Page 4 of Jonas

Derrika smiled. “Perfect. I have an apartment set up and ready for you in my building.”

“I hope it has two bedrooms. Jonas hogs the covers,” Cash muttered

Dick.

“That’s unfortunate to hear.” Derrika winked, then pushed her chair back from the table.

“Man down.” Cash continued his idiocy.

Not to mention, he was incorrect. I wasn’t going down, but a certain part of my body had taken notice and was currently on the rise.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have to run upstairs before I can get the hell out of here and take this stupid dress off. Oh, please tell Kira to pack for casual. Most employees wear jeans and tees to work. It’s a building full of geeks, so mostly graphic tees with geek sayings I don’t get. I’ll email you the address of the apartment building. If you text me what time you’ll be there, I’ll help you move your stuff in.” Derrika shifted around her chair and went directly to Nebraska with her hand held out. “It’s nice to meet you in person, Dove.”

Goodbyes were quickly exchanged. Cash shamelessly grabbed three more pastries, while shoving the last bite of his first one into his mouth.

“It’s like you’re a wild animal,” I told him.

“I’m more feral than wild. That’s what happens when you’re raised by the system instead of humans. If you have a problem with it, I suggest you write a letter to Victorville Child Services and tell them they did a shit job.”

He was joking.

But he wasn’t.

“I’ll do that.” Then before we left the room, I stopped Nebraska. Because we’d have more privacy in a government building than we would on the streets of DC, I asked her, “Did you know we were meeting with Derrika?”

“No. I actually thought it would be Lore. This is more her game than Derrika’s.”

Lore was a friend of Nebraska’s from her old life.

“What do you know about her?”

“Derrika? She’s smart. She’s also reckless and dangerous. If there’s intel to find, she’ll find it and leave a wake of destruction behind her. There’s a reason why Delcon hired her—she doesn’t have an off switch, she’ll keep going until she finds what she was hired to find. This job could take another six months or six years and it would be all the same for her. Life is one big game to her, and she moves accordingly.”

Reckless and dangerous.

My kind of woman.

As for life being a game, I couldn’t agree more.

Game. On.

CHAPTER ONE

“Safe sex is great sex, so wear your latex,” Kira Cain blurted out, then looked around the conference room table. “Well? How’d I do?”

From his seat at the head of the table, my boss Zane looked like a proud papa. Next to Kira, her husband Cooper groaned. Cash was to my right on the opposite side of the table from Kira, with a lopsided grin on his face. Easton was to my left, shaking his head. I couldn’t see Nebraska, who was on the other side of her man, but if I had to guess, I’d bet she was smiling at her friend.

“You’re supposed to wait until the mating ritual has started,” Zane educated.

“Preemptive strike,” KK offered.

Zane nodded.

Cash leaned close and muttered, “You know she’s talking to you, right?”

“Me?”

I glanced back at Kira and sure enough, her gaze was parked on me with a smirk teasing her lips.