“What the f—heck are you talking about?” Seri’s face scrunched, and the Nymph stared at him like he was insane.
Well, that checked out. If Seri had killed the man that law enforcement claimed she had, in the way she had, Seri should have known. At least, in Severo’s mind, one tended to realize someone was dead when you snapped their neck all the way around.
“Right, let me explain who I am and why I’m here. So, hello, my name is Severo Ambrose.” Severo gave a tiny wave. “Just your friendly, average CEB agent, here to bring you back after a warrant was issued for your arrest for the murder of Leal Craft.”
Seri’s head jerked, clearly shocked. “What?! I did not kill Leal!”
“Yes, see, I have some questions about that as well, but I still need to bring you in. But like I said, I don’t really want to fight you. But I will, even if you are a woman.” For some reason, Seri’s face pinched at that point, but he ignored it and continued on. “So, how about you put that gun down and come with me, all nice and calm, and we can figure out what is going on? What do you say?” He gave his best good boy smile.
Seri stared at him, biting her bottom lip. Oh, the lip was much plumper in person. Her cyan hair was also much shorter now. Parted to the right and cut asymmetrically, the Nymph’s hair was super short on the left side—almost buzzed—but to the right, it was long and curly, reaching just under her ear.
And he wasn’t sure if she had done it to try to hide, but she was also…in her male form. Not to mention, her clothes were drastically different from all the pictures that Severo had been given with the case.
While the case pictures showed her as female, in dresses and makeup even, the person caught on the intel pictures, and the one standing before him now, however, didn’t seem the type.
Seri’s face was bare of any makeup, her body male. She was wearing brown cargo pants with fashionable straps around certain parts of her legs, and a black leather sleeveless fitted top with a hood. Brown straps criss-crossed over their chest, but Severo was pretty sure it was not part of her outfit, more part of the contraption holding the baby. Around her neck was a small bottle, clearly full of dysea. A pair of black boots finished the outfit.
The Nymph remained quiet for a few moments, appearing to be thinking his words over. Severo grew a bit concerned at what he thought was a flash of terror, but it was quickly replaced by a whole lot of empty.
Seri met his gaze. There was a look of determination in her eyes that made Severo nervous.
“First, before we go into the whole murder thing, let me make something clear. If you call me a woman again, regardless of whatever is going on, I will shoot you.”
“I…” Severo grimaced. “I’m so sorry. I was just going off of what your file said. I apologize for misgendering you.”
“My…file says I’m a woman?” Seri slowly asked, gaze going slightly distant.
It was more than his gaze going distant…the man sounded lost. And Severo felt like an ass. “Maybe…it’s a clerical error? There was a note that you changed it to female five years ago.”
Seri let out a bitter sounding laugh, hand tightening on the gun. “Well, it’s wrong.” Seri swallowed hard and took a deep breath in and out. Severo watched his gills flutter slightly. “At least, wrong in that…I wasn’t the one who changed it. Look, Agent Ambrose, I?—”
“Please, call me Severo,” he blurted…having no clue why he said it.
Seri’s nose wrinkled. “Look, Agent Severo…I don’t know what those scum at law enforcement said, but I did not kill Leal Craft. He was breathing perfectly fine after I knocked him out. So, assault maybe, but I think assault would be the least I could have done after he helped to keep me from escaping my perpetual torture for almost six years. If you want the one that killed that prick, you should look no further than the monster he worked for. The same man who, no doubt, changed my gender without my permission—Preston Chanway.”
The name set alarm bells off in his head, and he now knew why Seri had dysea ready. So, it wasTHATPreston. It was like the puzzle was coming together. The uninterrupted scratches… How deep the hand prints were… The missing nail impressions… It was because a shadow had killed Leal—likely, his very own.
Preston Chanway, was one of the world’s most wealthy businessmen, and…well-hidden crook. The Dweller had too many connections to count on Earth, and sad to say, an endless number of people who were willing to sell their souls for his money. While this did explain the oddities of the case, it also made it ten times more complicated.
Severo eyed Seri. “That brings up a lot of questions. However, it does not change the fact that there is a warrant out for your arrest.”
Local bodyguard agency, his ass. Why hadn’t Killian found this out? Though, the Siren probably hadn’t looked into it yet. The man, no doubt, had been focused on finding Seri in the many cameras on Mars.
Or maybe not? He couldn’t see Killian missing the existence of a fucking child. Either way, case discovery had likely been shoved over to others, those not necessarily as good at their job as Killian was, in Severo’s opinion.
Killian would likely switch to deep dive mode now that they knew Preston Chanway was involved. No way would he leave something this important to his peons.
Seri shook his head. “I’m not going back. I’m not going anywhere near him, and I won’t let him get near my daughter. The minute he has us, he’ll never let us go.”
“I didn’t say anything about giving you over to anyone. You’ll be under the CEB’s jurisdiction. The minute they asked for us to intervene, they lost jurisdiction over you. Of course, they lost it the minute they tried to frame you for murder. Either way, you’ll be under our protection.”
They usually held on to those they captured anyway, unless there was a special request by law enforcement, and even then, they could refuse without a reason. In this case, they would have definitely refused—there were way too many peculiarities.
“It won’t matter. They will take me anyway.”
“I’m not sure you?—”
“Enough talking. You have cuffs on you, don’t you?”
