Page 25 of Hero & Villain (Super Serum Billionaires #1)

Chapter Thirteen

VILLAIN

T The rest of the week went by without any more encounters with Dirk involving blood or kissing. He’d give me a cool nod while his eyes laughed at me, and I’d try not to say anything incriminating while my heart tingled.

I really enjoyed the regular schedule of eight hours of paperwork, ordering whatever I wanted for lunch from one of the many restaurants in Las Vegas, and then going to Jezebel’s safe house after work and playing Othello until bed, eating leftovers for dinner.

I didn’t see any signs of the mountain lion, because he never came into Nix’s office.

In other words, I was on vacation, living a life so normal for most people, but so strange for me. My time was mine to do what I wanted with it, and I got paid a generous envelope of cash every Friday without worrying about family obligations or corporate takeovers.

The more I dug into Nix’s team’s paperwork, the messier it got, but I enjoyed the challenge of organizing someone else’s disaster.

There were some serious inconsistencies that became more and more glaring as I dug into things, but no one seemed to care, so I just jotted down notes about it and put it under the stapler at the end of every day.

Nix had to be making side deals with a few of the viewing channels that he didn’t keep on the books.

That was a problem. I was there for the sole purpose of taking down Dirk Dagger, but instead I was happily playing secretary and avoiding my target.

I missed Toni. She would remind me that I was the supervillain who could easily seduce Dirk Dagger. And then she’d help me come up with a game plan. I also just missed her. How could you be a villain without a minion to give you validation?

After work on Friday, I drove my girly pink car with my pretty pink hair to the grocery store to get chocolate, ready for a long, luxurious weekend of playing Othello. Maybe I’d read a novel. Secretaries did that.

“Hey, it’s pink!” the guy crowed, the same drunk I’d met on my first day there. He was carrying a case of beer, so he probably wasn’t drunk yet.

“Your deductive skills are still stellar,” I said, giving him a sneer, although he didn’t look terrible when he wasn’t drunk. He seemed harmless, somewhere between twenty and thirty, and good-looking in a beer-drinking kind of way.

He was standing in line at the only open register. Maybe I should leave my nice German chocolate and make a run for the car before I accidentally stab him.

He smiled cheerfully, tapping his temple.

“Thanks. I have a good memory for faces. What are you doing tonight? I’m going to the big fight, Dagger and Bulldog.

Who are you betting on? Don’t tell me, Dagger, because of the pink thing, right?

See? I am a natural-born detective.” He winked and chuckled very awkwardly.

I contemplated a series of things I could do to shut him up so that I could progress through the line without having to talk to him, but I needed more intel and less avoidance in this takedown scheme.

“I don’t know. What are the odds?”

His eyes lit up, and he moved a little closer to me.

“Well, Dagger was slotted to fight against Milk last weekend, but they switched it so Death-hammer took him, and everyone knows that Nix is the best fighter in Vegas, so Bulldog got pissed when Milk got trounced. He runs the Dogs of War as I’m sure you know.

They’re the third-best team since Dagger gave up his crew.

So what I’m saying is that the odds are on Bulldog, but you never know what Dagger’s going to pull.

He’s the least consistent fighter, but on a good day, he can even take out Nix. ”

“I see. So, if I put money on Dagger and he won, I’d make more money, right?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. The odds are definitely on Bulldog. I could round up an extra ticket if you wanted to come with me.” He winked and leered pretty blatantly.

I was wearing a kitten cardigan and a midi skirt that was incredibly comfortable, but not remotely attractive, so he must have had a very good imagination.

He didn’t look like he had much of anything going on between his ears, but looks could be deceiving.

I’d just earned my first paycheck. It would be incredibly irresponsible to blow it on a fighting match, but that’s exactly what I wanted to do.

And maybe Dirk would like it. My seduction plot wasn’t exactly gaining steam.

I couldn’t just play secretary for the rest of my life.

I needed to stop thinking about that soft kiss and take him down.

I needed to seduce him instead of knocking him unconscious and dumping him in the desert.

I also needed to break into his warehouse and steal tech.

I could handle a mountain lion. Right?

My heart raced at the thought of the lion, and then Dirk Dagger rescuing me all heroic, and then that brush of his lips…

“Well? What do you think?” the beer guy said, breaking me out of my favorite daydream.

I eyed my chocolate bars. Did mountain lions like chocolate? How could anyone not? “I think that my odds aren’t great. Do other girls with pink hair go to the fights?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Groupies, you mean? They usually wait at the back door, hoping someone needs some candy. Then they’re put where they look good on film.

After the fight, maybe one of them will take them along to the after-parties.

But you must know that, since you were heading for the back door, right? ”

I stared at him while my stomach churned. “Right. Groupie. That’s what I am.”

I was definitely going to stab him. I’d just throat jab him with my two fingers, then gouge out his eyeballs when he was on the floor.

He was saved by the clerk, who rang up his beer, and then it was me and my chocolate.

That’s what girls with pink hair did. Wait at the back door for a shot to go to the party on the winner’s arm. I could drug all the other groupies to increase my odds of being selected, but I wasn’t really a wait and see if someone picked me kind of person. I’d just kidnap him.

I shook my head. Seduction was the opposite of kidnapping. Groupies didn’t get Dirk Dagger’s attention, anyway. He didn’t date publicly. I knew that. That’s why I was working with the team, so I could subtly seduce him in the romantic work atmosphere.

I sighed deeply and handed the clerk my candy bars.

I had no idea how to seduce someone whose fetishes were clearly less conventional than whips and chains.

We could talk tech. Maybe I could seduce him with my brilliant inventions, like the ninja trainer, or my can clippers. I’m sure he’d be very impressed.

That was out then. My best bet was to break into his warehouse and find something valuable. I should scrap this entire seduction plot when his soft kiss was still wrecking me.

I drove back to the compound, stopping at the gate.

“Good evening. Did you forget something?” the guy at the gate asked. What was his name, Ron?

“I was looking for Jezebel.”

He shook his head, eyes going a little big. “No, Jez left a few hours ago. Trix is the only team member who isn’t already prepping for the fight. She’s working on something in her shop.”

I gave Ron a big smile. “Perfect. Trix is the person I really want to see.”

He frowned at me. “Why?”

Why would I be here? It would be so much less psychologically troubling to break in at night, but I didn’t want to get on Jezebel’s bad side. Or Nix, actually. I liked working as his secretary. He let me take over his office as if I were in charge.

I gave him my sweetest smile. He flinched, so it probably wasn’t actually sweet at all. “I want to bet my entire paycheck on Dirk, but first I need to know the odds that he’ll win. I need a psychological breakdown from someone who’s inside his head.”

Ron stared at me, like he could see right through me. He knew I was lying, that I’d come here to break into Dirk’s warehouse and steal tech.

The chain-link gates slid open, and he nodded me through.

“Good luck” was all he said.

I waved and hit the gas before he could change his mind. Or I could change mine. What was I even doing?

I parked around the side of the warehouse between the garage and Dirk’s lair. I walked over to the side door and picked the lock easily enough and slipped inside. If anyone saw me here, I’d say I’d decided to ask Dirk if he felt like a winner. That would be normal.

The trouble with Dirk’s lair was the absolute chaos.

I had a small flashlight in my kit, but the labeling was more confusing than helpful.

Mini Star Destroyer? Then why did it look like a land walker?

And when I touched it, it started beeping like the robot thing.

It was an abomination of bad labeling. Toni, who had spent a few years fixated on Star Wars, would have burned the place down.

I wished I had a phone so I could take a picture and send it to her, to capture that diabolically twisted project.

I poked it a few more times and got more beeps and bloops. Maybe I’d steal that and send it to Toni. No one would notice it missing from the shelf of other bits of weirdness.

I picked it up and then heard a low growl that made the hair on the back of my neck stand upright.

I dropped the abomination and whirled around, pulling out a bar of chocolate to face the mountain lion of chaos. I shined my light, and when the light reflected creepily, it yowled and sprang at me.

I dropped my chocolate bar and ran, but not before the monster clawed my calf. Looking behind me as I sprinted, hoping I wasn’t leaving a trail of blood from my throbbing leg, I saw Marcus Licinius Crassus crouched over my chocolate bar, devouring it while he gave me the creepiest smirk.