Page 53 of Agency

Every inch of him, from feet to head, to everywhere else.

His eyes opened, and locked on mine.

He knew. He fucking knew.

“Carmen?” Morgan asked between labored breaths, wincing in shocked pain. “What are you…? Why are you wearing a mask…?”

“Sorry, Morgan,” I muttered just before I kicked him in the head, sending those gorgeously emerald eyes of his rolling back.

Shit.

Fuck.

Leaning down and touching two fingers to his carotid artery, I let out a sigh of relief as I felt his strong, racing pulse. I might have had to hurt him, but at least he was alive. Anyways, served him right for lying to me.

Grimacing, I went to the closed door and put my ear to the cool wood. No sound on the other side. Either Stella hadn’t heard the fight out here, or she was waiting for me just like I’d waited for Morgan.

Who, for the record, I was kind of pissed at. He’d said he was in software sales! He’d seemed so normal! But, here he was, protecting the leader of a notorious drug cartel! Seriously, how low could he get?

Frowning at my own rhetorical questions, and upset with myself for such a huge pile of different faults, I stepped back from the door and raised my weapon. I reared back, kicked just to the left of the handle.

The door flew open in a hail of splinters, chunks of wood, and Stella’s startled, terrified screams. I was already moving in with silenced weapon raised.

Two steps inside the bedroom, though, I froze.

Because there, standing by the window and illuminated by downtown’s ambient glow filtering in, was Stella Beltran, complete with raven hair and face twisted in terror. Young and pretty, her empty hands were out in front of her in a pleading gesture, and her whimpers filled the room.

“Please, please, please,” she said, repeating the words like prayers from the rosary.

Dry swallowing, I adjusted my grip on the .22 and forced my finger to the trigger. This was absolutely not who I’d pictured. Not at all. But, she could just be putting on an act. After all, look at me, look at Morgan. Apparently, people in St. Louis were seldom whom they seemed.

“Please, please, please,” she was saying as she shook her head and tears flowed down her face like a crystalline waterfall shimmering in the city lights. “I don’t know who you are, but please don’t hurt me!”

If she was acting, she was good. Really, really good. Like Oscar-worthy good.

But then, my eyes flickered from her face, and went to the swell of her belly.

I lowered my weapon and dry swallowed again, my throat feeling as if every cell had been replaced by a microscopic razor blade of infinite sharpness and severity.

Stella was six months pregnant, at least. Maybe even further along than two trimesters. They sure as hell hadn’t mentionedthatin the dossier. And if her unborn child wasn’t mentioned, what else hadn’t been?

“Please, please, please!” she cried as she backed away into the corner, her hands now dropping to cradle the unborn child growing inside her. “Whoever you are, you don’t have to do this. I’ll drop the court case, okay? I’ll drop it! Please, just don’t hurt me or my baby! He’s all I have left of Eddie!”

“Court case?” I asked in a halfhearted mumble, as much to myself as her. Had the client lied to us, and we hadn’t verified their claims? No, that was impossible. The Agency did its own due diligence, or at least claimed to. If the client had lied, we’d have found them out.

Which meant…

My stomach sunk. A second later, my gut again somersaulted as her words hit me like a series of rapid-fire slaps to the face. I opened my mouth again to speak, to assure Stella there had been some kind of mistake, and that I wasn’t going to hurt her, or her baby, but nothing came out. The back corners of my mouth tingled and my tongue had gone from too-dry to too-wet, and I realized I was about to be sick inside my mask.

Queasy, disgusted by the whole thing, by how the entire contract had been built on lies, I backed out of the room.

I needed to get out of this penthouse, out of this hotel, out of this city. I needed to find Aunt Valerie.

How many other clients had been like this, but where I’d been so trusting of my handler–my own flesh and blood!–that I hadn’t seen the deception?

How many innocent people had I killed? How many innocent victims had I liquidated–no,murdered?

Dazed, confused, and still on the verge of throwing up my light dinner, I went back out to the living room and headed back to the balcony, pulling off my mask as I went. Desperate for air, I sucked in great breaths in an attempt to keep the rising gorge out of my mouth. Rappelling down the building while being two seconds away from throwing up my most recent meal didn’t exactly sound all that appealing, but I didn’t see any other choice.