Page 47 of Marked By the Devil

Smithson hadn’t signed it, but it came from his email address.

I looked up at them.

“He knows we have her.”

Adrik nodded.

“He knows we have her,” Maksim said, “and he is insinuating that she is still here as a spy for him.”

I shook my head, immediately dismissing that.

The idea that Wren could be here only as a spy…

“I don’t believe that.” I paced in his office. “I don’t believe that for one fucking second.”

“But there is always a risk,” Maksim said. He held up his hands after I shot him a furious glare. “I am not saying that just because she is an agent. But because she is an outsider. An enemy. I had to deal with that debate myself. When Carina was arranged to marry me, I had to struggle against the idea that she could be a spy for Arturo and for the Cartel.”

“Fine. I get that. But Carina was fully embedded in the Cartel. She had been there for a long time so she could have had an order to spy when she came here. Wren just got here. She hasn’t been an agent for Smithson or anyone in this area for long enough to be used as a spy.”

All those times that she insisted that she didn’t know anything added up to that basic fact. She didn’t know anything, not about Smithson or any other agent.

“Are you getting in too deep with her?” Adrik asked. “You asked me to give this time. You asked me to let you handle this how you saw fit, to see if we could get any information out of her. So far, it sounds like she’s cooperating with Elena. But in the meantime, are you getting in over your head with her? Are you too close to even consider the possibility that she could be a spy?”

I rubbed my face, not wanting to answer that. Yes, I was getting too close to her. She was in my bed. She was getting under my skin, but that didn’t mean that my judgment of her was faulty.

“She is not spying for the agency.”

I stated it as clearly as I could, and I would repeat it as many times as they wanted me to.

But I would stand by the fact that she was not spying for the agency.

“It’s taken her a long time to agree to work for us,” he reminded me.

“Because she feels like she needs to do what she thinks is right. And I can respect that. Because the more that she works on this case and looks into connections to Gregori bribing everyone, she will understand that we are right in this war.”

Adrik lowered his gaze, looking tired but not in the mood to tell me to get rid of her. “Keep me in the loop.” He glanced up at me. “Keep me updated, and we will have been looking into whoever ordered that hit on the street.”

That was as good as I would get for now.

They still had their doubts.

But I didn’t. She wasn’t going to be a double agent and hurt the family.

I left to go find her, needing to confirm to her that she didn’t have to worry for her life when she was with me.

16

WREN

Viktor dropped me off and left. With that close stroke of danger, he would need to report to his boss.

But I wasn’t sure what to do with myself, stuck here in his room in his house without any means to go anywhere on my own. Even if I could, I had no idea where I would go. I had little faith that I would be safe outside of this building.

I sat down on the chair in the massive bathroom and zoned out, staring ahead with my chin in my hand, my elbows on my knees. I spaced out as my memories replayed in my mind.

I didn’t see that elegant porcelain clawfoot tub or the gold hardware in the bathroom suite. I didn’t register the perfect marble floor under my feet. I didn’t feel the cool pulsing out of the air-conditioning vent. In my mind’s eye, I was back on that sidewalk with Viktor. I was taken back to the touch of his big hand wrapped around mine. He did it often, and while holding my hand could be a simple gesture of making sure that I didn’t run off, I was tricking myself into thinking that he was doing it just to have a grasp on me. Just so he could feel me and know that I was with him.

I closed my eyes, and despite the black behind my lids, I saw it all. I relived it all.