Savagely Yours (Angels & Assassins: Apocalypse #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

DEZ

A low thud sounded from behind the closed office door, and I waited for the “Don’t worry, I’m fine” that always came after any odd noise from the other side of the wooden partition. When nothing followed, I rose from the main security desk and knocked.

“Ms. Tapley? You all right in there?”

For a moment, there was no response.

Then came a soft, “No, I’m not.”

I opened the door and peered inside.

She’d closed all the blinds so that the fading evening light filtered in slits into the large office.

Lamps provided the rest of the lighting, casting a soft glow in shades of gold and amber.

I’d been assigned to the security detail for federal prosecutor, Larke Tapley, for a little over a year.

So, I’d come to learn that once those blinds shut while the sun was still out, that meant she was overwhelmed.

“What’s going on?” I asked, slowly entering.

Only the top of her head was visible from where she’d planted her forehead on her desktop.

Papers and open books were scattered everywhere, another sign that she was barely holding it together.

Usually, she was organized and detail-oriented to the point that she could spot an off-center necktie from a mile off—mine.

Only the first slip-up was authentic; the discipline instilled in me from my time in the military never entirely went away. That single time that my tie was askew, I’d had no time to readjust it after removing my coat.

Every instance since then was orchestrated to get her to walk up to me and nudge it back into place with a light touch, while she absentmindedly recounted some story that I always absorbed like a sponge.

“Am I crazy?” She raised her head. “You’ve been by my side for at least a year, Dez. You know me better than everyone else I work with.”

I shut the door and walked over to her desk. “That’s because you don’t talk to them,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but I don’t like them, though.”

I took a seat in one of the guest chairs on the other side of the desk. While I’d known returning to civilian life would have presented its own unique challenges, I didn’t anticipate how bored I would be outside of these private moments with her.

Regardless, I remained on high alert.

Something was happening around the globe.

People from different countries had recorded things on their phones that were so out of this world, many people wrote them off as AI-generated.

When the issue grew too large for the government to ignore, all the public received from the Feds was vague reassurance that the videos they’d seen didn’t pose a threat.

All the while, alarm bells had been secretly sounding in the nation’s capital.

Before all of that started happening, I was hired through a private defense contract as part of a team to provide security for Larke Tapley.

The request began as a safety precaution due to a case she’d been assigned.

Then, one week ago, I was debriefed to watch out for anything suspicious in addition to assassins looking to murder the cute prosecutor.

“I think I’m crazy,” she continued. “Why would I have agreed to this case?”

“Because of who asked,” I said.

“He only asked because he thinks I’ll make a good scapegoat.” She motioned to herself. “Look at me.”

And I did.

I’d been “looking” at her since my first week on the job. I’d had to review a dossier complete with background information, videos, and photos of Larke Victoria Tapley. Still, no lens could accurately capture a pair of alluring eyes that perfectly complemented her honey-brown skin.

At first, noticing it was enough; I was hired to do a job, and I was too disciplined to let a pretty face distract me.

Eventually, however, noticing became attraction.

It became ruminating, daydreaming, looking away whenever she smiled, and thinking about her long after we separated for the evening.

“I’m looking at you. What’s wrong with you?”

“In the public eye, I make a good scapegoat,” she reiterated. “I’m Black, a woman, and I received my law degree from an HBCU.”

“Those all sound like excellent accolades to me.”

“Yeah, well, I know that.” She tucked a short strand of hair behind her ear and didn’t immediately let it go.

“Still, I don’t pretend to be ignorant about how people on the Hill see me, too many of them older than my right to vote, never mind my right to practice law.

And I know I’m damn good at what I do, but Dez…

I’m trying to prosecute members of Congress. ”

“Are you allowed to tell me that?”

“Probably not.”

“Well, I guess it’s only fair since I told you I have Black Cell Compartmented Access security clearance, which no one’s supposed to know about.”

She smiled.

I momentarily looked away, cleared my throat, and leaned forward, my hands clasped.

“You know, the majority of human trafficking victims do come from Eastern Europe. The majority of offenders are White men, over fifty, who make at least six figures. Then, there’s the fact that your assignment came directly from POTUS.

That means you’re the best person for the job, regardless of what some ignorant old fucks might think.

Plus, look at it this way: if anyone, especially an…

adversarial interest, has a member of Congress by the balls, isn’t that a potential national security threat?

All that ‘interest’ has to do is threaten to leak their secrets to alter these Congress members’ decisions, which can ultimately end up hurting the American people. ”

She slapped her palms on the table and stood. “Maybe you should write my closing argument.”

I rose, my body primed to mirror her actions and to never let more than a certain amount of space exist between us.

She walked to the window, spread a couple of blinds with her index and middle finger, and peered out.

This morning, she’d walked in wearing a dark blue blazer over what I’d assumed was a white top and a matching pair of pants.

With the blazer gone, I realized it was all one piece.

One piece that fit her figure exceptionally well.

“What made you want to become a lawyer?” I asked. I needed a filler question to avoid asking her to close up shop for the evening and have dinner with me instead. “Don’t think I’ve ever asked.”

She didn’t turn away from the window. “You haven’t, and it’s the reason you probably think it is.”

“Your sister?”

“Yeah.”

When they were children, her older sister, Raven, was abducted and murdered in Louisiana. They’d been close, and she’d confided in me that the loss changed her in fundamental ways she was still processing as an adult.

“I’m sorry you had to experience that,” I offered. “I really am.”

She still didn’t turn. “And you know I appreciate you. Always. But come here a second. Tell me what this looks like to you.”

I joined her at the window, momentarily thrown off by a whiff of her perfume, and peered through the blinds.

A man stumbled through the near-empty courtyard.

His hand appeared to be up near his neck, but we were too many levels up for me to be sure.

Another man seemed to be following him, though much more slowly, from yards away.

They were the only two in the area, and with it being a Friday, in D.C.

, and after work hours, the lack of a crowd wasn’t exactly unusual.

Yet, something about the scene raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

“Are you on social media?” she asked.

“As far as profiles?” I studied the first man, who began to look familiar. “No. I scroll from time to time, but I don’t create anything. Or engage.”

“Have you seen the videos then? The ones with the...cannibals, I guess?”

“I have.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t get paid to think. I get paid to protect you.”

“Still, you’re a smart guy, Dez.” She shifted, and her hand brushed my knuckles. “What do you think? It’s just me and you. I won’t judge.”

The first man disappeared.

The second continued his odd, slow pace.

“I think, if a government has a track record of keeping things from the public, it’s not outrageous to think they’ll do it again or keep doing it.”

The second man turned around, looked from side to side, and then up, directly at the office window.

I pulled Tapley away from the blinds. “I think that’s Chris. I don’t know who the second guy is, but I’m pretty sure the first one holding his neck is Chris.”

My phone rang, and I tapped the screen to answer.

“Hey, Dez? It’s me. It’s Chris.”

He sounded choked, his breathing labored. Instantly, I knew what those sounds meant.

“They’re all after...after Songbird,” he continued. “Suppressors. Military-trained. SpecOps. Soviet, best guess. One…neutralized. One…remaining.”

I hated that I could pick up on his fear, hear his impending demise.

Chris was an elite soldier, but he was only twenty-four years old.

As technically advanced as I’d been at his age, I’d still learned tons from the leaders who’d guided me.

Not many received the golden ticket of training under Gage Wolfe and Curtis Savea.

I peered again.

Chris, still holding his neck, was now kneeling over the man, who lay on the ground, motionless. “I messed up, Dez. My mom, she…she’s not gonna...”

I motioned for Larke to return to her desk and reached under my blazer. Although her eyes widened when I brandished my weapon, she began to shove sheets of paper into a cross-shredder.

“You didn’t mess up,” I reassured Chris. “You did good. Your mom, you know she’s proud of you, man.”

“I’m dying, Dez.”

I heard a sniff between the whirr of the shredder blades and realized that particular sniff hadn’t come from the man on the other side of the phone.

“Shit.” I tapped to switch from speakerphone to my earpiece. “Chris? Hey, talk to me.”