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She must be in her early twenties. Too young to be anyone important. She’s not a threat.
But, how the hell did he get caught?
Yuri may be sloppy with his crimes, but he isn’t sloppy when it comes to hiding his identity.
I zoom in the camera on the woman’s face. The corner of her mouth twitches at something Yuri says and her finger trails around the rim of her glass. When she pops that finger into her mouth, blood from my brain rushes south.
It’s clear from the look on his face that she is seducing him. She’s toying with him and he’s falling for it.
Someone who looks like that surely wouldn’t go for Yuri when she could have her pick of any other men at the bar.
She giggles and leans closer to him. He says something to her and not long after, the casual touches between them stop. They get up and head through the bar.
As she trails along with him, her hand goes to her hair more than once. It’s subtle at first. Nothing that most people would notice.
Maybe she was just nervous.
She must have something to do with his arrest.
The woman brushes her hair away from her ear again as they head out the door. Her hand hovers near her ear for a moment too long. As I rewind the footage and watch it again, the pieces click into place. The little Vixen isn’t interested in Yuri. She lured him in and set him up.
She wasn’t there to have a good time with him. Her seduction and that sultry smile were all part of a bigger game.
A game where only she was the winner.
She’s an undercover agent.
Chapter 3 - Hazel
The scent of freshly brewed coffee and sugary pastries wraps around me like a warm hug as I walk into a tiny café two mornings after the arrest of Yuri Orlov. I’m still riding the high of putting away a major criminal.
I tuck my hands in the pockets of my red leather moto jacket and look around the café for Anna. She’s normally not hard to spot—her nose tucked into a book with at least two coffees in front of her.
Sure enough, there is a flash of her dark hair covering her face like a curtain as she buries her nose in yet another book.
I head over to the counter to order my coffee, keeping an eye on the people going in and out of the café. Most of the people here are young professionals, their heads bent over their laptops as they work.
“One cinnamon toast latte.” The barista puts a white cup on the counter, steam drifting out of the small hole in the lid.
I grab the drink and dig a ten-dollar bill out of the back pocket of my skinny jeans, tossing it in the tip jar. The barista smiles at me just as a man enters and starts ranting about his mobile order not being ready.
The barista’s face pales, and her shoulders stiffen as she goes back to the register. I dig out another five dollars and add it to the jar.
Anna shakes her head and puts her book down as I wander over to her table. “You really don’t need to tip fifteen dollars for a five-dollar coffee.”
I sink into the chair and tilt my head back. Rays of warm sunlight streak through the window and cascade over me. “She looked like she was about to have a shit day. I can afford fifteen dollars for a tip every now and then.”
Anna drums her fingers on her book, her pale pink nails tapping against the dark cover. “I know. If someone told me that you were going to become a police officer like your mom, I never would have believed them.”
I grimace and bite my bottom lip before taking a sip of coffee. The latte scalds me as it goes down, but I’m stalling for time.
All Anna knows is that I work for the police. It’s a cover that works, but it kills me inside every time she brings it up. We’ve been friends since we were kids and I never thought that I was going to make a career out of lying to my best friend.
But I did. And now I must keep lying to protect her.
“Yeah.” I hold my coffee a little tighter as I shrug one shoulder and smile. “I went back and forth a lot about it during our last year of high school, remember?”
Her brown eyes light up with the memory. “I do. You always used to say that you were proud of your mom, but you were terrified that she wasn’t going to come home one day.”
