Page 37 of Marked By the Devil

WREN

Ibit my lip as Viktor handed the baby to Adrik.

“Continue my stay?” I asked, trying not to seethe.

He worded it like this was a vacation. Like I was a guest, not someone he kidnapped. His refusal to consider that he’d pulled me out of my life and plunked me into his aggravated me all over again.

“I’m not a guest. You kidnapped me.”

He shrugged. “You say potato, I say potahto.”

Elena snorted a laugh and Adrik didn’t change from his glower, which seemed at odds with him holding his son.

My mouth hung open.

“However, before you lecture about how ‘wrong’ that was and how it’s ‘against the law’, check yourself.” He pointed at the screens that had been used to show me all the evidence of how corrupt the agency was. “Because that shit is ‘wrong’ and ‘against the law’.”

“I think that’s enough air quotes,” Adrik deadpanned.

“But it’s true.” Viktor set his hands on his hips. “If part of your whining about my not letting you go is based on some high-horsed opinion of your being better than us with some crap about self-righteousness, spare me.”

“I am not corrupt.” I shook my head, appalled. “Just because I was hired by them doesn’t implicitly make me an accomplice to their being bribed or bought off.” Letting my synapses click fast, I narrowed my eyes. “Wait. Is that why you’re keeping me here? You think I’m being bribed?” I huffed a laugh. “Because you’ll have no evidence of that.”

“Then maybe in the meantime, you can enlighten us, as an insider at that agency, as to who is. And whose bank accounts are funding them.” He arched a brow, looking way too smug for my liking.

I didn’t like him right now. And I didn’t like a damn thing that I was seeing here. All that Elena had shown me sickened me.

“So you’re keeping me here to use me to look into what they’re doing?” I shook my head, not to reject his order or suggestion but in stupefied disbelief.

A month ago, I’d been looking forward to the transfer. To having a job where I could be active in the field as an agent, not stuck in an office doing lower-scale work. I was supposed to relocate and learn this new environment. To see how I could do my part in taking down criminals.

Now, I was forced to give that all up and be a guest-slash-prisoner to help them with their efforts of staying at the top of the crime family food web?

“Are you okay with that kind of corruption going on?” he asked.

I furrowed my brow. “Of course not. The law is the law. Right and wrong don’t mix. But it’s not my call to determine whether it’s right or wrong for any agents to be accepting bribes. I don’t have the power to do anything about it.”

“We do.” Adrik didn’t gloat or smile about it.

“So that’s it. You want to use me to get them?”

Viktor set his foot on an empty chair and leaned over, resting his elbow on it as he loomed next to me. Over me. “Consider your options, Red.” With a wink that seemed more threatening and mocking than sexy or playful, he straightened and backed up a step.

“Viktor.” Adrik tilted his head toward the door, indicating for him to step out with him.

He walked out, leaving me with Elena. Trojan, the name they used to reference the hacker from who knew where, had already logged out of the video call.

I sat there, stuck in place and tense.

Aware of Elena sitting next to me, still, I blinked and tried to get over the swirling questions in my mind. I waited for the knots in my stomach to unravel. But they wouldn’t. I’d seen too much to dismiss all this.

“Sorry.” I glanced at the brunette. “I know you said you’re tired and you didn’t want this to take a long time…”

She shrugged. “I’m too awake now.”

I nodded, unable to face her.

“It’s not like I intended to keep you for this long.”