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I honed in on Hugo. He gave off circa nineties Jean-Claude Van Damme vibes. “You’re stalling, missy.” I arched a brow, stealing a look away from the man who could probably star in Bloodsport himself.
“Wellll.” Such a bad start. “Hugo’s recently been placed in charge of a company his father acquired seven years ago.”
“Is this his shit-or-get-off-the-pot moment? His chance to prove to his dad he should be in charge? Some kind of test?” Standing tall, I stared at the collection of images on the wall. “Are we in a Hallmark movie? Is he moving to a small town where he’ll fall in love?”
“Not exactly.” She leaned forward and dragged one black-painted fingernail across the bold printed words: FYVM Media Group.
“FYVM?” What a mouthful. “What does it stand for? Fuck You Very Much Media?”
Her light chuckle was sinfully sweet to my ears, and the sound itself had the audacity to distract me, sending a jolt of fuck-me-now straight to my dick. Dammit, I had to focus. She made it hard sometimes. Quite literally.
“FYVM has been in the news business for over a century,” she went on to explain, completely oblivious to my reaction. “They were a small Swiss company before the Sorens acquired them, and now they’ve become the leader in the industry. They garner the most views both on mainstream television as well as through their stories shared on the major social media platforms. FYVM breaks a story, and the other major news organizations follow suit. Hell, they all basically echo everything FYVM says. They have similar talking points. A few different adjectives is all.”
“You think this is how the Sorens are tied to The Collective?” The senator Carter had questioned hadn’t shared how or why the Sorens were involved, only that they were.
“For sure.” She removed an article from the wall, and I caught her sniffing the ink, as if remembering her reporter days. This had to be a blast from the past for her. “After the President outed The Collective a few weeks ago, there was an explosion of major stories all around the world that quickly distracted everyone from what POTUS had shared about the secret group.” She flicked the paper before handing it to me. “Like this story suggesting war was about to break out between these two oil-rich nations.”
I handed her back the article, understanding where she was about to go with this. I had to come up with a better defense than the word “no,” and quickly, in order to shoot down the plan I damn well didn’t want to hear from her.
She set aside the article and placed her manicured nails on my chest, flashing me a sultry, innocent look I’d come to know well. But when it came to her safety, she could get naked, and I’d never change my mind about allowing her to risk her life.
“I’m going to get a job at FYVM as a journalist. I’ll go deep undercover as myself. With Hugo stepping in to personally run the company and win over his place as head of the family empire, this is our?—”
“You realize going undercover means going as someone else. Are you hearing yourself?” I did my best to keep my voice level and refrain from blowing a fucking gasket.
“FYVM tried recruiting me years ago, back when they first became number one in the industry. They wanted me to be one of their investigative reporters who traveled the globe.”
“Of course they wanted you. You were the best. But you quit to chase bad guys. And now you’re suggesting you should work for the enemy? And by yourself?” I faked a laugh, close to snapping. Because to hell with this plan.
“The best cover story is for me to go as myself. No one knows what I’ve been up to the last few years. I could say I was deep undercover for a human trafficking piece, and now that it’s over, I’m a free agent again. I could easily leave the breadcrumbs I want them to discover that would convince them of that story.”
Before teaming up with Falcon, Mya had assisted a group of Marines, which included her former friend with benefits, Mason Matthews, in hunting down sex traffickers. So, I supposed that story would be believable.
Her hands were still glued to my chest, so she had to feel my heart thrashing hard. All I wanted to do was take her over my shoulder and haul her somewhere safe.
“If I embed myself deep enough at this company and gain their trust, I think I can get Hugo’s attention. With a lot on the line for him, he’ll want the best of the best reporting directly to him. If I get close to him and?—”
“Get close to him how? You’re not the girl he falls for in this Hallmark movie situation, are you?”
“This isn’t a movie, especially not a Hallmark.”
She lowered her hands and glared at me, and I slapped the side of my neck, feeling the vein bulging there. I bit back a groan, because of course I’d used my bad arm. Apparently the GSW I’d taken in the shoulder during our last op against The Collective wasn’t quite one hundred percent healed yet.
“Hugo may be a lifelong bachelor, but he loves smart, successful women. Particularly brunettes.” She continued to state her case, moving a bit farther from my reach. “I’m slightly outside his preferred age bracket of under thirty, but if he’s trying to win over his old man, maybe he’ll?—”
“Enough.” I was going to be ill. She whipped her head around to stare at me, and I nearly growled like some character in the romance novels Griffin Andrew’s wife read (and now wrote).
Griffin would have had a field day with that. Fortunately, he was away from the team at the moment, currently in Alabama taking care of his new baby with his wife while waiting for next steps.
Most of our other teammates were also currently home with their families, which was why Mya and I had volunteered to go under in the first place. Unhitched and without kids, we were the logical choices anyway.
Giving her my back, she came up and rested her hand there, and my spine straightened as she said, “It’s for the sake of taking down the enemy.”
Mya and I had only begun sleeping together a few weeks earlier. No one knew about us yet, but if it were up to me, I’d happily stamp the word TAKEN on my forehead. How can I watch you seduce another man and not kill him? I’d snap, for sure. Ten out of ten, all bets on the table, lose my cool and my head, and strangle the life from Mr. Bloodsport wannabe himself.
I’d been great at keeping my shit together over the years, regardless of what was thrown at me, but I also knew it’d destroy me to watch her with someone else. She made me crazy, but this was Mya. And Mya was already fucking everything to me, even if I’d yet to tell her that.
“I would never sleep with Hugo, you know that. And it could take months to even get a meeting with him, let alone?—”
