by Nana Malone
She pressed a button on the remote control she was holding, and a video began, showing us what a weapon like that could do to a human body.
I winced. It showed a man being shot at, with protective gear on, and his body flying backward.
When the camera panned in, his skin looked charred and burned.
But there were no points of entry on him. No bullet wounds, no explosion. I whistled low. “There’s a weapon like that?”
She nodded. “It’s highly experimental. It was built by this man,”—she clicked a button to stop the video, and a slide appeared on the screen— “Dr. Ryan Dodd, a military contractor. Dr. Dodd went missing about six weeks ago. From what we can gather, he either went to ground or someone took him. Victus is in town to meet with a weapons broker who may either have Dodd, know where to find him, or have gotten their hands on the weapon. We will send out a team to pick up the broker and bring him in so we can question him.”
Before my hand even went up, Browning announced, “It will be a three-person team. Agents Tyler Warden, Lyra Wilkinson, and Adaline Franklin.”
My mouth hung open. Why Addie? And my God, why the fuck Tyler?
When we were dismissed, Addie frowned. “I don’t know why they would pick me.”
We approached Roz, who waved us off. “I don’t know why you were picked. You were Browning’s choices. And as for Tyler, he has a lot of experience with Victus.”
“Yes, I remember,” I muttered. “But you couldn’t have given me a heads-up that he was being transferred to our section?”
Her gaze narrowed on me. “Now is not the time for personal feelings, Lyra.”
I ground my teeth as I fought to remain calm. “I hear you, but a little warning would have been nice.”
“One of my agents was exposed to Victus. I was trying to cover your ass, so when was I supposed to warn you that your feelings were going to be at risk?”
I frowned. Roz wasn’t usually so harsh with me. “I’m sorry.”
“Well you know now,” she muttered before marching off.
Addie frowned at me. “What’s wrong with her?”
I shook my head. “I have no fucking idea.”
“All right. Well, let’s get ready. This recon is going to be a joy. My bestie and the man we both hate. Can’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday.”
I rolled my eyes. “Let’s just get this over with. The sooner we get this done with, the sooner maybe Tyler will go back to that hole he crawled out of.”
“Amen to that.”
Chapter 6
Marcus
Going into the office of Exodus was a rarity.
But this was important. I wanted to make certain Lyra was safe.
Rhodes followed behind me at a fast clip as we approached the darkened underground service elevator that led us into the interior of the building.
All parking was four levels down. The main floor was still subterranean. What was above looked like a condemned warehouse surrounded by barbed wire, a chemical spill sign, and the most state-of-the-art security system money could buy. That should be completely uninteresting to anyone.
In the elevator, Rhodes was quiet, but I could feel his surreptitious glances toward me. When the elevator finally opened, we stepped into the usual bustle of activity. Agents moving about. Briefings to attend, people to interrogate.
Everyone thought when you became a spy it was going to be glitz and glamor. I’d wondered about that. What it was going to be like, but the idea was to make this place as uninteresting as possible. There was a reason we only came here for briefings.
The hallways were lit with fluorescents. The walls were a muted gray. Not much art, and what was there was heavy and dark. You could clearly tell a man had chosen all the decorations.
I gave a nod to Felix in the armory and then marched down to threat assessment. Threat assessment was open on all sides with glass walls. But it was sunken in, so you had to step down. The floors were lit though, giving it a brighter and techier feel. It was in there that we learned about the world’s nastiest creatures that needed putting down.
Our command for Exodus at this station, whom we knew only as Michael, glowered up at me when I jogged down the stairs. “Ah, Marcus. Always causing trouble.”
“Sir.”
He gave me a brief nod. “So today I get a sir. I like that change.”
I refrained from rolling my eyes. “What do we have?”
He tapped a couple of buttons as Rhodes and Maggie, one of the senior officers, joined us. Her heels made a clip-clop sound as she took the stairs down, and she gave me a warm smile. “Marcus. It’s nice to see you.”
“Maggie, ma’am.”
She waved her hand. “I’m not like this idiot who likes the sir title. Maggie’s fine. You know that.”
I shrugged, nonetheless. Considering Maggie had tried to shove her hand down my pants on a mission two years ago, I liked to keep some formality between us. She was also responsible for my psychological assessment, so even more distance was required. Though considering I had turned her down, she never held it against me. It was like she really could compartmentalize.
I had yet to meet another single agent who properly could.
She asked, “Where are we on Victus?”
Michael tapped a few buttons, and on the screen appeared the man I had been chasing. “That’s him,” I said.
Michael nodded. “Yes. Stannis Prochenko. Low-level member of Victus. He’s not important enough for us to have flagged him, but the fact that he’s here led us into a deep dive.”
Maggie stepped forward, sliding tablets over to Rhodes and myself. “Victus is after this weapon. They call it the Annihilator. Stannis is here to make a deal either for the creator himself or the actual weapon. We’re not sure which. And we don’t know where Stannis is at this moment. But we do know who he’s meeting and where.”
Michael pulled up a photo of a tall, pale white man with white-blond hair and harsh hawkish features.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“His name is Mads McLean,” Michael said. “His mother is Dutch, his father Irish and former IRA. Mads doesn’t have any of those affiliations. He’s a freelancer. Classic story, always in trouble as a youth, in and out of jail. His psychological profile indicates he’s your garden variety psychopath. He is a middleman brokering a weapons deal. He’s going to meet with Stannis to have Victus enter their bid. It’s a very unique bidding strategy. As a middleman, he travels from buyer to buyer, gets them to enter their code, and their cash is held in escrow. If they win the bid, all funds are paid to the seller, and the losing bidders’ funds are returned. I suppose they think that none of the buyers are going to try and take out the others this way since all bids are private and there are only rumors as to who is entering the bidding process. What we want to do is catch hold of Mads here.”
Maggie added, “To do that we need to follow Stannis. And intel says they will be meeting at the Venice in the City Bacchanal.”
I furrowed my brow. “Isn’t that just a glitzy rich people version of a fair?” I remembered photographs from the event last year. A who’s who of Hollywood had been there. The whole event was ages eighteen and up, and things were purported to get wild. Sex and drugs. Each year they had an artist in residence and the fair was themed around them. “Who is the artist in residence?”
Maggie gave me a sardonic once-over. “Look at you with the culture.”
She hesitated.
I knew when she was holding something back. “Who is it Maggie?
“It’s Nicola Wessex.”
The moment she said the name, I could picture the brunette with the big smile and slightly too small eyes. She specialized in sculpture, but also liked performance art. “Brunette artist. Sculptor, right?”
“I keep forgetting that you literally remember everything.” With a click of the remote she changed the screen. “Her record is clean. She’s actually an artist. But she showed up on some mission briefs as a
sibling to a Fredrick Kozol.
My eyebrows snapped down. “Her brother is Victus?”
Maggie nodded. “Half-brother, but yes. She grew up with her mother in Tahoe and had very little interaction with her father when she was little and none since she became an adult. As far as our intel shows, she met her brother Fredrick once when they were both adults, but they haven’t had any real interactions or connections since then. Still though, Fredrick has taken an interest in her art. She has a foundation that funds arts programs for children around the world, and Fredrick has contributed quite a bit of money to it. Granted we can only see that from the bank transfers because he’s publicly quiet, leaving her to do her thing. It’s possible she doesn’t even know the depths of what he’s capable of.”
I worked my jaw as I read through her profile. All roads led to fucking Victus.
“Okay, what time’s the meet?” Rhodes asked.
“We don’t know. We have trackers on Stannis now. When he’s on the move, you will get a notification.”
I looked at Michael. “All right, so basically be at the event, intercept and bring in Mads.”
Michael nodded. “Yes. You are on verification and identification. Rhodes is your second and in charge of pick up, and we’ll give you a sniper as a third, just in case.”
I nodded. “Who’s the sniper?”
Maggie shrugged. “Becker’s available. So is Carson. Both are excellent.”
I preferred Becker, hands down. She was efficient, and most important, on missions she was deadly silent. You never heard from her unless you needed to. Carson talked too fucking much. He’d annoy me to death.
We all understood how I preferred to work, so everyone muttered, “Yeah, Becker.”
Maggie nodded. “One small detail.”
I rubbed at the back of my neck, eager to get back to the flat. “What’s the problem?”
“The party is invitation only. And it’s being pushed as a couples-only event. So Becker and Rhodes we can get in with staff. But you will need to walk in the front door. You’ll have the greatest freedom of movement. But you’ll need to be in a couple. They are very strict on this as part of the invitation. So I’ll need to pair you with an agent.”
I didn’t like the flicker of interest in her gaze. “I’ll take care of it.”
She lifted a delicately arched brow. “Are you sure? I could—”
I cut her off before she could get too far down that train of thought. “This mission is classified top secret, yes?”
Michael nodded. “Yes. You couldn’t divulge the real reason we’re there.”
“Okay then, better not take one of ours. I’ll bring a civilian. Just get us an invite.”
Are you insane? You don’t want Lyra near this.
I didn’t. And I was sure I was insane. But I wasn’t letting Maggie paw me in public. No way no how.
“Great, tablets will be updated. You will be on standby for the next several days.”
I nodded and turned to leave, but Michael called me back. “Actually, Marcus, we’re not done.”
Rhodes gave me a tap on the shoulder, and Maggie smiled as she excused herself as I turned to face the man who had been my mentor. “Yes, sir?”
He studied me with shrewd eyes. “Well, how did it go?”
I shrugged. “What do you mean?”
“No need to be so cagey. Curtis already let me know you were on a date.”
“Sir, I prefer not to gossip. We have mission parameters.”
Michael laughed. “God, am I that uptight?”
I shrugged. “Sir?”
“I trained you. Therefore, you must be a reflection on me. And because you are stiff as a board, it makes me wonder if that’s how I present myself.”
“It’s just that there’s nothing to say, sir. I was out with a civilian. I know mission parameters. Secrecy always and preserve civilian life. I couldn’t have gone after Prochenko without putting her in danger.”
He sighed. “No, what I mean is, did you actually like her? Command, as you know, has been eyeing you for senior agent status. Command obviously doesn’t like that you are a bit of a maverick, a free agent.”
“Understood, sir. At the same time, I’m not going to do something just because it looks good to Command.”
His lips quirked in a semblance of a lopsided smile. “And I would expect nothing less. I’m just interested, because as my pick for our next senior agent, you’re an excellent candidate. And if you are making strides that make you look better, I’m interested and enthusiastic about it.”
I gave him a sharp nod. I didn’t like considering dating Lyra, or anyone else for that matter, as a way to make me look like a better candidate. I liked her. She’d kneed a terrorist in the nuts and lived to tell the tale. She had spunk. She was brilliant. And yeah, she was well fit. The way her gorgeous dark brown skin always seemed to glow, and her hair changed practically on a daily basis, but I liked it best when it was natural, fresh out of the shower, springy sweet curls always bouncing around her face. Always tempting me to reach out and touch a curl. Which obviously, I knew better. Dating Lyra Wilkinson would make me look good to Command, yes. But I didn’t want her because she made me look good; I just wanted her. And she was going to need some convincing. So I needed Command to stay the fuck out of my love life because I didn’t need the extra pressure.
“Sir, she’s a civilian. I’m not sure where it’s going. Right now, my only concern is keeping her safe.”
He sighed. “I know you don’t like us in your personal life, but that’s part of the deal. You understood that when you signed on the dotted line.”
“Yes, I did. Right now, she’s my concern. Victus is a problem. If you want to talk about this after we catch them, I’d be open to that.”
He gave me a nod that said I was dismissed, and I turned on my heel to go. I needed to keep her off their radar. No matter what.
* * *
Lyra
“Oh, this isn’t awkward at all,” I said and shifted in the passenger seat as I slid Tyler a glance.
“I see you looking at me.” His voice was silk. But I knew better than to trust it.
“Mainly because I can’t believe what I’m seeing.” Pompous prick.
“You want to go ahead and ask all your questions, find out what I’ve been doing and get it out of your system?” he asked with a cheeky grin.
I opened my mouth to tell him what a pompous prick he was being but then shut it when Addie beat me to it on the comms. “You are such a pompous prick. Do you really think she’s been worried about you or what you’ve been doing?”
Tyler chuckled low under his breath as he glanced around, checking his binoculars. “The way she’s looking at me suggests that she’s missed me. We all know how well that turned out last time.”
My hands were balled up into little fists, and I was grateful that Addie couldn’t see me. She was positioned in a tower overlooking our location. We were in the car, across the street from where Stannis’s contact was supposed to be hiding out.
“I know you like to tell yourself she was hung up on you, but she wasn’t. That was just your fragile ego talking.”
Goddamn, I loved Addie. Even though I had been distraught, but only because I hadn’t known the rules of the game. I hadn’t known I was a job to him. Break in the new agent. But I wasn’t dumb enough to make that mistake again.
He had broken me in all right. Singled me out, made me feel special, appreciated, seen, loved. Then, just when I was feeling a breath of confidence and fully coming into myself, he yanked the rug out from under me. Apparently, Roz thought I was getting too attached. And she was right. I was too attached. I’d started to need him.
The following three months had been the worst. Working through heartache and betrayal. He told me everything when he broke up with me though. Right down to how Roz had worked my profile. What I needed, how he was to treat me. It had all been completely orchestrated. I felt betrayed. Broken. And he’d come out un
scathed, while I’d been shellshocked.
Over the years, I’d come to realize that Roz was, in her own intense way, trying to keep me out of the clutches of somebody who could’ve done real damage. If I had fallen for someone on the outside, someone who could’ve really broken my heart, I’d have been done for at The Firm. And it would have shattered everything I’d been working toward. So it had been better that it was with Tyler. And he had been gentle. I had felt loved and cherished. Except none of it was real, was it?
I swallowed and shook my head. “We’re not doing this.”
“If you say so. Are you really dating that Neanderthal?”
My head whipped around. “Just focus on the mission. My dating life is none of your concern.”
“Just saying, he made it my concern by putting on that public display in front of me. Does he know about us?”
“There’s no ‘us’ to know about, Tyler. As you relished in telling me many times, we weren’t real. There was nothing to tell.”
“Ah, right, so he doesn’t know that I was your first. That you were in love.”
“He doesn’t need to know because you’re inconsequential.” I kept my emotions under tight control.
Over the mic, Addie laughed. “Oh, burn.”
As much as I loved her, I wished she wasn’t listening. I wished she wasn’t present for my humiliation.
But that was unavoidable.
Tyler’s voice went softer then. “I know you were hurt. That wasn’t my intention. I was just doing my job.”
The fury burned under my skin, making its way to the surface like steam, waves of heat on asphalt. “When I say we’re not doing this, we’re not doing this. Don’t act like you didn’t have a part in it. At any moment, you could’ve told me the truth.”
“You were a mission. An op. That’s all.”
“Right. And at some point, you could’ve been less convincing. But you weren’t.”
