Page 12 of Lovely Venom

“You realize that was also the woman who staggered into Shane’s trailer months ago?” I say to gut-check my fucking eyesight.

Rhys keeps his face even. “Was it? I didn’t recognize her.”

The man who I think can see through walls acts unusually cagey, but I ignore it. I’m busy surviving a mental implosion while my cousin keeps blabbering.

“Where to, boss?” Blade pulls up in the Denali beside us.

That disgusting whiskey is still stuck to my teeth. “I need a drink.”

CHAPTER SIX

Raina

In a Manhattan interrogation room, the lifeless, gray walls are met by a ceiling of harsh fluorescent lighting that buzzes like a swarm of angry wasps. After a medic stitches me up, I sit in the world’s most uncomfortable metal chair with my wounded arm in a sling against my chest.

I gaze at the two-way mirror. Somewhere behind it, Meyers is watching. Maybe jerking off. This is the third time I’ve been here this year. Questioned, reprimanded, and damn near fired, but sent away with a warning.

This time feels different. This time, someone got killed. I don’t have answers or a defense. Ambition only gets you so far. Being spirited and willing to take risks gets you noticed and assigned to high-reward, dangerous tasks.Butzero understanding or sympathy when you fuck up.

The door creaks open, and I expect Meyers to walk in, smiling with sticky hands. Or maybe the department lawyer. I shit my pants last time whenshewalked in.

A man wearing a pitch-black fedora, sunglasses, and a sharp gray suit strides inside. If this is a new lawyer, I’m either in real trouble or stand a great chance. But without a briefcase and the butt of a Ruger sticking out from a waist holster, this guy isn’t law enforcement.

“Who the hell are you?” I bark, knowing I’m not talking to a boss.

The man shuts the door behind him and swipes off theIndiana Joneshat, revealing a flat top of ice-blond hair shorn on the sides.

“Hello, Raina.” He removes the shades, revealing thesignature scar that splits his right eyebrow.

My world tilts. “Havok?”

I am so dead.

I don’t put it past Meyers to let a target take me out. Save him the trouble.

“Are you undercover from another team?” I ask, hoping that’s what his earlier message meant, all while counting what could be my last breaths on earth.

“No. Mynameis Valdrin Sokolov, and I know the right people around here to get you out of a boatload of trouble,” he says with a faint accent I didn’t notice when he had a gun pointed at my head.

I study his deep green eyes, feeling something familiar tighten my chest. Not his name. I never heard of him, and something tells me I should have. “I thought you sold drugs.”

“That is what I wanted you to think.” His stare pierces my soul with a connection I can’t deny.

But it’s nothing sexual. It’s stronger. Something I’ve never felt before.

“Why?” I relax and slouch back in the chair.

“To lure you in. Now, I got you.”

He faked a dealer identity to trap me. But trap me for what?

“What do you want?”

“You.” His one-word answer stills me.

“To kill me?” I wrap my fingers around the chair that I will lift and use as a weapon if I have to. “Go ahead. I doubt my boss will stop you.”

“Not to kill you.” He eyes my hands, staying one step ahead of me. “To take you away from this and tell you the truth.”