The Operative's Vicious Temptation

Prologue

Thiago

Most people assume a phone call in the middle of the night means someone is dead. Sometimes they're right.

Tonight, the call sends me to a warehouse on the outskirts of Philadelphia. I park beside a black SUV, kill the engine, and look up at the unmarked building. Not a single light shines through the blacked-out windows.

I've spent the last year carrying out Helios assignments under Houston's command.

Tonight is my first briefing since the transfer.

Elena Duvall hadn't offered an explanation, only an address and a time.

She's the handler assigned to my precinct.

Three months ago, she stepped into the role of commander, and as far as the department is concerned, that's all she is.

Climbing out of my truck, I move across the rain-slicked concrete toward the front entrance. The double doors, illuminated by a dim yellow lamp, swing open the moment I touch them.

I step cautiously into an empty lobby.

“Hello,” I call out into the silence.

Nothing.

Under different circumstances, I’d turn around and walk right back out, but I know Helios doesn’t operate like a police department. It works in the spaces where paperwork, warrants, and jurisdiction become obstacles. In other words, red tape has no place here.

My phone vibrates.

UNKNOWN: Room 8B. Second floor.

As if whoever sent the message is watching me, the elevator across the lobby chimes and its doors slide open.

I step inside and roll my shoulders once as they close behind me.

The quiet ride to the second floor gives me just enough time to wonder why Elena wanted to meet here instead of the precinct.

The elevator opens onto a narrow hallway lined with identical slate-gray doors.

I step out and follow the numbers until I find Room 8B near the end.

Wrapping my hand around the metal handle, I pull the door open, stopping cold at the sight of a young woman with striking blue eyes, dressed in all black, standing at the far end of the room.

She isn’t who I expected because, from what I know, Elena is at least two decades older.

The woman uncrosses her arms the moment she sees me, looking just as confused as I am.

"Who the hell are you?" she asks, looking me up and down.

"I'm here to meet somebody." I keep my eyes on her. "You?"

She doesn't answer, just stares at me for a long moment, her shoulders visibly tense.

"Who are you with?"

"Ninth precinct."

Her gaze narrows before drifting past me to the open doorway.

"That's impossible," she mutters, more to herself than me. "There's only one transfer to the Ninth."

She's right.

There was only supposed to be one transfer, so I don't know what to make of it. She's clearly Helios, and there's no reason to assign two agents to the same operation. It creates unnecessary risk.

So why are we both here?

My mind lands on the only explanation that makes sense. One of us is in the wrong room.

It's a mildly irritating thought, but I spent half of yesterday unpacking boxes, hanging clothes, and trying to make my apartment feel like a place I might actually live for the next several weeks or months. If I end up being reassigned before I even get started, I’ll be pissed.

"Maybe you should call your handler," she says, taking a cautious step closer.

It's the logical next move. Even so, I don't reach for my phone. I was transferred here for a reason, and until someone tells me otherwise, I'm not walking away from the assignment.

"After you."

She lets out an annoyed breath but pulls out her phone. A sudden, heavy click sounds behind me as the door locks. Before either of us can react, our devices vibrate at the same time.

UNKNOWN: Drawer C.

Nothing else.

I look up, and she's staring at her phone, eyebrows drawn together until her attention shifts to the metal cabinets lining her side of the room.

Mine follows to the matching set on my own.

We move at the same time, and I wrap my fingers around the handle labeled C and pull.

A disassembled pistol rests inside, and beside it lies a single round.

I stare at it for half a second, trying to understand what I'm looking at when a speaker suddenly crackles somewhere above us.

“Only one of you will leave this room.”

When I glance over my shoulder, the woman isn't looking at me anymore. She's already reaching into the drawer, snapping the pistol together piece by piece.

Shit.

This isn’t a briefing, and she isn’t just my competition for an assignment. Someone brought two agents into this building knowing one of us would be dead before the night was over.

I grab the frame, throwing mine together as fast as I can. By the time I slam the magazine home and rack the slide, she’s already turned toward me. Two sharp clacks echo through the room as we chamber our rounds and raise our weapons.

Her chest rises with a quick breath, and her muzzle wavers, but I don't wait. I squeeze the trigger.

For one brutal instinct, I see the fear in her eyes and know she must see the same in mine.

This woman isn’t some armed suspect threatening a civilian or a target I tracked down because she hurt someone.

She’s standing in the same fucking room I am because Helios put her here, holding the same weapon and facing the same impossible choice.

None of that changes what happens next.

The shot cracks through the air, and she gasps as the round strikes her square in the chest. Her gun slips from her hand, and her eyes widen as she crumples to the floor.

The ringing left by the shot fills the room as I keep my weapon trained on her.

She doesn’t move. My firearms instructor taught us that a fraction of a second could mean the difference between going home and becoming the next name carved into a memorial wall.

I learned never to hesitate long before Helios recruited me.

Knowing why I pulled the trigger doesn’t make this any easier.

I don’t know her name, how long she’s been an agent, who recruited her, or whether someone is going to wake up tomorrow wondering why she never came home. All I know is that she wanted to survive this room as badly as I did. And I killed her for it.

I became a police officer because I believed the badge meant something. I joined SWAT because I wanted to stand between innocent people and those who would hurt them. Helios promised the same mission but never mentioned I’d be pointing my weapon at one of its own.

The door swings open, and I whip around, raising my pistol on instinct even though I know it’s empty.

A woman who looks to be in her forties steps inside, dressed in a charcoal pantsuit with a long black coat draped over one arm. Her dark hair is pulled into a low bun, not a strand out of place.

Her gaze lands on me first and lingers as she assesses my stance and the empty pistol in my hand. Then her attention shifts to the woman on the floor and the blood spreading beneath her.

Not a single flicker of shock or concern crosses her face.

I hate how casually she looks at the body. There’s no grief or anger, not even disappointment. Whoever she was before tonight doesn’t seem to matter at all.

She studies the scene with the detached focus of someone reviewing a completed training exercise, then looks at me again.

“Operative 427,” she says. “I’m Commander Duvall.”

My grip remains firm around the empty pistol.

“What the hell was this?”

“Your introduction to how things operate under my command.”

She walks toward the fallen operative, her heels clicking against the tile.

“I had to know which of you would walk out of this room.”

Crouching beside the woman, she presses two fingers to the side of her neck, confirming the kill before rising again.

“Operative 309 was one of our best,” she says. “But clearly, she wasn’t good enough.”

I look down at the woman bleeding across the tile. Whatever years she gave Helios have already been reduced to a number and a failed test. Elena shows more interest in the blood staining her floor than the body at her feet.

Anger burns beneath my skin, but I keep it buried. Maybe that’s another part of the test, to see if I’ll question her, threaten her, or lose control over someone I didn’t even know five minutes ago. Only, that’s the problem. I shouldn’t have needed to know her. She was one of ours.

When I look up again, Elena Duvall is watching me with faint satisfaction as she reaches into her pocket and removes a small black drive.

“But you are.” She holds it out to me. “And you’re exactly the man I need for the contract on this drive.”