Page 21 of Marked By the Devil

Assess. Ascertain. Act.

I couldn’t do any of them. Because I was stuck on how Smithson could be up to that kind of activity. He could be corrupt. It was the first idea that had come to mind when I had been targeted for a shot.

That someone could have assumed he would be there and they’d been shooting at him.

It was the only logic I could test out as a theory, but like Viktor was taunting me for, I hadn’t been here long enough to know him. Or the department out here.

Struggling with the possibility that my own agency could be corrupt or withholding information, I stayed as expressionless as I could.

“Because when you told me that you were tasked with looking into Rico Johnson, that means you’re indirectly looking into my family.” He held up a photo of Adrik speaking with the politician wannabe.

There was too much I didn’t know yet. That ignorance could very well get me killed. Because while I understood that fine balance between survival and death was a complicated dance with him, I couldn’t begin to know if he was lying to me.

Photos could be doctored, after all. He was a skilled liar, cheat, and criminal with no code of morality.

Regardless of what his intention was by talking to me now, he was getting far in the scheme of planting seeds of doubt in my mind. He was scattering crumbs to guide me away from what I thought I could rely on. Like my job and coworkers I had yet to get to know and count on.

He’d started with the psychological warfare of making me wait.

He’d moved on to seduction.

And now he was playing mind games with me, tricking me into doubting whom I could trust.

It won’t be you.

I leveled an even glare on him.

No matter what, I wouldn’t ever trust him. With anything he said or did.

7

VIKTOR

Ididn’t stay in the room with Wren for long.

She was struggling. To believe me. To question those she was supposed to trust. To wonder what her fate would be between those two forces.

Rather than overdo the questioning when I was so rabid to touch her and explore that vague concept of “entertainment” with her, I left her to stew on how obvious it was that some things weren’t always as they seemed.

She could tweak her attitude, but I decided that sticking her in that room wasn’t the way to go about it. Not now.

Adrik came over at the time I’d given him, and we met in my office to go over what Wren knew. And didn’t know.

“She’s not changing her story?” he concluded.

I shook my head.

“Do you think she actually knows anything about that hit on me?” Steepling his fingers as he sat back on the leather chair facing my desk, he propped his feet up. Something about seeing him in the office our father used to rule from made him look different. Like he had to look like the proper heir and interim Pakhan there. A man of leadership. But here, he could still be just my older brother. Maybe the change in setting relieved him too. I didn’t spend too much time at my desk, but it was my work space. And it lacked the appearance of generational wealth that his office did. I was a simpler guy. The less clutter and bullshit, the better. I didn’t mind art, though.

He zoned out and stared at an example of it now as we talked. The abstract statue of a nude woman in the corner of the room was a custom-made piece of artwork that was too risqué to display anywhere else. With her holding her pussy open, her head tipped back as another head attached to the shape of the person that made up the base of the statue kissed up her thigh, it was an eye-catcher.

“I’m not sure. She is new to the agency out here.” I rubbed my beard, musing what secrets I could get out of her if I kissed my way up to her cunt. The idea of seducing her was too irresistible to give up yet.

Because it’d work.

I saw how flushed she was. How just looking at her a certain way had her fidgeting.

“Then why are we keeping her?” he asked.