“Right. So, what’s the plan, Zara? Forget the mission youaren’ton. What does your future entail? You marry some unsuspecting schmuck, put up a white picket fence, have two kids, and be a murder for hire between soccer practice and PTA meetings?”
No idea where that came from. Maybe I’m just pissed at her father. I worked my ass off to keep Rena from this life. It didn’t pan out, but that wasn’t for lack of trying. And while she may be connected, she isn’t in the line of fire on a regular basis. After what happened to Melody—Zara’s mom—how the hell did Stone allow Zara to enter this life?
An ember of darkness coasts through her green eyes before she mutters, “Something like that.”
She has similar concerns. Either she knows she’s in over her head or she’s realizing that she’s shackled by her own choices far beyond her current containment at La Lune Noire.
My chest grows heavy. “Fine. Let’s get you back to that life. Can you complete your mission here?”
That reignites her fire. She grinds her teeth, tamping down whatever darkness was threatening to spill out of her. “I’m not sure why you think I’d fill you in on the particulars of my assignments. Do your members do that? Do you harass themabout their choices while providing them with services to do their job better?”
“You’re not a member. You’re an employee,” I correct, vexed by her disrespect. “It’s the pathyou choseto avoid your father. And we don’t allow our employees to quit.”
She knocks my arm away from gripping the door—which I allow—presses the button for the ground floor, and speaks as the elevator snaps back into motion. “Based on every interaction we’ve had, I’m not the one who has an agenda. You’ve done nothing but entrap me, hold me captive, threaten me, and judge my profession—when I wouldnothave even been eligible to fill out the membership application without doing what I do. And my employment was your bright idea. It shouldn’t be held against me. Aren’t you supposed to be the person I can turn to in a challenging situation?”
This metal box reeks of toxic cherry blossoms, but she has a point.
I scan my iris to override her selection and punch her floor again. “Then do what you do, but do it for me. That will solve all your issues.”
Before my override has timed out, she snarls at the control panel and smacks the ground-floor button as if she were gouging my eye out. “Become a double agent?”
“Take a better job,” I volley.
“You know what all double agents have in common?” she snipes, leering at the numbers lighting up above our heads. “An early grave.”
“Not if they’re working for me.” Once again, I override her selection and hover over the button to send us in the direction of her suite. “Where the hell are you trying to go now?”
“To the Underground. Since I didn’t get to run, I’ve got some time. If I’m going to be here, I need to get to know people. Owen eats breakfast down there, and I need coffee.”
Owen is an attorney on my executive staff. And single.
Punching her suite floor, I wave a hand at her. “Not in your workout clothes.”
She keeps her cool, though her jaw pulses. “I don’t think that will hurt my objective. Menmy agewon’t mind the casual look. But thanks for the concern.”
A blazing fury scrapes my nerve endings, my muscles coiled tight.
No man, any damn age, wouldmind. It’s not just the attire that elevates her svelte curves or highlights her taut midriff. She’s got a slight sheen to her skin from rolling around on the floor with me, and her thick mahogany hair is in the kind of ponytail that leaves a man wondering how many times it could be wrapped around his fist.
No fucking way.
“Not in my establishment,” I growl in a rich baritone that brooks no room for argument. “When you are here, you will dress professionally. Your suite has a kitchen with a goddamn coffeepot.”
She says nothing in response, but she seethes, probably debating whether she should off me in this elevator and hope for the best.
When the doors ding, she steps out, but keeps them ajar with her hip, her face full of vulnerability that is unexpected. “You want me to trust you, Axel? To believe you aren’t fucking with me? Stop wasting my time with this trivial, domineering caveman bullshit and come up with a real solution.” She glances down the hall, her chest rising and falling, before her focus returns to me. “Because you’re right; I’m in trouble. But you’re just as much a part of that as anyone else. And since I’ve done nothing to warrant that intolerance from you, that either makes you a monster or a fraud.”
I’m neither. I’m more in her corner than I should be. But if I hadn’t spoken to Wells the morning she showed up and Bernard hadn’t been suspicious, she would have been approved as a member. So, I probe for what I’d need from any member who had possibly bungled a job.
“What type of solution are you interested in? Completing your mission, being erased, or being relieved of your obligation to your client?”
She stares at me, gnawing on her lip with indecision. “That’s what you do … for your members or …”
“Yes.”
“For what price?” she asks, and while there’s a softness to her, it’s still unclear whether she’s playing me or being genuine.
“It varies, but a lifetime of loyalty is always demanded.”
