Secrets Inside Her: Running with the Devil Book Two

by Jasmin Quinn

  As he pulled into the parking lot of the shopping mall, Nika slowly sat up. “Where are we?” she mumbled groggily.

  “When’s the last time you slept?” Finn turned to look at her. Sleepy hazel eyes, disheveled hair, silky complexion, and full pouty lips. He looked away quickly as his thoughts strayed down back alleys he didn’t have time for right now.

  “I didn’t sleep last night. I didn’t dare. I went to your house –”

  “You went to my house?” Finn’s eyes shot back to her face in surprise.

  “Yes, your apartment, but you were not home. I knocked at the door, you did not answer, so I let myself in.”

  “How did you let yourself in?” He remembered the lock picks he found in Kelsie’s leather jacket when she first came to his precinct. “Don’t tell me you picked the lock?”

  “It’s not hard to pick a lock,” Nika said impatiently. “Any fool can do it.”

  “Huh. So, you just went in, no thought to the laws you were breaking. Obviously, you didn’t stay… please tell me you weren’t hiding in my closet all night.”

  Nika frowned at him, drawing her beautiful eyebrows together. “Of course I was not!” As if he’d said something absurd. “I only looked around a bit. I thought I could find out where you were. I found the printout of the ferry reservation and so I decided that would be the best way to connect with you. I found your gun, so I took it.”

  “You took my… what the hell… that’s my gun?” he pointed at the glove compartment.

  “Sorry, I am not generally a thief,” she said as Finn glared at her. “I just needed protection. I needed to be able to defend myself against these men that were after me.”

  “What men?” Finn asked exasperated.

  “I told I do not know their names. They are Russians though.”

  Of course they were, Finn thought as his anxiety ramped up. “Did they follow you to my place?” He needed to know if these Russians would put two and two together. He wasn’t going to place his parents in danger if the Russians connected the dots back to him. But Nika shook her head.

  “I lost them… or they lost me. I took the SkyTrain as far as I could and then a bus. After that, I walked to your place. When I left, I just walked around for most of the night trying to stay dry and then decided to go to the ferry and wait there. Which was stupid because they were probably watching.”

  “Resourceful little prat, aren’t you? Why did you leave my place?” Finn asked, an unexpected sliver of panic stabbed at his gut. She was an enigma. She seemed highly intelligent and yet, she had no street sense. Vancouver had a brutal side and he’d seen too much not to worry over what could have happened to her.

  “Because you are a cop.” Nika responded as if that statement cleared everything up and he was such an idiot to not understand.

  But he didn’t understand. “Wouldn’t me being a cop work to your advantage?”

  Nika sighed at her slow-witted pupil. “You are a cop, and you have used your gun to kill people. I was concerned that you might shoot me if you caught me inside your home.”

  Finn shook his head at Nika, exasperated. “First of all, I don’t kill people. I kill bad guys. And also, I tend not to shoot first and ask questions later.”

  Nika gazed at him clearly confused. “How could anyone shoot first and ask questions later?”

  “Forget it,” he said bluntly. “It’s too late to fix this.”

  Nika’s eyes suddenly reddened and a few tears rolled from her eyes.

  “What?” Finn’s irritation faltered as a sudden tenderness stole through him. He almost reached out and brushed her cheek. But at the same time, he wanted to shake her senseless for the danger she put herself in. A beautiful young woman wandering around Vancouver at night by herself. What the hell was wrong with her?

  “I am sorry.” Nika sniffled. “I am sorry that I invaded your home without a second thought to you. I’m sorry I stole your gun.”

  Finn looked at her in wonder. “Nika, you have no idea how pissed off I should be. Taking my gun from a safe that I thought was secure and well concealed. And now, I have it in my glove compartment, loaded, without the concealed weapons permit. If I got stopped, I’d be arrested. It would probably cost me my job.”

  Nika’s tears had dried and her mood seemed to shift as she listened impassively to Finn’s scolding. “There is a very slim chance of you getting stopped, so it is a very small risk. The gun would –”

  “And using it on me,” Finn cut her off. “You could have shot me.”

  Nika disagreed. “I would not have shot you. I just needed you to be compliant.”

  Finn barked out a laugh. “That worked well, didn’t it?”

  Nika’s face flushed in embarrassment as she dropped her eyes to her hands. “I am not always good at reading people, but I thought it was a sure bet that if I waved a gun around, you would do as I asked. I calculated the odds – they were with me.”

  “I get the sense that you watch too many movies.” Finn said and Nika narrowed her eyes at him as her anger sparked.

  “Don’t you dare patronize me. I have training in firearms. I know how to shoot a gun.”

  Finn stared her down. “Who trained you – a lunatic? Have you ever taken a gun and aimed it at someone and pulled the trigger? Have you watched as the bullets ripped into them? Have you watched as they died?”

  Nika flushed and looked down at her hands again. “I have not,” she said quietly as her eyes shimmered. “So now you have more reasons to be mad at me. I should have not have used your weapon against you.”

  “Or anyone else,” Finn said. He shifted around to the face the windshield, staring out at the bleak March weather, the rain pelting down. “If they followed you to the ferry terminal, they’ll know by now that you either didn’t get on the ferry in Tsawwassen or that you got off the ferry by some other means than as a foot passenger or by bus. They’ll start looking for you, so we have a small window to get you hidden away.”

  “What are we doing here then?” Nika looked towards the mall as the day darkened.

  “The reason I was on the ferry... ” he started, then stopped. He looked at her and said sardonically, “You probably already know why I was on the ferry.”

  Nika missed his sarcasm. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s Easter long weekend. I’m going to visit my parents.”

  “Oh.” Nika looked out the passenger side window thoughtfully. “What will you do with me?”

  Finn couldn’t help but smile. What an interesting woman. There was no question in her mind that they were a team now until he got her out of the mess she was in. Maybe she could read people better than he gave her credit for. “I thought you could come with me,” he said. “To my parents.”

  She smiled at him, brightly and he was suddenly overwhelmingly emotional. He wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her as tight as he could; he thought maybe she was the first safe port in the past two stormy years. “I would love that, Finn,” she said enthusiastically. “It would be so interesting to eat dinner with your family.”

  And that made Finn laugh out loud. “You’ll change your mind by the end of the weekend. But it’s a good place for you to be safe. Gives you and me time to talk, for you to fully explain the situation so that I can help you get back home.”

  “How long will we stay?” Nika’s smile was getting broader, excitement twinkled in her eyes.

  “Tonight, Friday, Saturday – we leave Sunday. My mom will try to get us to stay until Monday, but we won’t.”

  “Too bad,” Nika said lightly.

  Finn pulled the key from the ignition and reached for the car door. “We need to get you a suitcase and the stuff you’d bring with you on a long weekend to the in-laws. And we need to get our stories straight.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Mr. Jackman stood at the window in his office, staring out at the unending expanse of forest that stretched through the snow to the horizon. He was furious. His organization was under
siege and he didn’t know who to trust. Since August, things started unravelling. Two of his operatives in Russia, under deep cover, suddenly went silent. They were working the Russian connection to the mafia in Vancouver. He didn’t know if they were dead, but he knew they were compromised. The arrival of a package with their index fingers was proof of that. He was in process of launching an operation to rescue them when another of his operative’s cover was blown almost resulting in his death. If it hadn’t been for luck and timing, Dean Copeland, one of his best, would also be missing, presumed dead.

  At least Copeland got away, Jackman consoled himself. When he debriefed Dean, it became clear that someone inside Jackman’s operation gave him up. He knew who it wasn’t – it wasn’t Anto Kharzin, who was deep undercover in Vancouver. The information Anto was passing on to Jackman was invaluable, helping him extend his own operations and undermining Rusya Savisin. Only two other people besides Jackman and Nika knew about Anto’s cover: Copeland and Anto’s handler, Michael Black. The only two people that he trusted without reserve.

  Naturally, his regard for these two operatives put Jackman at a disadvantage. They treated Jackman like a brother rather than a boss. It gave Copeland the upper hand when he brought Randall Scott’s daughter back with him. Fucking Kelsie Scott of all people. No intentions of giving her up or sending her back home. But she had nothing to offer Jackman except trouble; she couldn’t be used as leverage against her old man because Dean wouldn’t agree to it. His threat to walk away was enough to get Jackman to back off. He needed Dean right now; he was one of his best operatives and, with the exception of Michael Black, his closest confidant.

  But giving into Dean started a domino effect. Jackman agreed to hide Kelsie and the soon-to-be baby. Which meant getting the Disappearist involved. And like Dean, Nika became enamoured with Kelsie, so much so that after she disappeared Kelsie, she decided to disappear herself. It was unbelievable how easily she managed it. That was the fucking problem with geniuses. And women.

  She was somewhere in Vancouver without a safety net. Anto risked his cover to get a message to Michael Black, who relayed the information back to Jackman. The Russians, and worse, Randall Scott, knew Jackman’s most important asset was alone in Vancouver and they were tracking her. It was only a matter of time before they found her. If they got to her, if they got her to talk, his entire operation would be compromised, his operatives in the field would be killed, and many of his other assets, people he’d disappeared over the years, would be found and murdered. There would be no time to pull everyone out.

  Jackman went into crisis management mode. He got a message to Dean’s handler, Anthony West, to pull Dean off his current assignment, told Dean to get himself back home and question his girlfriend about her discussions with Nika. He wanted to know everything Kelsie and Nika talked about – right down to the colour of their underwear if the topic had come up. Dean was not a happy man when he reported back to Jackman.

  “Short of actually booking the flight and hotel room, Kelsie more or less arranged the whole fucking trip for Nika,” Dean told him.

  “Jesus Christ, Dean,” Jackman fumed. “Of all the fucking operatives I have, you are the last person I expected to bring this kind of trouble into our house.”

  “Yeah,” Dean countered, angry at Kelsie, taking it out on Jackman. “I’m aware of your opinion of Kelsie. But she isn’t going anywhere, so get used to it.”

  Jackman turned his fury on Dean – his operatives didn’t use that tone with him, not even Dean Copeland who was the closest he had to a friend. “You don’t get to decide who stays and goes, Copeland,” Jackman roared. “Don’t fucking push me!”

  But Dean was immovable on the topic. “If you just dropped your guard for a few minutes and let me give Kelsie a little information about this organization, she would’ve understood to keep her mouth shut.”

  Jackman swallowed his anger. Copeland was right to a degree, but he wasn’t willing to take the risk. Since Dean and the two agents in Russia had been compromised, he was operating on a need to know basis with everyone. Who’s to say Kelsie Scott wasn’t having little off-line chats with her daddy about her situation. Jackman mentally kicked himself; he’d known she and Nika were spending too much time together while Nika worked on Kelsie’s file. He knew it and he just let it happen because he thought that it would be good for Nika to talk to someone close to her age who wasn’t one of his operatives. What a stupid mistake that was. And Nika! She was like an unsocialized wild cat. She did everything well but had no skills to navigate the real world. His fault. He never let her out of the compound, never gave her freedom to do anything but be his Disappearist.

  He didn’t voice any of those thoughts to Dean, though. He needed Copeland right now. “At least we know her alias and have an idea of where she’s staying.”

  “Even if they get their hands on her, they won’t kill her.”

  “They’ll destroy her for the information.”

  “Anto is there. He’ll keep her safe.”

  Jackman laughed derisively as he eyed the new scars on Dean’s face. “Anto doesn’t have the same definition of “safe” as the rest of us.”

  Jackman called Michael Black after he finished his conversation with Dean, told him to drop everything he was doing and find Nika; bring her back, by any means necessary. Michael was a fucking good operative, currently in Vancouver on a personal assignment for Jackman while handling Anto. He was smart and trustworthy. Two good qualities in an operative and a man. And Michael and Dean were the only two agents who could even remotely keep Anto Kharzin in line.

  Michael called him this morning to let him know that Nika was compromised – that her hotel room was ransacked, and that she was missing. Black did a soft reach out to Anto to see if the Russians had Nika or knew her whereabouts. Anto said no. But he also said that it didn’t mean that someone else didn’t have her – like Randall Scott. Michael paid a visit to Randall Scott’s downtown office while Scott was out on business, had a lengthy conversation with his lovely assistant, Emmaline Hawthorne, about Randall’s ‘interests’, before and after he seduced her in her boss’s office. Michael was 90% certain that Scott knew about Nika but didn’t have her. Black had a predator’s instinct, so when he told Jackman that he left the beautiful and terrified Emmaline intact for future use, should they need her, Jackman trusted that she was not a threat.

  That left only one other possibility – a vital piece of information Kelsie had been holding back from Dean until this morning, afraid of how he was going to react. And she was right to be fearful – Jackman had never seen Copeland so furious when he stormed into Jackman’s office. Kelsie had been in contact with a fucking Vancouver cop since last fall. Her last communication was in February, as Nika was disappearing her. And the stupid bitch had told Nika about the cop – to contact him if she was in trouble. Kelsie swore up and down to Dean that the cop could be trusted. But Dean wasn’t mollified by her promises. She was keeping secrets about another man, kept in contact with him even after she and Dean had reconciled. Jackman watched Dean rage but knew better than to add fuel to the fire – that would be too obvious. He’d wait, let it play out, maybe disappear Kelsie Scott permanently at some point in the future.

  Right now, though, she was the least of his problems. Someone else knew too – about Nika’s alias and about her trip, maybe about the cop. Someone within his organization. He and Dean had some thoughts about who it might be. He’d been suspicious for a while – sitting on the information because he was having trouble believing that it was true, gathering enough intel so that when the time came he could cut out the traitor’s tongue and shoot him between the eyes without regret. He needed to wait and watch a little longer. And it was too late anyway to turn this mess around – he had to trust that Michael Black could get to Nika before the Russians.

  Jackman turned from the window and called Michael back, shared the information about Finn McQueen. He told him that he didn’t care if Michael had to
gun down the entire Russian mob or blow up the Vancouver city police department, he needed Nika to be safe. And, Jackman thought as he ended the call, when he found Nika, he would lock her up and throw away the fucking key.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Nika wanted to wander the stores and look at everything, but Finn told her no. “The more time we spend here, the more exposed you are. We get in and out as quickly as possible.” It was as though she’d never really shopped for herself in her life. She had no concept of prices and Finn was like an overbearing husband saying no to her every time she picked up something that was six times more than he could afford. He finally stopped her.

  “We’ll do it my way,” he said bluntly. “You need a pair of pants, a nice dress, a sweater and a couple of shirts. Some panties, a bra.”

  “No,” Nika interrupted. “I don’t wear a bra.”

  Finn lost his words for a minute and then, “Some stockings, a pair of shoes to go with the dress. Then we get you whatever toiletries you need.”

  They walked into a women’s clothing store and he started pulling clothes from the racks and dropping them into Nika’s arms. She shoved a pair of pants back at him and picked up some leggings instead. “More comfortable,” she explained as Finn steered her towards a store clerk who had been watching them curiously.