Page 6

T he first thing I notice when I wake up is the heavy fog laying on my forehead with the weight of a five-pound dumbbell.

I had way too many fucking shots, and my beloved croissants weren’t enough to soak up the night’s overindulgence I may have partook in. Partook? Partaken? I’m not really sure, but my entire body feels like shit, and my eyes are almost too heavy to open. At least, until I notice the second, and arguably more important thing; the even heavier weight on my shoulders.

One at a time, I peel my eyelids open, the effort required both painful and embarrassingly difficult. Thankfully, there’s only the soft glow of a recent sunrise illuminating the single window on my right, so when my eyes do finally open, it isn’t too bad. But as soon as I feel the relief, my vision focuses on a hideously colorful abstract painting on the wall in front of me, causing a small jolt of pain to ripple through my head.

Even in the room’s dimness, the canvas is bright and the trillions of neon colors have absolutely no direction or pattern. I imagine it’s what I would paint in college, high on shrooms, after being told to illustrate the inner workings of my brain, and the mirror image makes my head throb worse.

A low moan draws my attention back to the pressure at my side.

My gaze shifts from the annoying art and toward the person lying beside me.

For the shortest second, I see red. The darkest shade of a raging fire in the middle of the night. The explosive colors in the flames mere highlights that frame a beautiful face. A face I can remember in detail, even through the haze of liquor.

I lift a hand, dragging it toward the strands, but when I thread my fingers through them, they morph into a disappointing blonde not different from my own.

The sleeping woman grumbles something inaudible as she shifts to look up at me. Her chocolate eyes are as far away from green as possible. “Good morning.”

A tight band of disappointment squeezes my rib cage.

That’s right. The red-headed woman left the bar before I started playing pool. A game that landed so much in my favor, Berks wagered a night with his on-again-off-again girlfriend in pure desperation since he had nothing left to lose. She was so pissed, she said she was staying the night with me regardless, and I happily agreed. In part because I love pissing off Berks, but also, in hopes to relieve some of the tension Elena left in her wake.

Elena.

My mind wraps around the beauty of her name, the fleeting smile on her face etched in my memory, making me want to punch myself in the gut. Why didn’t I get her number?

“Last night was…” the woman at my shoulder trails off, reminding me she’s there.

I clear my throat, nodding at my lack of ability to recall literally anything, and paste on my signature smile. “Incredible. Fantastic. Amaze-balls.”

“All of those things.” A light blush covers her cheeks, or it might be the remnants of her blush that were smeared last night, but she gives a bashful grin. “You’re so…commanding.”

My smile morphs into something more genuine. I’m not what anyone would call a top. In fact, I’m literally the exact opposite. But since finding one around here is damn near impossible, I’ve had to adapt, had to take the reins. So the compliment is nice, and helps chip away a bit of the insecurity that still lingers.

I blow out a breath. “Well, now you have some tips for Berks.”

The woman’s lips curl up higher. “Do you want breakfast or any?—”

A low rumble of a phone vibrating on the nightstand next to us cuts her off, and when I see it’s mine paired with the contact that flashes across the screen, I nearly jump up to answer it.

“Sorry, I have to—” I awkwardly maneuver my arm from under her before reaching across and grabbing the phone. “It’s work.”

“No problem, I totally get it.” Her big brown eyes crease with her polite smile. “I’ll just put some coffee on.”

“Thank you.” I hit the green circle to answer the call, shove the phone to my ear, and watch her slip from the bed, wrapping the dark blue sheet around her. “Frances.”

“Hello, Agent Frances, this is Darlene with analytics. We’ve got some news.”

Rising from the bed, I begin the search for my clothes. The room is neat, making it easy to spot my underwear on a nearby lamp and my bra beneath it. “I’m hoping it’s good.”

“Yes and no. We were able to detect the chemical makeup of the vial’s contents, but almost all the components are very simple to come by and won’t help you in the slightest to narrow down any suspects.”

After securing my bra, I shove on my pants. This conversation isn’t going exactly how I’d hoped. I need something concrete. Something that incriminates Alexi unquestionably. “You say almost. So I’m guessing a few ingredients weren’t so easy to source?”

“Only one.”

A new sense of hope flashes bright in the corner of my soul. Or maybe it’s the light from the kitchen down the hall sparking to life. Either way, my pulse increases. “Which is?”

“The glass used to make the vial. It’s been treated with a special chemical that will allow the components to remain active for a certain amount of time. It’s not something you can simply buy at your local hardware store. It’s specially crafted.”

I slip on my shirt. “No chance there’s a shop that specializes in treated glass in South Carolina, is there?”

I doubt Alexi would make it that easy for me, but then again, he’s both brave and cocky, and likely as big of an idiot as I suspected.

“That’s the bad news. Agent James called me this morning to remind me that all results go directly to him. But I owed you that favor and wanted to at least give you that much.”

You’re fucking kidding me .

Moving out of the direct view of the kitchen, I punch the air repeatedly, squeezing the phone dangerously tight in my hand as I have my silent tantrum. My teeth clench tight, the temporary pain ricocheting across my jaw enough to make me momentarily forget about the thundering in my head. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

“Agent?”

Darlene’s far-away voice prompts me to put the phone back to my ear.

“Yep.” Unable to mask my frustration, my voice comes out tight and high.

“I’m sorry.”

I run a weary hand down my face before grabbing my shirt and slipping it on. “No worries. I get it. Rules to follow and all that. Consider us square”

Being reminded that my life is confined by rules makes my stomach roll with the liquor from last night, bile threatening to sear my esophagus. After all this time, I thought I finally had something . But just as the small flame of hope dwindles to nothing, Darlene clears her throat.

“Look.” She lowers her tone to a near whisper. “I will say there are two possible manufacturers in South Carolina, but only one in Noxus City.”

A new found excitement flushes through my veins.

Fuck, I’m going to be sick from this emotional rollercoaster.

I thank the analyst before hanging up and skipping to the kitchen where I find a still-half-naked Margie—or was it Meagan—at the coffee pot. Wrapping my arms around her, I kiss the junction of where her neck meets her shoulder.

She jumps, the empty foam cup in her hand falling to the marble counter with her soft laugh. “Oh. A good call, I presume?”

I nod. “As good as it can be. But I’m afraid I’ll have to take the joe to go.”

Margret—yes, it was definitely Margret—turns and smirks. “To go it is.”

* * *

Ninety percent of the time, I’m in a damn good mood.

If you ask the bureau’s therapist, he says I have a generally happy disposition, am frighteningly carefree, and have a keen ability to move on from any setbacks.

I’m not sure if it was a trait taught to me, or if I was simply blessed with the gene to not give a fuck, but I’ve always used it to my advantage. There have been more than a few occasions when my life hasn’t gone the way I planned, or decisions didn’t pan out the way I’d hoped. Still, I’ve been able to keep it moving and look for the silver lining, because why stare in the rearview when the windshield is what shows me where I’m going?

A nice statement in theory. But we all have to encounter a situation so jarring that not even the best of us can’t walk away unscathed.

For me, it was when my mom passed away.

After that, time seemed to stand still. Nothing and no one could shake my family from the cloud that hung over us twenty-four seven . They couldn’t make the seconds start ticking again or lift the grief and heartache that seemed to all but bury us in the ground with her.

We were incapable of breaking ourselves from the collective stagnant routine we fell into.

Wake, work, remember to eat and breathe, then do it all over again. I mean, seriously. Thank fuck my bills were on autopay because I couldn’t function. All I could do was grieve.

Such an essential part of us, the glue, if you will, had been stripped away overnight, and even with the warning beforehand, we weren’t ready. I don’t think anyone can ever truly be ready to lose someone. Especially when it comes to the person who did everything. And I don’t mean grocery shopping and cleaning the house. I mean the person who called in the middle of the night because they had a feeling I’d had a long day and needed to vent. The one who created a shared family calendar with reminders of our dentist appointments and our Great Aunt Tanya’s birthday. The one who would tell us for the umpteenth time how we took our steaks because I always seemed to forget the difference between medium and medium well.

She was the one we all couldn’t do without, and she left. Was stolen.

So for a long while, despite the family surrounding us, life was dark, boring, and lonely. And that’s how it remained.

Until Alexi.

It was my first year as a forensic psychologist, and I was asked to study his behavior and serve as an expert witness on his trial for killing a driver. Somewhere in between the long hours of studying his profile and learning everything there was to know about the alleged crime boss, I found myself fascinated. I wanted to learn more . The stuff the bureau didn’t have a record of. The dark and gritty. I wanted the bigger picture and the minute details. The man who ruled under his own law. No rules and no consequences.

Something about him made me feel as if I were able to put together his puzzle, I’d achieve professional success. Or, if I’m being completely honest, it might have been that my blooming obsession made me feel something at all for the first time since Mom died.

Either way, that’s when I made the biggest mistake of my life.

Against my better judgment, lost under the intoxication of his psychological profile, I went to one of his clubs. I had a few drinks, started dancing, and my grief began to slip away under the strobe of glowing lights. It couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes before a strange heat fell over me, and I let my eyes flicker to the VIP section.

There he was. Alexi Babin.

There, in the middle of the section, women danced around him, guys laughed at his side as if their lives depended on it, while so many other people stood between us. There should have been no way he could see me. But, he did. In fact, despite all the amazingly tempting things happening around him, he only had eyes for me.

Maybe he recognized me from the trial, or he just thought I was hot in a skirt that stopped an inch below my ass, but a thrill ran through me, regardless.

I was there for information. To learn more about the man who everyone feared, including a jury that acquitted him of murder because his fancy lawyer gave a decent speech. But the lines blurred as he beckoned me with the smallest nod of his head.

Something changed when I walked across the club and found myself face to face with the fallen angel. The man with the long dark waves, tattoos that covered more skin than not, and the fucking suspenders that held up an unbuttoned shirt that exposed all the places I wanted to explore with my tongue.

He was terrifying and commanding, and I could smell the danger before the two huge guards parted at his nod.

Looking back, maybe what I truly wanted was to break the rules that I had lived by despite how much I hated them.

Or perhaps I just wanted something more than soft touches and sweet kisses. Someone to drive me to the brink of existence. To take me so far away from the one thing in this world I hadn’t been able to let go of. Even if it was just for a little while, I’d let it be him.

One night.

Just one.

Only that’s not what happened.

Alexi was exactly who I’d thought he’d be and more, and in the best, most depraved, ways.

In the two weeks after, the fire between us burned angry and loud. It was all-consuming and addictive. My days and nights were nothing but him. Him and sex. Mind-blowing, life-altering sex.

And while I never caught feelings for the borderline psychotic narcissist, I did, however, really like, or perhaps the word is appreciate, the way he made me experience something besides perpetual sadness. With him, I wasn’t drowning in it.

But then he did the inevitable and dropped my ass like a sack of potatoes.

I wouldn’t have even cared if he wasn’t such a fucking asshole about it. It was so bad, actually, that I’d be lying if I didn’t say part of my reason for wanting to put him behind bars isn’t somewhat vindictive.

Nevertheless, the next week, after my anger subsided, I was able to fall back into work. In fact, he gave me a reason to stay off my depression carousel, and that drive came from the desire to put his ass behind bars. It’s been a mission I’ve been on ever since and, for the first time since meeting him, might actually become a possibility.

Glancing at my phone one more time, I check the GPS. The manufacturer is about a thirty-minute drive, so I can easily go during an extended lunch to do a little recon. No one would be the wiser, and if they were, I can always say I caught a bug and had to go home a little early.

Mind made up, I grab my bag and head out of the office. There’s a pep in my step as I leap down the short station stairs, saying hello to the local tabby perched on the railing.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Molly.”

She stops licking her paw for a moment to blink slowly at me.

“I’ll take that as a?—”

“Hello, Agent Frances,” an unfamiliar voice steals my attention from the cat.

A man no older than twenty-five leans against the door. His arms are crossed over a broad chest, one ankle over the other. He looks completely at ease, and it only takes me a split second to figure out who he is.

“You must be the new trainee.”

“I am.” He nods once, his baby face cheeks rounding with his smile as he uncurls himself and holds out a hand. “Agent Thomas Fikes.”

I glance at his hand for a moment, then to my car behind him, my day’s plans disintegrating like cotton candy hitting water.

Well, fuck nuggets.