in prison for a year or ten years, or they could execute her. All without a trial or anything.”

  He smacked the stone wall with the palm of his hand. “I should have been with her, dammit! But I let her talk me into staying in the background with Olek. She was worried that if the militia soldiers saw me, they’d know I was American and arrest me for being a spy. It’s my fault they grabbed her. If I’d been there—”

  “Those soldiers might have killed you,” Jayson said softly as an older couple walking down the street turned to look in their direction. “And Anya would have no one looking for her.”

  Dylan’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t say anything.

  “So, how do you know Olek and Mikhail?” Jayson asked. Time to change the subject again before Dylan got upset and attracted too much attention.

  Dylan didn’t say anything for so long, Jayson thought he might have to repeat the question.

  “I’ve known Olek since my dad and I first moved to Kiev three years ago. He was actually the one who introduced me to Anya. They’ve known each other since they were little kids. They’re more like brother and sister than friends.” Dylan shook his head. “What happened to her is as hard on him as it is on me.”

  “And Mikhail?” Jayson asked. “What’s his story?”

  Dylan shrugged. “I never even talked to him in person until we got here, just knew him by reputation. He’s a hacker and a blogger and has definitely pissed off a lot of the militia leaders by taking videos of them roughing up the local shopkeepers for money and beating people for no reason. If he’s ever caught, he’ll probably disappear even faster than a pro-Ukrainian sympathizer. And I can guarantee you that his body would never be seen again.”

  He fell silent and they both stood watching Layla, Mikhail, and Olek for a while.

  “Anya is the whole reason we came here, you know,” Dylan said quietly, fingering the scarf again. “It’s not that I was oblivious to all the horrible things going on here with the militia and what they’re doing, but it was Anya who got me to do something more than just
write a blog about it. That’s the kind of person she is. When everyone else is moaning and groaning about how bad things are, she’s coming up with a way to try to make it better. She’s the one who found Mikhail and got him involved, using his blog to get people back in Kiev to stop talking and start doing things. She knew how dangerous it was to come here, but she came anyway because she knew it was the only way to get people to really understand what was going on in their own backyard. More of our friends wanted to come with us, but she didn’t want to expose them to the risk, so we left in the middle of the night. Olek figured it out, of course, and followed.” He wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. “She was so worried about everyone else getting hurt, and she’s the one who got grabbed.”

  “We’re going to get her back, Dylan. I promise,” Jayson told him. “We’re not leaving here without her.”

  “If we can even find her.”

  “We’ll find her. Like I said, Layla is very good at tracking people. All we have to do is get her close, and she’ll lead us the rest of the way to Anya.”

  Dylan gave him a sidelong glance. “Layla is special, isn’t she?”

  Besides the growls and the iridescent-green eyes, Layla had put two of the kids on their asses like it was nothing last night. Dylan would have to be completely clueless not to suspect there was something unusual about her.

  “Yes,” Jayson said. “She’s very special.”

  “Are you guys a couple?”

  Jayson grinned. “Yeah, I guess we are.”

  “I figured,” Dylan said. “You seem completely different when you’re with her—more alive.”

  Damn. When he was Dylan’s age, he was oblivious to anything that didn’t come up and smack him across the face, but the kid was completely right. He did feel more alive when he was with Layla.

  “Are you guys getting married?” Dylan asked.

  Jayson couldn’t help but laugh. The kid definitely didn’t beat around the bush, did he? One thing was for sure: he was going to make a hell of a journalist someday—if he lived through this.