Page 57 of Marked By the Devil

“You’ve put a lot of time into this,” I said as she fully spun the chair to face me.

“I have. But I’m not looking for praise or awards. This shit has got to stop. An organized network like this is a threat to not just you and the Bratva but everyone. I thought that I’d be tracking Rico Johnson and following what kind of campaign fraud he was getting up to. But this is even worse.”

It was good to see she could still be her, that self-righteous do-gooder. I couldn’t have full faith that this meant she’d be on our side forever.

“I wanted to prepare a more organized report to show your brother. Adrik would need to see this for himself so hopefully he can, um, protect your assets. Not to borrow Elena’s motto, but the fewer details I know, the better.” She winced.

I leaned down to kiss her at the same time I urged her to stand.

“He will want to see all of this.”

Hearing her willingly plan to give him this information was a huge step forward as far as I was concerned. Maybe spending time working alongside Elena had changed her views of all my Bratva brothers. If my sister-in-law was being instrumental in getting Wren to see us as not-so-bad guys in comparison to the evilness of Gregori, then that was a win as far as I was concerned.

“But there’s no location for where Gregori is? No clues on who placed that hit on Adrik?” I held her close, hating how strained she looked from sitting at the computer for so long. “I am still assuming that whoever put a hit on him would’ve been the one to aim at you, too. Or in your direction.”

She shook her head. “No. There’s too many aliases and codes to crack so far, but the progress I’m making is hopeful.” She kissed me, taking the initiative now as she began to further unbutton my shirt. “And I’m hopeful that sticking around on my ‘stay’ you’ve insisted upon will give me the direction for whom I need to look out for as well.”

She laid her lips against mine again, drugging me with her sweet hunger.

As I picked her up and carried her toward the shower with me, I realized once more that she could fit in so well with us. As another financial investigator. As our secret spy and agent.

But right now, I wanted to remind her of how well we fit together. United again with my cock deep inside her as we stood under the hot, steaming spray of a shower.

20

WREN

Istood at the sink in the large kitchen, rinsing out my coffee mug, and had a fleeting sense of déjà vu hit me so hard that I went still.

The water ran over my hand as I held the mug. Warm and soothing, it lulled me and relaxed my fingers. I had been typing so much—a common issue for anyone who worked at a computer all day long—and I relished the slight massage.

I’d done this before, too. Many times. My mom used to rinse her coffee mugs out to re-use for the inevitable next cup of caffeine that she’d want. She was always drinking it to keep going through the days. I had inherited that love of caffeine from her, and her habit of rinsing out the same mug to re-use had passed on to me too.

At the office or at home, I would rinse and dry out my mug and set it out to use again. When I was at the office, I would linger to relax my hand under the warm water. And I was doing it here, too.

Because I was putting long hours in, helping Elena try to sleuth more of what was going on with all the bribes to law enforcement agencies. There was still a gap of information between Gregori and the people he contacted on the regular, like Smithson, but we were on it. So was Igor. And Trojan. A couple of other hackers were under the Volkovs’ employ, too.

But it wasn’t until this strange little quirky habit of something as simple as rinsing off a coffee mug that I could fully understand how much my life had shifted.

This was my job, yet it wasn’t. No discussions about payments were held. No checks were deposited into my account like with a traditional job. And no meetings about benefits, health insurance coverage, and retirement savings funds were going on like what I should have anticipated at the Las Vegas department of the agency. Viktor had more money than he could ever spend in a lifetime, so I wasn’t worried about not having anything. He fed me, he clothed me. Since Lev and Mila found my apartment trashed, they’d let that fall to nothing.

All those normal obligations of day-to-day life didn’t apply to me here. And I’d be a liar if I said it wasn’t nice to be free of those common burdens. I supposed Viktor was paying for my help by protecting me, but that seemed like a very gray and complicated arrangement too.

Or am I his… girlfriend?

It was too twisted and confusing to figure out.

I was working here, though. Long and hard hours. Stymied by the layers of deception, I was getting more and more invested in exposing those who were being bribed or bribing others.

It wasn’t for the point of being a whistleblower. No one would be championing me as the underdog who exposed horrible corruption and crimes. The Volkovs would no doubt handle these issues with Gregori as they saw fit, and on that note, I wanted to share Elena’s “no details” request.

But there was no confusion about how much my life had changed. All the way down to this simple act of rinsing my coffee mug. This huge house in the desert with state-of-the-art appliances and elegant décor was feeling more like a home than any other apartment I’d lived in by myself. Not being solo was a massive shift, too. Paul no longer seemed like Lurch but a friendly helper. Viktor was less of a kidnapper and more like a live-in significant other-slash-manager for Adrik. The rest of them were starting to seem more like colleagues than former targets on a list.

I set the mug down and dried off my hands. Rubbing the towel over them, I rested my butt against the counter.

“Did you try that cream?” Paul asked as he came into the room, bringing a plate to set in the sink.

See?