Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
“What in the hell just happened?” FBI Agent Grayson “Gray” Stone demanded. Gray was not just a run-of-the-mill FBI agent. He was someone who had flown up the ranks in record time. His fancy new title—because it always seemed to be changing with Gray—was Executive Assistant Director.
The man held a whole lot of power at the Bureau.
And he currently looked extremely pissed…with her.
Probably because it was a Monday night. He’d expected to be home in bed with his lovely wife. His lovely pregnant wife. And, instead of being with Emerson…
He was at the FBI office. Glaring at Agnes.
She shifted a bit in the exceedingly uncomfortable chair that had been positioned directly across from his desk. Gray didn’t sit in his leather desk chair. He stood behind the desk. The better to glare down at her.
“What just happened…” Agnes nodded. She kept her voice brisk as she told him, “A sneak attack, sir. That’s what happened. The attacker came up behind me. Luckily, I thwarted his attack.” Thwarted. That was a fun word. It kind of swirled around in her head. She had thwarted—
“Agnes.” Flat. Zero amusement. Typical Gray. “I’m talking about when you shoved the muzzle of your gun against his forehead. What the hell possessed you to do that?”
Oh, yes. That part of the night. “He wanted to kill me.”
“So you arrest him. We lock his ass away. When we stop a perp, we follow the rules. We don’t nearly shoot an unarmed man in the street, with half a dozen cops nearby.”
“I didn’t nearly shoot him. My finger never got even close to pulling the trigger.
” Time to just get real with Gray. “We both know that if I’d wanted him dead, he would be dead.
I wouldn’t have just sprayed mace in his eyes.
The perp was coming at me with a knife. I could have shot him there and then and had a solid self-defense case. ”
He swore.
“Yeah, exactly,” she agreed. “I didn’t. I didn’t shoot him. He’s under arrest, cooling down in holding. I did everything the right way.”
“You’re a Fed.”
She knew that fun fact. She carried the badge. She hunted the monsters.
She saw the victims who’d been left behind. She buried the dead. She…
Wanted vengeance.
“You think I don’t understand?” Gray’s voice lowered even as his face tensed. “You think I don’t have a profile on every single member of my team?”
Her hands gripped the chair’s armrests on either side of her body. “Judas Long had four open arrest warrants.” They had ID’d the guy not too long ago. “Because of me, he’s now behind bars. I think that makes for a pretty good night’s work.” As far as Gray having a profile on her…
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what his profile would say.
“You’re still hunting,” Gray charged.
Aw, damn. She shrugged. Maybe she slumped a little in her chair.
“Agnes.” Flat. “You’re still hunting.”
Guilty. True story, she would be hunting until the day she died. Or until the day I bury the bastard who hurt me and killed my boyfriend.
“You know I’m looking for him, too,” Gray added.
Because, of course, he was. This was Gray.
“I’m searching for the perp based on the profile we built,” Gray added, because, yes, they had worked together to create a profile on the man she was after.
She’d wanted Gray’s insight as she tried to understand the killer.
Understanding him isn’t my goal. Eliminating him is.
“We know the perp was most likely an MC member,” he continued.
“Based on the tattoo work you described, he was more than just a regular MC. He was a Twin Cobra. Because they are the bastards who use the two-headed cobra tat to mark their members. But when you were attacked, you only saw the tat. You never saw the face of the man who hurt you. Hell, you really didn’t see anything but his tatted wrist… ”
His wrist, yes, because she’d stared up as the knife had plunged down at her.
But she had seen more than just that.
The black helmet. The dark visor that completely covered his face. The dark, battered, leather coat that he wore. The coat I grabbed with my blood-covered hands. The black t-shirt. The jeans. The boots as he walked away and left me bleeding beside the dead body of my boyfriend.
“Agnes?”
She blinked. Her breath shuddered out. “He spoke to me.”
“The perp tonight? Uh, yeah—”
“No. The man who attacked me all of those years ago.” As if she’d ever forget his voice or his words. “You know he did. If I could just get an in with the powerful MCs, if I could just get close, I could—”
“That shit isn’t going to happen. We are talking about the Twin Cobras. They’re freaking shadows, Agnes. You know that. The Twins—if the stories are true—they are actually in the other MCs.”
She was aware. “The Twins are supposed to be the most vicious, hardened bikers out there. They are chosen because they show extreme potential.” Potential for violence and destruction. “But they have to prove themselves to get inside that secret, inner circle.”
“Some people are wannabes.” Gray kept his stare on her. “They heard the stories about the two-headed cobra tat. They get the ink to pretend that they are the most dangerous bastards out there.”
“Yeah, and then they wind up in the morgue because no wannabes are allowed in the Twins.” As if she didn’t understand this. She’d gone to plenty of morgues to look at bodies supposedly belonging to the notorious group. She’d never found a match for the tattoo on the man who’d come after her.
“The perp tonight could just be a dumb wannabe.”
Judas could certainly be. “Maybe. But he also tried to kill Cassius Striker a few nights back. Pair that up with the fact that Judas just tried to take out a Fed, and, to me, you’re talking Twin Cobra level work.”
Gray blinked. “He tried to kill Cassius?”
Um…
“How do you know about that?” Gray thundered.
Oh, the usual way. “I might have been in the bar at the time.” Did she need to say more?
Hopefully not. Time to redirect her boss.
“The inner circle of the Twins,” she said deliberately.
“If I can get access, I know I can find the killer I’m after.
No, more than that, I can help take down the whole group.
They’re the worst of the worst. Criminals. Murderers. I just need to get—”
“No.” He pushed his hands down on the desk as he leaned toward her.
“You’re not going to just sashay into the MC world and somehow infiltrate the secretive Twins.
That shit does not happen. Ever. Don’t you understand?
No one has gotten in undercover with them.
We’ve had agents who tried. The Bureau has been attempting to infiltrate the Twins for years.
Any agents who get close are unmasked. Those agents vanish completely, or else we find pieces of them. ”
Not like she wanted pieces of herself to be discovered. Agnes swallowed.
Gray was not done. Nostrils flaring, he fired, “There have been explosions that we believe are linked to the Twins. Actual bomb detonations because these perps are freaking extreme. They don’t just destroy their enemies. They often obliterate them. That’s not happening to you. Not on my watch.”
They’d had this talk before. Whenever she mentioned going undercover in an attempt to reach the Twins.
And, frankly, the very fact that the group was so extreme just meant that they needed to work harder in order to take them down.
She wanted in that group. She wanted to rip them apart from the inside.
But when she brought up the Twins, Gray always put roadblocks in her path. So maybe she’d decided to take a different path.
“I want to get back to Cassius.” Grim determination underscored Gray’s words.
Sure. Because no way would Gray be redirected so easily.
“You were in the bar when Judas Long attacked Cassius Striker?”
“Well…” Modest. “I actually saved Cass’s life.” She rolled one shoulder. “No big deal.”
Gray’s jaw dropped.
“You can’t go in there!” A raised voice. One from just outside of Gray’s inner sanctum. “You can’t—this is the FBI!”
The door to Gray’s office flew open. “Like I give a shit,” Cass announced darkly.
Her head snapped toward him.
He filled the doorway. All big, bold, and furious. Cass jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Tell your guard dog to back off,” Cass ordered as he glared at Gray. “And get those agents of yours to stand the hell down. I’d hate to have to punch someone else.”
Oh, no. Someone else. That pretty much implied that he had already punched at least one other person. At the FBI office.
She jumped to her feet and whirled to fully face Cass even as she heard Gray swear.
Wide-eyed, she gaped at Cass. “You just…” A shake of her head. “You should not be here.”
“Tell me something I don’t fucking know.” He stalked toward her. Didn’t stop until he was right in front of her. He reached out and caught her chin. He tilted her head from one side to the other, as if searching for injuries. “You’re okay?”
She hadn’t been sliced with Judas’s knife. She had zero injuries. “He was trying to stab me in the back,” she whispered. “That’s his go-to technique. No worries, I maced him.”
Gray marched out of the office. “Stand the hell down,” he blasted to whoever waited outside of his office door. “Everything is under control. And I want you to erase all security footage that shows…”
She didn’t catch what else Gray said because Cass grabbed her full attention.
“You maced him.” Cass nodded. “Of course, you did.” His mouth kicked into a half-smile. He began to lean down toward her.
Was he going to kiss her? Right there? Wait, bad idea. Wasn’t it?
Yes, yes, of course, it’s a bad idea. You don’t make out in the office of your FBI boss.
The door to the office slammed shut. “What. The. Fuck?” Gray thundered.
Cass froze. His eyes glittered at her. Then his head turned toward Gray. “Hello, sunshine.”