Page 17 of Marked By the Devil

I shook my head at Alexei’s idea. “No. I can handle it. I’ve already asked Paul to have Trojan run a more intensive background check on her.”

“She’s still an agent,” he argued. “She’ll be tough to crack no matter what in-depth intel you get on her.”

“Then I’ll have to work harder to crack her.”

He smirked. “You? You’re already biased.”

“How the fuck so?” I asked.

“Because you look at her like you’re counting down the time to fuck her.” He shook his head and paced away from us.

Leave it to him to notice that. He was an aloof loner of an asshole but always the most observant.

“Maybe that’s part of how I intend to intimidate her,” I shot back.

Nikolai got up as I dropped into a chair. “No. I don’t think that’s it. There’s something possessive about how you look at her.”

I looked away, annoyed. I wasn’t only peeved that they’d noticed how I watched her. I was annoyed that I had felt these twinges of attraction, those impulsive and intrusive thoughts of desire that slipped into my mind.

“We’re only warning you not to lose common sense,” Nikolai said.

I laughed them off, running my hand over my hair. “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?” I scoffed. “I’ve slept with women for intel before. We all have.”

I couldn’t be sure what my path would be to get answers from her and what they would indicate in terms of what I’d need to do with her, but the idea didn’t repulse me.

“Hell, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to use that method now.” I was only partly joking, but they didn’t argue with the potential justification behind it.

6

WREN

Assess. Ascertain. And act.

I rolled my eyes as I paced.

Bullshit.

For the next day and a half, the only things I could assess were the quality of the food and the frequency of water bottles that were delivered to me. They were brought by a very bored-looking and stiff-faced older man who had to be a butler. He was too old to be a guard or soldier, and I wasn’t sure what to make of him. He didn’t linger long enough, anyway, and he said not a damn thing. I didn’t ask, as wary of him as any other who could’ve shown up.

With his dropping off the essentials that would keep me from dying from thirst or starvation, I knew that Viktor valued me alive rather than dead.

So far.

The butler also led me to the same bathroom where I’d taken out my contacts. I had no means of escaping then. With a gesture of his hand, he indicated for me to have my bathroom breaks. Then later, to shower. A spare change of clothes was folded and on a shelf, but I refused to behave like an extended stay guest. I put my clothes back on and wondered how long I would need to wait before Viktor Volkov would determine whether I had answered his questions sufficiently.

Keep dreaming.

The longer I was stuck in this room with only the company of my mind, I grew more worried and convinced that he was just prolonging the lead up to my death.

He’s going to kill me.

These were the Volkovs. A brutal Bratva. Criminals like the ones my mom and dad had wanted to put away. They consorted with hitmen and drug dealers, torturers and whores. All of the lawless kinds of individuals that the agency I worked for wanted to take out.

I couldn’t ascertain anything positive. I could only pace back and forth and wonder what they were after to have captured me at all. Clearly, they wanted to know why Adrik was almost killed. The reason wasn’t a grand mystery. They had a plethora of enemies who would love to take out a leader. Or the next leader in charge since according to Smithson, Dmitri Volkov hadn’t passed away yet.

Just because I was an agent didn’t mean that I had to be connected to whoever ordered that hit. I wasn’t even an agent that they could kidnap for any other intel. I was too new here. I truly didn’t have anything else they could need to know.

Unless they were trying to keep me as a hostage.