6. natasha
Iturned and rammed both fists into Mattias’ chest. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Bad enough that he’d towed me off the dance floor without my permission. Now he’d dragged me into Antony’s office like he had any right to use it!
Fuming, I spun toward the desk, cursing Mattias in every language I knew—including ones that weren’t even human—and stalked toward the man currently posing as my father. “What in the name of the Angels is going on here? You send Mattias to manhandle me off the dance floor like I’m some sort of child and then drag me in here as though I require discipline?”
I slammed my palms down on the desk and leaned toward him, so angry I could barely contain it. I didn’t have to look to know my skin was lighting up. I didn’t care. I was safe in here, and Antony needed to know that my emotions were that close to the surface.
He needed to know how dangerous this was.
Look, I knew I was the youngest in the room—and would still be if our other partner, Valentine, came in. I knew this was my first mission and that I was the least experienced. But this was my mission too, and I’d been the one tasked with bagging our target. That meant our superiors had faith in me—as they should, considering how long I’d been working at the main office. I’d proven myself again and again. Everyone knew how smart I was, and my capabilities when it came to charming unsuspecting victims.
I was the talent here, I reminded myself. And Antony and Mattias would do well to remember it.
“The target is mine to take,” I growled. “How the hell am I supposed to do that when I’m getting yanked off the dance floor by my older brother?”
I didn’t mention the second part: that fully half of my anger was because Mattias had taken me away from the man with the gray eyes. I wanted to know that man. Wanted to feel him, touch him, hear his voice. I’d been pulled to him like a magnet who had found its mate, and when he touched me, it had been everything I wanted.
He’d been all I could see.
I wanted that back, and I wanted to kill Mattias for taking me away from him. I wanted to kill Antony for having ordered it.
I wouldn’t have been able to. Antony was far older and more powerful than I was. Mattias, though... I thought I might be able to take him, if I had my weapons with me.
I looked up at Antony, ready to ask again what in hells was going on here, but found him staring at Mattias. I turned to look at my brother, wondering how he was going to answer for what he’d done, and saw the door open. Valentine, our other partner, came strolling in like the cat who’d just had his cream, smirking in that self-satisfied way of his.
He stopped when I turned my glare on him, and had the good sense to look at least a little bit sorry.
“I didn’t do it,” he said immediately. “I wasn’t involved.”
“And yet I saw you pulling that man away from me,” I noted, trying for calm. “Which means you were involved.”
Val swallowed heavily and let his gaze flick to my hands.
Smart.
I didn’t have my weapons with me, but he had to know that if I had, I would have been using them already. If these three had thought that I’d meekly succumb to their plans, they had another thing coming. I might be new at this, but I knew my own powers.
It just took a lot before I used them.
“Tell me what happened,” Antony said, interrupting my thoughts.
I glanced from him to my brothers, wondering. Had Antony sent them, or was he just as surprised at their actions as I was?
“She was dancing with the Rossi man,” Mattias said quietly. “I saw them making eyes at each other from across the room and didn’t think anything of it. When I looked again, he had his hands all over her, his face buried in her neck.”
“That’s not—” I started, outraged. He hadn’t had his face in my neck and his hands had been on my back, nowhere else.
And why the fuck had Mattias been watching me?
A hand latched onto my arm, stopping me in my tracks.
“Duca de la Roca?” Antony asked, his voice intense.
Wait.
The moment Antony said his name, the pieces started falling into place.
Antony had thought we were here for someone named Rossi, or someone connected to that family. He hadn’t been sure—or he just hadn’t told me any more than that. He’d said that he would worry about the man and that I was to stay out of the way.
He didn’t know I’d come with more information than him. My superiors had pulled me aside before I left for New York, given me a name and an objective that they hadn’t given anyone else. They’d been concerned that the mission might be compromised somehow, though they hadn’t been able to give me any more detail than that.
They’d given me the name Duca de la Roca, and told me not to share it until I had the man in question.
I’d been sent here for Duca, but no one else knew the name. My agency had worried that they might lose him if the others knew his name. But if the man with the gray eyes was in fact my target… I’d already had him up close and personal, my fingertips on his lapel, my skin buzzing with the feel of him.
He’d been right there, and Mattias had pulled me away before I could get his name.
I looked up, thoughts and suspicions racing through my brain, and met Antony’s eyes. He didn’t know that Duca was our target. He couldn’t, unless my superiors had lied to me about everything. They’d said they were entrusting me with the information because they needed my loyalty, and that I wasn’t to tell anyone else.
So why had Antony sounded so triumphant when he said Duca’s name? How did he even know that name?
When I caught him looking back at me, I had to stifle the gasp that ran up my throat. I’d known Antony for most of my life, had sat at his knee to learn some of our basic tenets. He’d taught me how to use my weapons and had been there on the first day I stretched my wings. I knew his eyes like the backs of my hands.
The eyes I was staring into now were not his eyes.
They weren’t the blue I’d come to know and love. Didn’t have the timeless wisdom or barely concealed humor. They were still blue, but it was rimmed with red fire that no angel would have worn.
Demon fire.
That wasn’t Antony.
I tore my eyes away before my expression could reflect my discovery and glanced at Mattias, then Valentine. I didn’t see anything unusual about those two—surely I would have noticed?—but I didn’t have time to stand around wondering about that. Another look into Antony’s eyes confirmed that they were still ringed with fire.
Those weren’t the eyes of an angel. Those were demon eyes. And that meant our mission had been infiltrated by at least one enemy. My superiors had been right to worry.
And the enemy would know exactly who they were here for.
I needed to find Duca de la Roca and get him out of here before they got their hands on him. Or the mission would be a failure, the balance tipped in favor of the demons.
Gods help me.
“I can handle myself, Antony,” I said austerely, praying to every Angel I knew that I sounded more confident than I felt. “I won’t be handled by the likes of Mattias. I’ve been tasked with finding our target, and I’ll thank all of you to stay out of my way.”
I turned and walked quickly from the room, my mind reaching ahead of me to try to locate the warm light I’d attached to Duca as we were dancing. I needed to find the man before the beings behind me did. I needed to get him out of here—by hook or by crook.
By foot or through the glow.