Page 50 of Rogue

“Why are you warning me?”

“Are you ready to kill someone?”

“Yes.” Just those Pricks.

Diego grunts. “Take my advice anyway. . . .”

“Kylie,” Hayden interrupts before I can fully process the hardness in Diego’s hushed warning. “Follow me. We’ll do this in private.”

If the room had fallen quiet before, now you could hear teardrops hit the floorboards. I step into place behind him. Diego’s muttered “pendejo” accompanies us out of the great room and down a hall. I’m not sure if it’s my anxious imagination or not, but I can still hear his curses in my head as I enter what I soon learn is his master suite.

His bedroom.

Shit. This better not be your typical corporate crap. Typical male bullshit. A blow-motion to secure a spot. Why did I have to be the only woman vying for this lucrative job? Yet I have my limits . . . which is exactly what this manipulative man is trying to find out . . .

I raise my chin and look him squarely in the face. “This isn’t your style.”

“You don’t know what my style is . . .”

“Surely not the obvious. Tame the weaker sex with a brazen show of masculine vitality.” I drop my eyes to his crotch. Either he’s one of the unblessed or I’m not doing it for him. “Why don’t we get this over with,” I bravely say. “What’s the dirty deed I need to do to ensure we win.”

“Tsk. Tsk. We’ve got nothing but time. Would you like a glass of wine?” Instead of waiting for my response, he walks over to a coffee table that’s flanked by two small love seats and pours two glasses of red wine into crystal glasses on the tray next to the decanter. Crossing the Aubusson carpet, he passes me a glass. I peer down at it. I don’t make a habit of drinking, beer, wine, or otherwise at nine o’clock in the morning. With a shrug, I take a sip.

“You’re doing this to punish Jaxson,” I state, the question like a thorn prick in my mind. For a few moments, silence ensures. Seems the battle of wills between us that day in his library naturally picks up from where we left off.

“Yes,” he finally admits. “There’s no room for foolish sentiment in our line of work. If anyone should know this, it’s Jaxson. Yet . . .”

“ . . . yet what?”

“I think that’s rather obvious, don’t you?”

“No.”

His eyes narrow and I take another fortifying sip of wine. After another few seconds, he breaks his gaze and drinks deeply from his glass. Then, in a softer voice, he addresses me. “You remind me of someone else. Young and naive. Far too clever for her own good.”

I frown. He’s mentioned her before and his admission is just as puzzling the second time around. He cares for this woman—it’s there in his tone. As I followed him down the hallway, I prepared myself for the worst. Not . . . this. “You love her?” I ask in wonderment.

Call it female intuition, call it my keen sense of reading people, but he doesn’t need to answer. The truth hangs in the air between us.

Still, he shakes his head. “There’s no room for loveandTORC. No time for committed relationships or starting a family. It’s one or the other, but not both.” He stops to finish his wine then sets the empty glass on the tray on the coffee table. When he continues, his tone is harder, all hints of regret disappearing as quickly as the wine he’s consumed. “This is a dangerous business you’ll be entering into . . .”

“Spying on Franco. Gathering information on those Pricks. Private security contractor work, right?”

Justice . . . revenge.

“That’s what I want a local person for. Someone Franco will never suspect. Someone to do what my men couldn’t accomplish . . .”

He means Jaxson. Diego and Declan, too.

I resist the temptation to bite my lip and instead give him a nonchalant shrug. Careful about showing any sort of worried reaction, though in truth I’m nervous as hell.

“You’ll be paid handsomely,” he reminds me. Holding the carrot in front of the cart. Probably having already assessed what a stubborn mule I am and knowing just how to work me. A dangerous, manipulative man.

“How is your mother?”

“Fine.” I try to keep the strain out of my tone. Nothing about her battle with cancer is fine, damn it.

“You can hire nurses. Hell, bring in the whole damned hospital if you want to care for her. Or, better yet, place her in a convalescent home where she’ll have companionship. You’ll be busy. TORC will consume most of your time.”