Page 11 of Marked By the Devil

“I’m not so sure. She was there, but she wasn’t in the right position to have pulled the trigger.”

They could postulate all they wanted one way or another, but we wouldn’t be able to puzzle anything out until we had answers to plug in where they belonged.

“She’s got to be involved.” Adrik scowled at me.

“Obviously,” I replied.

I’d never been a big believer in coincidences. She was an agent near a private meeting among the elite of crime bosses and their associates. Then she ran when a sniper took a shot. There was no chance of this being an epic coincidence.

Yet, in the meantime, while I waited for her to wake up and talk, I was confident I could get answers from her.

“Even if she’s not directly tied to anything Gregori wants,” I said, convinced that Wren looked too new and young of an agent to have been bought or bribed by him, “she should have some intel to share with us.”

Maksim scoffed. “Not tied to Gregori? He’s been the sum of all the bullshit we’ve been dealing with for a year now.”

“She’ll just have to explain what she was there for, and then we can go from there.” I raised my brows, waiting to see if they’d insist on another course of action. Adrik was the leader. Maksim often acted as his unofficial second-in-command, the problem solver we all relied on.

But I had a hunch that there might be more to this agent being near that assassination attempt than what we might assume.

You’re going to tell me everything, Red.

I ignored the slight thrill of a challenge that I anticipated to make that happen.

4

WREN

I’m so screwed.

Before I tried to open my eyes, I lay on the hard floor and knew that wherever I was, whatever had happened, it was not good.

Keeping my eyes closed and lying as still as possible in case someone was near me, I took a mental inventory of all that I could catalogue as clues to pick at.

Assess. Ascertain. And act.

My assessment so far was that I was alive.

Starting with the basics there.

If this was heaven or hell, it was underwhelming.

I was alive. I could breathe freely. My heart was beating like it should. Without moving to test my range of motion, I could guess that the lack of aches in my body meant I was able to get up and move.

Yet, I held back. I waited.

Listening to the surroundings, I tried to tell if anyone was in here. Where here was. The whine of a fan overhead told me I was in a room. The lack of vibrations told me I wasn’t near any machinery or traffic. No smells reached my nose—except my own sweat. But I wasn’t overheated in this room.

Staying still became a form of mental torture, though, and I gave up the wait. I’d given it a good five minutes and no cues came from any of my senses.

I pried my eyes open and saw that I was in a cell. Four plain walls greeted me and the big metal door didn’t give any clues for me to work with.

Alone, without any obvious security camera lens anchored anywhere, I slowly picked myself off the floor and stretched.

Not tied up.

I wondered why. Why go to the extremes of capturing me but leave me able to defend myself with my fists?

I cringed at how poorly I’d done that when that man chased me in the alley. He had overpowered me like a freaking Viking—too huge and tall and strong for me to have had a chance.