Chapter 30
KNOX
Clark looked at me, and I gave him a nod. He held Greg’s arm while Brandon clutched the other in a tight grip. I stepped beside the doctor and said, “Go ahead, Doctor. Insert the chip.”
I ignored Greg’s muffled scream while the doctor installed the GPS chip under the skin at the back of his neck. Once done, I took a seat right across from Greg. “You know what you have to do.”
Hatred poured out of Greg’s eyes, yet he nodded.
“Tell me.”
His nostrils flared. “Take the girl you provide as my victim to Vadim. Make him take me back under his fold. Get the girl transferred to Maxim. Get the phone to the girl once she’s there.
Give you as many hideout locations as I can uncover.
Give you the list of the names of all the women who are kidnapped. Update you every single day.”
I leaned forward and met his eyes with my cold, ruthless glare, making him flinch.
“If you fail in even a single fucking task, I will capture you back and chop off your fingers. If you fail to pick up my call, I will send a little shock wave through the chip I have installed in you. If you try to remove the chip, I will hunt you down and shoot you in the fucking head.”
“Un-Understood. I will have to continue to kidnap other ladies once I’m back in.”
“You will keep me posted about every single girl you kidnap. And if anybody finds out that you work for me, I don’t need to tell you what they’ll do to you. So try not to get caught.”
He stayed silent, giving me a nod.
With that, I walked out of his cell, Brandon and Clark closely behind. Once I took a seat at my desk, Brandon closed the door, and they both stood in front of my desk. I knew they would have questions.
“Brandon, ask.”
“Sir, who is this girl we’re sending in? I know you found something. You’ve been going home early. Coming in late. Have you found a lead on the case? Are you working on it independently?” I almost smiled at his frustration.
Clark looked the same.
I sighed and signaled for them to take a seat. I steepled my hands over my desk. “Yes, I found something. The girl is one of my sources; let’s call her my undercover operative.”
Brandon’s eyes widened. “What are our next steps after Greg infiltrates back into his gang?”
“We find all three leaders and all the hideouts and take them all out at once.”
“We’ll need a big force to cover everything at once,” Clark added.
I nodded. “I’ll talk to the captain about that. I’ll get us a bigger force. I will need you two to tail Greg. If you find…others…tailing him, do not engage.”
Brandon frowned. “Who?”
I debated telling them about the Wildcats. If I implicitly trusted anybody in this force, it was Brandon and Clark. I’ll have to discuss it with my girl before involving them. “Consider them my outside sources.”
Clark shifted in his seat, his fingers tapping on the arm of the chair. “What’s the need for these outside sources, sir, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“You’ll have to trust me on this one. What we’re trying to do—taking out all three leaders at once—will take certain roundabout ways. We need people who are willing to do that.”
Brandon straightened in his chair. “Are you working with the local…vigilante?” He whispered the last word in awe.
This time, I stayed silent, a knowing look passing between us. “I need you two to bring Greg to this location.” I wrote it down on a small piece of paper and passed it to them. “I will bring the girl there at ten p.m. sharp with my…outside source. You will follow Greg until he reaches Vadim.”
Brandon had a ridiculously excited smile on his face as he nodded along. “Umm. Sir, how does the vigilante look? Where did you find him?”
I smiled and shook my head. “Get out of my office, Detectives. See you at ten p.m.”
Clark chuckled and grabbed Brandon’s arm, dragging him out of the office.
I updated the captain on the next steps and my future requirements before meeting with each of my detectives to get an update on the cases they were working on. By the time I was done, evening had rolled around.
I grabbed some sushi from down the corner and headed home. Excitement unfurled in my chest at the thought of going back to Tara and Shadow. The fact that those two were becoming synonymous with home should scare me, yet it was doing anything but.
Despite my girl being technically a criminal, she was getting rid of other criminals.
Was that line of thought valid in the court of law? No.
Would she be arrested under the charge of probably a hundred murders? Very likely.
Would I ever stop her from being who she is? Fuck no.
She was everything I stood against for a very long time. Yet she was everything that I secretly wanted to be. To be able to hunt and kill people. To live my life by my own rules. To not be governed by pesky things like law and order.
However, if I’d been left to my own devices, if my mother hadn’t forced me to join law enforcement early on, I wouldn’t have drawn a boundary on who I would or wouldn’t have killed.
I was perfectly aware of my own limitations.
I didn’t have enough of a conscience not to kill innocents.
I didn’t have the heart of my Tara to discern between killing the criminals or the innocent.
My life was now divided between two times.
Knox before Tara—the Knox my mother protected the only way she knew how.
Knox after Tara—the Knox who would kill, slaughter, and maim anyone Tara pointed to. The man whose North Star was one woman. One crazy vigilante woman.
I would lie for her, take a bullet for her, kill for her. Just wouldn’t ever fucking leave her. She thought I was keeping an eye on her. But I was keeping my eyes only on her.
She thought our time together would be up in about three months. Deep down, I knew she knew she was it for me.
When I walked into the apartment, pin-drop silence greeted me.
I placed the bag of takeout on the kitchen island when I noticed the note my girl had left me.
Come to the headquarters when you’re back.
Grabbing the dinner—thankfully, I’d gotten enough sushi to feed a group of people—I went downstairs. I walked into the hustle and bustle that reminded me of the last-minute chaos of an operation at the precinct.
Every woman was dressed in head-to-toe black, and some were exercising and stretching in the open workout area. I moved farther into the headquarters when a loud bark was followed by Shadow running full speed at me before lunging at me.
I stumbled back a step, a chuckle escaping my lips. “Boy, you’ve got no idea of your size, do you?”
The take-out containers occupied my hands, so I couldn’t get him to stop jumping. I looked at his snarling face—which was how he showed me love—and said, “I don’t have your bone right now, buddy. Where’s Mommy?”
“Shadow!” Tara’s loud shout had me looking in the direction of her voice, only to find the Shadow Panther staring back at me.
My sleek fighter, my masked woman with a vicious kick, the motherfucking beast who’d escaped my chase, was back. A low pulse of heat warmed my blood, burning me up with gut-clenching desire. This woman had me in a fucking choke hold, and she didn’t even know it.
Shadow barked loudly at her, turning back around me, and effectively pulling me out of my hypnotic obsession over the Shadow Panther. She sauntered to me like a sexy devil and grabbed Shadow by the collar, staring at my full hands. “What’d you bring?”
I raised both my hands in the air. “Sushi, anyone?”
Several gasps and the pounding of rushing footsteps echoed in the room, followed by a loud “Dibs” from Sloane. Tara tilted her masked face, and I was tempted to drop the food, pull off her mask, and lick her face.
Before I could do just that, two of the recruits took away the food and rushed into the kitchen space, with Sloane—who gave me a wink as she passed me—following them. She was striking with her bright pink hair falling in waves down her shoulders.
She was certainly a perfect ruse to get Greg back in the fold.
Tara walked even closer to me, and my hands immediately went to pull off her mask. She quickly dodged my hand and grabbed my arm. “Mask stays on.”
“I brought sushi.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“But I brought sushi.”
Her face tilted, and I knew she was smiling behind that stupid mask. “I can eat it later.”
Frustration rose within me. “Hold on.” I went to the kitchen, grabbed a plate, and served three full rolls of sushi before walking out to Tara. I clutched her arm and led her into her office, only to find Lena, Naomi, and Samaira busy in conversation.
Their faces snapped to us, and without stopping my stride, I said, “Excuse me, ladies,” and led Tara to her chair.
I placed the sushi on the desk, turned her chair toward the wall so her back faced the entire headquarters, and removed her mask. Taking a seat right across from her, I raised the plate between us. “Now, eat.”
Tara’s eyes were wide with surprise. But then they softened, and a whisper of a smile slipped onto her beautiful face. I liked it.
She cleared her throat and picked up a piece of sushi, dipped it in the soy sauce from the little container, and put the whole thing in her mouth. Her cheeks bulged on one side as she chewed, her badass meter dropping significantly lower while shooting up her cuteness factor by a million.
She grabbed another one, and I followed suit. Silently, without speaking a word to each other, we finished the three rolls.
I stood to throw the paper plate away when she grabbed my hand. I looked down at her and found a shining mist over her eyes. Her lower lip wobbled, and she bit it, blinking rapidly to ward off that pesky tear. “Thank you,” she said, her voice wobbly.
I nodded, handing her mask back. “Suit up, Shadow Panther.”
My eyes met the three ladies. Lena sat gaping at us, Naomi stared with a curious smile, while Samaira had a shit-eating grin pasted on her face. “Sushi?” I asked them.
Lena shook her head, whereas Samaira looked back and forth between Tara and me, and said, “Maybe I should get Dominic to get me some. That was fucking hot.”