4. Wren
WREN
I’m so screwed.
Before I tried to open my eyes, I lay on the hard floor and knew that wherever I was, whatever had happened, it was not good.
Keeping my eyes closed and lying as still as possible in case someone was near me, I took a mental inventory of all that I could catalogue as clues to pick at.
Assess. Ascertain. And act.
My assessment so far was that I was alive.
Starting with the basics there.
If this was heaven or hell, it was underwhelming.
I was alive. I could breathe freely. My heart was beating like it should. Without moving to test my range of motion, I could guess that the lack of aches in my body meant I was able to get up and move.
Yet, I held back. I waited.
Listening to the surroundings, I tried to tell if anyone was in here. Where here was. The whine of a fan overhead told me I was in a room. The lack of vibrations told me I wasn’t near any machinery or traffic. No smells reached my nose—except my own sweat. But I wasn’t overheated in this room.
Staying still became a form of mental torture, though, and I gave up the wait. I’d given it a good five minutes and no cues came from any of my senses.
I pried my eyes open and saw that I was in a cell. Four plain walls greeted me and the big metal door didn’t give any clues for me to work with.
Alone, without any obvious security camera lens anchored anywhere, I slowly picked myself off the floor and stretched.
Not tied up.
I wondered why. Why go to the extremes of capturing me but leave me able to defend myself with my fists?
I cringed at how poorly I’d done that when that man chased me in the alley. He had overpowered me like a freaking Viking—too huge and tall and strong for me to have had a chance.
Of course, my gun was gone. I couldn’t understand why they’d left my holster, though. That could be a handy rope to use for an attack. My jacket lay near my feet, by a wooden chair.
All that remained was to act now. I walked around slowly, still listening. The absence of the weight of my wallet in my jacket as I picked it up clued me to its being missing along with my keys and phone. Also, not a surprise.
At the door, I heard no sounds of anyone coming. No moans or wails of any other prisoners. Then looking at the slim, horizontal window too high for me to see through, I knew that there was no means of escaping, just a tease of a slit that could prove it was day or night.
I rubbed my face and swallowed hard. My tongue was glued to the top of my mouth. Dizzy with dehydration and wincing at the hunger pangs, I wondered how long I’d been in here. I wasn’t famished to the point of dying and I wasn’t so thirsty that I couldn’t form saliva.
Probably just since last night?
I scanned the unfamiliar room and immediately knew this was a controlled environment where I wouldn’t have any leverage.
I was at the mercy of whoever had chased me and captured me. Massaging where he’d hit me or applied pressure near my neck, I realized that he’d knocked me out easily. But this fatigue and slight haze in my mind suggested that I’d been drugged too.
Clothes intact…
I didn’t feel like I’d been touched at all, yet the slightest possibility of that pissed me off.
My escape options were limited, but I had to have faith. Smithson would know that I was missing. Others at the office would wonder where the new agent had gone.
I couldn’t be stuck in here forever. But as I lowered to the chair because my foot hurt from running last night and stepping on it wrong when I didn’t see a pothole, I worried that my short stay would be predetermined by the hulk who’d captured me.
That fear rose to the surface again, mixing in with the rage that this had happened at all.
Stay cool.
Don’t let the fear win.
Assess. Ascertain. And a—
A scrape of metal on metal came from the door. I acted, but it was an involuntary response. I jerked, flinching at the sound that signaled someone was coming.
I forced another swallow and tensed as I sat still. If it was that monstrously large behemoth again, I wouldn’t gain anything by trying to hide to the side of the door and thinking that the best defense was offense.
Waiting as the door slid open, I refused to cower. I resisted hunching into a ball to protect myself.
Anything could happen.
Someone could waltz in and shoot me point-blank.
They could swarm in here and try to abuse me.
A guard or servant could toss in some food and water and leave without a word.
Hell, maybe it would be Smithson with Brayden trailing behind him, here to rescue their fellow agent.
It wasn’t any of the above.
It was worse.
Much worse.
Because the huge man who’d stalked me like a shadow in the night was none other than a Volkov.
A son of the Pakhan, or maybe one of the two cousins.
I couldn’t call myself an agent if I wasn’t familiar with the Volkov Bratva.
Even as a newly transferred agent, I’d done my homework.
No other crime family could reach the heights of power and wealth that Dmitri Volkov had.
Upon closer look as he strode in, I racked my brain for which one this was.
Not Adrik or Maksim. Not Lev. They’d all married someone recently and this one didn’t have a ring. No mohawk, either. That was Nikolai. Alexei always looked too much like a gargoyle in the still images captured and put into his file. Because of course, Smithson and the others kept tabs on them all.
The slight smirk on his lips, a cruel and malicious one, was all I needed to see. The ponytail of long brown hair proved this mussed-up, bad-boy look would mean he had to be one of the deadliest negotiators and enforcers in this underworld of syndicated crime.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
Viktor Volkov. The so-called smartass of the merry gang of Bratva bosses.
Just my luck.
“Were you expecting someone else, Agent Green?” His voice was smooth and smoky. Too low.
I deadpanned at him.
Before I could even think of something more eloquent or stronger to say, he tossed me a water bottle. I caught it, and seeing that it wasn’t opened, I risked taking a sip. Then more. I coughed, chugging it and making a mess.
He stood there and watched me, his hands thrust in his pockets. Wearing a black, short-sleeved button-down, he left his thick and toned arms on full display. All those tats. Scars too. I wiped my mouth and refused to admit that he was a strikingly… well-shaped specimen of the criminal variety.
Assess. Ascertain. And act.
The most obvious thing I could notice was that he exuded power, and it wouldn’t matter what my opinion about it was. Because there was no way any action of escaping or attacking him was in the books. He took up so much room that he blocked the doorway.
“You need me to start asking all the questions? Or you wanna save us both the time by just talking?”
“Save the time for what?” I replied. “For my release?”
He leaned against the open doorway, almost taunting me that a sliver of freedom was there… if I dared to pass him by. His bored stare suggested he wasn’t in the mood for reciprocal smart-assery.
“Why were you at the scene last night?”
“Scene of what?”
“You tell me.”
I licked my lips. “I was sent there for a stakeout.”
He arched one brow.
“To spy on us?”
I shook my head. “No. I’ve been assigned to investigate financial irregularities connected to the Cartel.
” Revealing anything to a hardened criminal who held all the cards wasn’t part of any solid protocol from my training.
But I had to wing it here. My assessment and actions weren’t applicable yet, and the only thing I was certain of was that he might kill me at any second.
“You weren’t there for any part in the assassination attempt on my brother?”
I furrowed my brow. “No.”
He watched me with that stony, severe regard.
“I was there for a stakeout unrelated to you and your family.” Fuck.
He has to believe me. “I’m new on the force here.
” I licked my lips again, hating to sound like I was singing like a canary, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t look me up and know through their spies how long I’d been employed in the department around here.
“I’ve been asked to look into a politician who seems to be paying for favors from the Cartels.” I cleared my throat, hating how his intense stare could unnerve me like this. “I’m not looking into any assassination plots. Or being part of them.”
Still nothing. He watched me. Taunted me.
“Actually, that’s not true…” I narrowed my eyes, thinking back.
“I’m not sure how new you are to this, Agent, but as a general rule, lying to someone like me is the fastest way to be bleeding out and begging for death.”
I swallowed again, wishing his serious stare and husky voice wouldn’t have such an impact on me. Like he was the devil himself, dictating how life would go on up here on earth.
In other words, how he saw fit.
“I’m not lying.”
He smirked. “All the times I’d heard that before…”
“It is true. I am telling the truth.” Not that you deserve it from me. I was supposed to be the one getting answers from someone like him, not the other way around.
He tilted his head to the side. “Make up your mind, Red.”
“I was and am telling the truth.” I sighed heavily.
“You know, for someone in your situation, you’re not exactly… pleading with me all that well.”
I gave him a droll look. “I’m not going to beg.”
A slow, dangerous smile almost took over his face. “Now there’s a thought.”
“Fuck you,” I muttered. “Truthfully, I am on a task force to investigate fraudulent behavior with a couple of politicians. And truthfully, I am unaware of any assassination plot. But I was a part of the one last night.” He hadn’t told me which brother he thought had been targeted, but I could bet he meant Adrik since he was the heir, the interim leader.
“Explain.”
I gritted my teeth, hating that I had to give him this much intel.
I should be taking this news to Smithson and the others at the agency.
Not Viktor Volkov. Yet, I wasn’t stupid.
I was new, but I wasn’t dumb. If I shared why I modified my answer, he could be encouraged to not see me as a culprit or accomplice to whatever had been planned for last night, but as a fellow target and victim.
“Because there were two shots. One hit that woman.”
The one he’d reacted to so swiftly, pushing his brothers down to safety. It had happened so fast that I hadn’t gotten a great look, but it was playing in my mind’s eye. Sketchy but there.
“The second shot was aimed at me.”
He stood there and watched me, goading me closer to breaking as time ticked on, his silence intimidating me into a fit of fear once more.