She blinked. Then she stepped forward. She drew her Glock, unloaded the chamber, and dropped the gun and her badge on the desk. She put her hands on the desk and leaned forward, looking him straight in the eyes. “Keep them. Forever.”
Parson drew back. “Jamey—”
But she turned her back on him and stepped out the door.
Wayne Smith strode back to the security office, chest puffed and mood high. He’d caught the empath, and left a good bruise or ten. That had to be worth a raise and a promotion.
But as he opened the door to his security room, he stopped short. A tall man in a fancy coat was standing in the middle of the room, studying the security monitors.
Didn’t anyone with AMI respect rules? “Hey,” Smith snapped. “You can’t be in here.”
The stranger turned just enough that Smith could see his profile; unexpectedly young, younger than the Macy girl, with the kind of perfectly styled hair you saw on magazine covers. In a ridiculous Southern drawl, the man said, “I was told you’re head of what passes for security.”
Smith bristled. He didn’t have to take that shit from another entitled brat. In an exaggerated imitation of the awful accent, he drawled, “Well, I wasn’t told the rodeo was missing a clown.”
The man didn’t react to the jibe, just went back to the monitors and all twenty-two floors of Stone Solutions. “Where’s the empath?” he said, not looking at Smith.
“The empath’s not for sale,” Smith said, in a nasty tone. “I’m turning him over to the authorities.”
“Yup. Me.”
Smith snorted openly. “The only thing I’d believe you’re an authority on is looking pretty.”
Again, the man didn’t react to being insulted. Instead, he pointed to one of the monitors, which was paused on an image of the empath in front of the security elevator on the twenty-first floor. “Mr. Pierce fixed the cameras.”
“How did you know they were down?” Smith demanded.
The stranger ignored the question. He pressed a button on the keyboard and the footage began to play. Smith saw himself, Hank and Warren emerge from the elevator and corner the empath. Then he watched himself on-screen as he jabbed the empath with the baton.
The empath bent double, clutching his stomach. The stranger tapped the screen. “Not very sporting of you, roughing him up. He’s a lot smaller than you.”
Sportin’.Roughin’. Smith was already tired of listening to him. “He broke into a protected empathy defense facility.Gloveless.”
The footage was still rolling, the empath on the ground now, Smith’s baton on his face. He could see his lips moving as he threatened to break the empath’s teeth, his bones.
The stranger tilted his head. “An empath can’t hit back.”
“That’s the little mind-raper’s problem, not mine.”
The stranger was still staring at him with flat hazel eyes. “That’s against company policy.”
“Policy? You mean that joke of a rule book?” Smith scoffed. How dare this pretty boy walk in here and judge him? “Nothing about this concerns you. You better be either the president or the pope, because otherwise you’re getting locked up with the empath where you can wait for the police.”
He grabbed for the man’s arm.
The stranger moved faster than Smith expected. Before Smith could make contact, a boot was planted in his chest, hard enough to send him crashing backward into a table of wide-screen monitors.
Thousands of dollars of security equipment shattered against the floor as Smith scrambled to stay upright, swearing loudly. “Who the hell—”
“Evan Grayson.”
The Dead Man.
Smith barely caught himself on the edge of the table. “Sir,” he said, as fear flooded his stomach, “sir, I swear, I had no idea—”
“Obviously.” Grayson leaned down. “That company policy exists for a reason.”
“We thought it was a joke!” Smith blurted out. “We’re ananti-empathy facility—how could we have a rule that says never hurt empaths?”
