Chapter 6
Lauren
“You’re alive,” I whisper, feeling like an idiot for stating the obvious.
He doesn’t turn his head in my direction.
That bad vibe, the one I tried to locate but couldn’t find in the Cerberus men, is radiating off him in waves.
It’s what made me pause before climbing into his truck.
I can’t count his silence as acceptance of me being here though.
From the curl of his lip and the way his right eyebrow keeps twitching, it’s obvious he’s not happy to see me. It’s more likely he’s driving just far enough away to slit my throat and roll my body out onto the frozen ground.
I wouldn’t use the word happy to describe the way I feel about seeing him either.
I could speak of the guilt I feel for what happened to him in El Salvador… his dying that is, but it wouldn’t solve anything.
He doesn’t seem like the type of man that would even care, but something is bothering him.
“You’re rescuing little girls now?”
Nothing.
The lights of town grow brighter, the streets busier now that the countdown has ended and we’re a half an hour into a new year.
I’m pissed, too, but that isn’t on Angel.
Alan, my handler, gets most of that irritation right now.
I could be working, could be helping, could be living in my own pain and retribution.
Holidays always have an uptick in crime, especially trafficked women.
Drunk men like to fuck, and there’s an endless supply of those that get off on taking things that aren’t offered.
They’re loose with their morals and cash.
I was drunk has been used as an excuse for them doing the shit they wished they were brave enough to do sober since the dawn of time.
Tonight’s celebrations are wasted with sitting in this truck with him rather than being in South America or some dank torture chamber in Mexico.
“Not talking to me?” I ask as he pulls up outside a gas station.
We both sit and watch as a woman wobbles on too-high heels as she returns the gas handle back to the machine.
The store is closed, only offering credit-paid services, and it’s obvious that she’s past the point of being safe to drive, but neither one of us say anything or attempt to stop her as she drives away.
“I wanted to—”
“Get out of my truck, Lola.”
I don’t know what’s worse, the hatred in his tone or the fact that he’s using the name I use when I work undercover.
Lola.
What a fucking joke.
“Lauren,” I snap, needing to remind him exactly who I am right now.
I’m not the lost girl I pretended to be in El Salvador. I’ve got teeth and will use them to tear him to shreds if he pushes me too far.
Slowly, he turns his head to me, and the man I taunted years ago is nowhere to be seen.
His eyes, as dark as they’ve always been, are now soulless and empty.
I revel in the frigid chill that starts at the center of my back, radiating out until my arms and legs are covered in goosebumps. It’s thrilling, dangerous. Just what I’ve been looking for.
“Get. Out.” There’s a warning in his tone, one any person other than me would heed.
This man was a pawn. As an FBI agent, I couldn’t believe that he was there to protect the women, that he was truly upset with what he saw happen between Thumper and me.
He was fair to the women in captivity with me.
His eyes didn’t linger any longer than he had to in order to get his job done.
He was livid when one of the men raped a girl after getting the keys from him, and proud when Thumper shot that man in the head for what he’d done.
I kissed him, turned him on, stroked him off in the hallway of that house in El Salvador, and like the good little boy he was, he let me, begged me to stop without forcing me to do so.
He enjoyed what I offered, drank it up like a kitten lapping at milk.
He wasn’t the kind of guy I needed to feel whole, but he was a means to an end.
The man staring back at me now isn’t a kitten any longer.
He has either changed or he played the game much better than I ever could.
This man is the one I need.
I’m staring into the eyes of a cold-blooded killer, looking at the face of a man who could wipe my existence from the face of the earth and not even blink an eye when he washes my sticky blood from his hands.
It’s electrifying, the frantic beat of my heart making me feel more alive than I have in months, years possibly.
As a mercenary, he goes against everything I’ve done in my years as an FBI agent. He should be behind bars, rotting away in prison for the things he’s undoubtedly done, not working another job, and collecting a paycheck.
Yet, I have no intention of making that happen. I don’t want to stop him, and that either means he’s not all bad or I’m not as good as I like to claim.
The man I wanted to bend to my will, to play with while bored in El Salvador, while waiting to transition to the real job I’d set out to do, isn’t watching me right now.
His jaw flexes, drawing my attention to a faint scar there. I don’t remember it from before, but I don’t know if it’s because I felt sorry for the bastard after leaving that house and have tried—and failed—to forget him.
I haven’t spent long amounts of time wondering about him—death is final in that way—but he has crossed my mind.
The man was shot trying to protect me. He bent to my will exactly as I had intended.
He wasn’t the first man it happened to, and he hasn’t been the last since then.
I know it’ll happen again. There are only so many shields you can put up in those types of situations.
The first goal of working undercover in some of the most dangerous places on earth is to stay alive. Everything else comes secondary to that.
A mercenary dying so an agent could live is seen as a good thing. A lot of training, time, and money has gone into creating who I am. The pain I get in return, that feeds my demons, is just an added benefit to me.
“I had to get away from Cerberus,” I say when he refuses to blink or back down.
I hate the confession. Playing meek and in need of help really isn’t my style while I’m not undercover.
“Bus station,” he says, throwing his thumb over his shoulder without breaking eye contact.
The words are harsh. He has no problem telling me exactly like it is, unlike Kincaid who seemed to want the exact same thing but wasn’t asshole enough to just come out and say it.
“I remember how your lips felt on mine,” I whisper, biting my lip in a way that makes me feel ridiculous.
His eyes don’t drop to my mouth the way they did years ago when I spoke. He doesn’t shift in his seat or seem uncomfortable with what I’m clearly offering him. He isn’t questioning whether he should take me up on it or not.
It delights me in ways I can’t explain, his indifference.
“We could pick up where we left off,” I tell him, snaking my hand up his thigh.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” he growls, his hand gripping my wrist to the point of pain.
I wince before I can stop myself, my body threatening to catch on fire at his rough touch.
He releases me just as quickly, throwing my arm back into my lap, but instead of insisting I get out again, he shifts the truck into drive and pulls out of the gas station parking lot.
Neither of us speak as he drives to the shittiest part of town, pulling up outside a motel that’s less than half a step above a hovel. He grabs a duffel from the backseat before stepping out.
I wait, watching the front office of the motel for him to exit to head to his room, but he never does, despite the row of rooms being outside entry.
Enticing men has never been hard for me. I learned early in my teens that men turn into idiots when propositioned. My body, my words, the slightest hint of cleavage turns them into desperate blobs with only one thing on their mind.
Most men grovel and beg, plead for a taste. It doesn’t matter if they have a wife at home or if I’m asking for more money than they have. They’re willing to give it all up for me.
It’s not even just me. Men will burn down their entire worlds, forgo their perfect fucking wives, turn their backs on their children with just the promise of hot sex.
Maybe it’s innate, something they learned watching Eve sin in the garden and think they missed out on something delicious—just one bite of that apple she made look so fucking delicious.
Now they’re unable to turn down any offer that comes their way.
They’re desperate for a taste of the forbidden.
It’s not my fault I use that, manipulate them into getting what I want.
I shouldn’t single out men. Women can be just as easily tricked. They’re just more likely to give in to the sob story, the my kids are hungry bullshit, than sexual desire, but easy to manipulate, nonetheless.
I thought Angel was that man.
I’ve never been happier to have been wrong.