The auction? So he’s in league with Junior.Fuck.So much for the IPB being on top of their shit.
I tested my fingers, trying to get them moving again as he headed alongside the table, to Ty’s side, where he crouched down beside him and slapped at his cheek with the back of his hand.
I jerked around in my cuffs, wanting to beat the ever-loving shit out of him for touching my man.
Ty stirred, looking annoyed by the move, as though he was still trapped in some dream state that prevented him from understanding just what a fucking mess we were in.
“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey,” our abductor said, slapping him some more.
“The hell?” Ty asked as his eyelids flitted about.
The man snickered, reaching into his pocket and retrieving a switchblade, which he protracted before stabbing Ty in the thigh—quickly—with maybe a quarter of the blade making it through the skin before Ty’s eyes popped open and he called out, his jaw tense, his eyes wide.
Ty!
“There he is!” the man announced as he pulled the knife out of Ty’s leg. “Now we’re all present and sober.”
“You fucking bastard!” I barked as the villain stood erect, smiling brightly—the sort of man who derived pleasure at our expense in a very different way than Blackmore.
This guy was deranged.
As Ty caught his breath, our abductor said, “I’m sorry for such a rude awakening, but I don’t exactly have all the time in the world here. It was hard enough transporting your bodies. Ty, you fit right in a large luggage bag, but I did have to dress you because I thought it would be rude to leave you in that towel.”
Ty assessed himself, noting the white shirt he’d been put in.
He fucking touched Ty naked?
I ground my teeth, thinking I might chip them from mashing down so hard.
“And, Agent McKinney,” he added, “you’re an ox of a man, aren’t you? I had to wheel you out in a refrigerator box.”
“Cut the crap,” I spit out. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Well, that’s fair. I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is—”
“Dr. Moore,” Ty said, spitefully, as though he were more annoyed by his name than having just been stabbed. “I remember you.”
He snickered. “Oh, so young. So naive. As your new boyfriend knows, aliases help us get away with quite a lot, don’t they? But you are wrong…and right, I guess. I am Dr. Moore, but only when I need to be. I’ve had many disguises throughout the years. Many names, many faces, to pull this scheme off. The Dr. Moore alias was to get close to Blackmore. I posed as a medical advisor, which helped me infiltrate his operations.”
Infiltrate? So they weren’t working together.
“I had another alias too,” he added, “when I was seducing your friend Spencer, Agent McKinney.”
I knew it! Spencer didn’t betray us. He’d been tricked by this bastard somehow.
“That’s how you got the IPB information? Through Spencer?” I asked. “What did you do to get it? Torture him? Trick him?”
His expression turned serious as he approached. “Look at how you both underestimate me,” he said, so loudly, it echoed off the walls. “You think this is some haphazard plan I’ve executed? Twelve years I’ve waited to pull this off. Five years I have labored to bring my dream to fruition. You imagine it’s easy to uncover an IPB agent? You think you just mosey into a bar and ask around and get answers? No. I had to work my way from the bottom up, the very bottom, in the darkest brothels, in the seediest of places, drugging up prostitutes and hearing their confessions until I could find a trusty link to an Agent Kendra Sparks. Are you familiar with her, Agent Liam McKinney?”
“Afraid not.”
“But you see, you should be noting just how good I am. Notice that in your work to unearth the truth about what was happening to yourself, and Agent Ryan and Agent Kerson, you never heard that name, did you? No. Because Agent Sparks died of natural causes…or at least, that’s how I wanted it to appear. She was an active agent, and after I wooed her, I found my way to her access codes, which is how I found the key members of your task force, and what eventually led me to Agent Ryan—the key to my success in all this.”
“Success? What success? I don’t even know who the fuck you are!”
“I’m sure my real name, Dr. William Himeros, means something to you. Doesn’t it, Liam?”
In an instant, memories of my past flooded back. Names, faces, hits from the dark underbelly of the CIA’s past—the Thornton Project and the Body Network. Yes, I fucking knew the name.
