Chapter 14
“Please shut the door.”
Tia hesitated, glancing up and down the hallway while I sat in the interview room.
It took a second before she entered. I had arrived early to beat the rush of employees and slip into the building unseen.
For the last hour, I waited here, counting down the minutes until she arrived.
The note on her desk made it clear she needed to appear for her interview.
I might have added a thinly veiled threat about her job if she tried to run.
“Have a seat,” I said with a calm, steady voice.
The door shut with a bang. She did her damnedest to be a problem, pulling the metal chair back from the table slowly enough that it filled the room with a screech.
I had gone over the paperwork, and the evidence against her had reached the point where the trial would only be a formality. I didn’t flinch as she took her seat.
“Why am I here?”
I had studied Booker’s process enough to learn a thing or two about how to interrogate.
Never react, and never let the interviewee control the conversation.
Instead of answering, I kept my hands folded, staring into her turquoise eyes.
I wanted to ask if they were contacts or good genetics.
It’s a question that Drew would have asked.
Drew hadn’t come to work this morning.
From the moment I left the house, I forced my powers into overdrive.
I had seen Orion at work and how fast he could grab security camera footage.
They were too numerous to black out the glass of each one.
Instead, I camouflaged myself using shifting angular patterns.
It’d throw off his facial recognition and give me the ability to hide in plain sight.
On the subway, I picked the busiest car, altering my appearance until nobody would recognize me.
Now, nobody in the world knew I sat here… with her.
She stood. “If you’re not—
“Sit.” It wasn’t a suggestion. “Now.”
I wanted to solve Synergy’s corporate espionage.
It’d garner accolades from Ricardo, and hopefully that goodwill would spill over to Arthur and Secret Identities.
With the reality I faced, I wanted to win the gratitude of my friends, hopefully offsetting the damage I had caused.
However, I couldn’t ignore the tattoo in her photo.
Trident had outed me, and they were going to pay.
“I’m going to give you a chance to confess.”
She laughed. “Confess? To what?”
Twelve seconds. I glanced at the clock on the wall, the second hand ticking each time it moved.
It required restraint not to reach over the table and grab her by the collar of her blouse.
Lifting her into the air might have felt satisfying, but from our few interactions, I suspected brute force wouldn’t lead anywhere.
I hoped it wouldn’t require crossing the point of no return.
If she gave me what I wanted, we could avoid a scene.
“I stole her troll.” Ten seconds. “I snuck in after—”
“I don’t care.” Since she arrived, I had remained perfectly still. For her benefit, my hands remained clasped over the manila folder. “You think I care about your feud with Janet?”
“Then what—”
“Cypher.”
Her eyes narrowed. I tried to mimic Booker, taking in every subtle movement.
It wasn’t much different from close-quarter combat.
I spotted the tensing muscles, the tightening of the jaw, and even her eyes going wide.
Spotting her reaction wasn’t the problem.
Without his experience, I couldn’t interpret the body language.
“I—”
“Wanted to make a buck?”
“No.”
“Revenge?”
“What the hell?”
“I’m waiting.”
“You’ve got some nerve.”
“What I’ve got—” I glanced at the folder. “—is evidence.”
“Of what?” Fast to anger. I filed it away as a potential tactic. “Fucking Cypher?”
I fought to keep my composure. My job was to spot corporate thieves. Everywhere I turned, I found potential suspects. I would have never guessed she had a logical answer, especially one so plausible. Or was that part of the cover-up?
“Redford.”
“That man’s tongue…”
I flinched. Tia wasn’t partaking in corporate espionage; she was getting a healthy dose of dick.
I’m sure this is where Booker would have poked holes in her stories and turned the conversation around.
If my real goal had been fussing her out as the office mastermind, I might have pushed harder.
Truth, there were more pressing matters.
I maintained my calm as I opened the folder. I pulled the photo free and flicked it across the table. She hadn’t finished grinding her teeth. Good, I wanted her angry. The more aggravated she became, the more likely she’d slip. I had learned that from nightly patrols. It made the bad guys sloppy.
“What am I looking at?”
“Tell me what you see.”
“I see a hot ass chick getting seriously annoyed.” With the snap of a finger, she sent it sailing in my direction. “Stop pretending you have anything. You’re playing a game you can’t win. So let’s just confirm I’m not—”
My fist came down on the table hard enough to leave a dent. Tia jumped, her eyes darting between the aftermath and my face.
“Let’s be clear.” My powers turned my eyes black. “I am not playing.”
She didn’t have a witty retort. The expression on her face hovered somewhere between confusion and fear. Tia stopped seeing Drew and got her first glimpse of Hellion. I slowly rose, leaning over the table, my weight braced on my knuckles.
“The tattoo.”
She leaned back in her chair, trying to maintain distance between us.
The next time my fist came down, I’d put it through the metal.
With deliberate slowness, I raised my head, letting her see my obsidian colored eyes.
I gambled, outing my powers. Tia needed to know the Drew she snarled at every morning wasn’t in the room.
“You work for the Trident.”
“What? No. Who?”
“Are you one of their lackeys?”
I picked up the photo and held it in front of her face. She recoiled. Tia had a mouth that wouldn’t quit, but it seemed her bravado faltered the moment she found herself outmatched.
“I don’t know—”
My knuckles smashed into the table, the metal almost shearing.
She yelped when she jumped. The thought of her dangling in the air didn’t look so bad right now.
I wanted the name of her employer. Whoever had put the bounty on my head was to blame for the other night.
I’d go on the warpath until I got my revenge.
Tia didn’t want to see what a monster was really capable of doing.
“Who put the bounty on my head?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Tell me!”
If I threw the table to the side, she’d tell me everything I wanted to hear. We approached her breaking point, and if I needed to—
“It’s not a tattoo.” She flashed her forearm. Not even tattoo removal would have left clean skin. “It—” Tears fell down her cheeks. “I went to a V.I.P. event. They stamped our arms.”
“What event?” The answer was there, one more statement. “What event!”
The door opened, and I nearly lunged. Every muscle in my body had tensed, ready for a fight. I froze as Booker walked into the room. His eyes darted between Tia and me. He staggered for a moment, back against the doorframe. He used the handle to keep himself upright while he steadied his breathing.
Between the table and the assistant with tears down her face, I had all but outed myself. My hypothetical curiosity about telling him the truth had come true. It’d be nearly impossible to explain the perfectly shaped fist impressions on the surface of a metal table.
“Let’s calm down,” he said.
The words were like a cool breeze against my skin. Hellion didn’t want to listen. I wanted answers and a person I could direct my anger toward. Trident was the reason I was at odds with my co-workers, and they deserved to pay.
“Calm,” he repeated with another exhale.
Tia’s body relaxed. It was hard to ignore the command.
My fingers flexed, the tension easing from my body.
No. I wanted to ride the fury. Booker stepped forward, hand on my shoulder.
With his fingers gripping, I couldn’t hold onto the anger.
All I could think about was that hand wrapped around mine, his thumb brushing my skin.
“What’s going on?” The words came out staggered, as if he had just run a marathon.
“Wanted a confession before you arrived.” Truth, even if it wasn’t the whole thing. “I was asking her about her involvement in our investigation. I wanted a confession.”
Tia could have revealed the truth. She could have outed me and brought my identity crashing down. Instead, she jumped to her feet. Hands slammed on the table, and she leaned forward, face inches from mine.
“You idiot,” she hissed. “I’m the one who put the note on your desk.”
There was no room for anger as the confusion came flooding in.
The only people who knew about the notes were Booker, Ms. Keyes, and me.
I tried to rationalize it. Maybe Apex had accessed the security footage or tapped our phones.
My brain tried latching onto a fantasy, but reality set in. The simplest answer was the truth.
“You warned us?” I mumbled.
“I like my job,” she growled. “I’ve suspected—
Booker held up his hand, hushing her. His finger pointed to the camera mounted in the corner. I couldn’t tell him I had already blacked out the lens. This room had been secured from prying eyes since I arrived.
Everybody remained quiet as Booker pulled a business card from his pocket. He flipped it over and scribbled something on the back. He kept it hidden in his palm as he offered it to Tia. She snatched it away, reading the back.
“You need to go somewhere safe,” he whispered. “Where they’d never look for you.”
“I’m not—”
“I’m not asking,” he said. Despite his whispering, his statement carried a sense of urgency. “It’s for your safety.”
She nodded. For all the threats I had hurled, she insisted on giving me the runaround about the assassins’ guild.
I had almost gotten the answer. Ten more seconds and I’d know who sent assassins to kill me.
I had to wonder if Booker’s statement was hiding her away from the person selling Synergy’s secrets or me?
Tia didn’t say another word as she stormed off. My only lead vanished, and all my work this morning came to a halt. Maybe I had my priorities mixed up, but I wanted vengeance on the person who ruined the relationship with my co-workers.
Booker’s eyebrow rested perched high on his brow.
I waited for him to ask about my early arrival or interviewing Tia without him present.
Hell, he could have glanced at the dents on the table, and without a word, we’d need to have a conversation.
I prepared for my anger to shift into guilt.
This wasn’t the way I imagined coming clean about my extracurricular activities.
“Now that we have that mystery solved, ready to get to work?”
I appreciated his ability to sidestep the questions I wasn’t ready to answer. It made me wonder if he knew more than he let on. Unfortunately, not even his patience or his acceptance stopped the anger in my chest.
“I’m going to get some air.” I needed to cool down and collect myself. His eyes softened, and I could read the worry on his face. “Once around the building and I’ll be back.” The smile didn’t reach his eyes, and somehow, that was the worst of what had just happened.