Page 44 of Marked By the Devil

I turned to look back out the window, feeling like an animal let off the leash after being cooped up at his house for weeks. He didn’t let me have the freedom to sightsee through the window, though. Gripping my chin, he turned me to face him. “How did it go with Elena today?”

“Oh, so you’re my supervisor now? I was under the impression that she was.”

“She’s more experienced with this kind of investigative work,” he replied.

“I don’t know how it went but she thought I was productive. Igor, too.”

We reached the club and he held my hand to bring me up to the restaurant. Guards flanked us until we were seated in a VIP room, and I refused to see this as a date.

He did, though.

A working date. “If you want to repeat the whole kiss-for-a-question thing, I’m game.” He pulled me closer to him on the circular booth seat. “But I need to eat first. For sustenance.”

I sighed. While I was coming to understand that he could be a direct man, he was awfully sarcastic too.

Is it a defense mechanism?

Or just a quirk of his personality?

I wished I could be more confident on how to read him, especially since we’d blurred the lines even more by having sex. My lines were all smudged and messy because I couldn’t help but feel like I was siding with him and forsaking my agency.

“Talk to me, Red.” He sipped his drink that the serving staff delivered by default.

“What?” I shrugged.

“What did you find? Did you see any connection to the network? Elena was supposed to explain where we’re trying to track the bribes from.”

I nodded. But when he raised his brows, like he was pleased that I had that successful of a day, what felt like another “first day on the job”, I shook my head. “No. I found some things that need to be looked at more, but nothing conclusive to this network. I’m kind of surprised this network is spread out so far in the States, though.” I furrowed my brow. “It seems like something that would’ve started overseas, in Eastern Europe, then branched out to here.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I track back transactions and source them, they have a lot of markers that mean they’ve come from international accounts.” I still had him. He was listening attentively, and I realized that he actually valued what I said. So, I continued. I elaborated on my ideas of where this network could have been founded. And all the while, throughout our meal, he didn’t show a shred of doubt. He didn’t interrupt me and insinuate that I was stupid. He didn’t question me instantly. And he didn’t treat me like a rookie. Maybe it was his twisted good fortune to have captured a federal agent who began her career in a fraud department, but this was a topic I had experience with. Elena was a true expert at dodging through accounts and hacking into banking servers, but I didn’t feel like I had to earn her trust. Or Viktor’s.

Unlike how I always felt at the office, dismissed and just one of the many stuck in the rat race there.

By the time we were finished with our meals, I couldn’t deny how well we had already begun working as reluctant partners. He seemed too stuck on this idea of my swearing allegiance to his dick, with the possessive looks he gave me as he held my hand and led me out of the restaurant at the club. But I was getting ahead of myself at the realization that I’d just started a new job for the Volkovs and couldn’t hate it yet.

“What’s that little scoff for?” he asked me as he led me outside.

“I was just thinking that this feels like another first day on the job.”

He smiled.

“I just hope that it doesn’t end as lousily as my last one,” I deadpanned at him.

He pulled me in close and kissed me with the brutal hunger I had no business craving.

“No one’s taking you away from me, though.”

Thanks. Thanks for the reminder that I am still stuck in this weird kidnapping ploy of yours.

15

VIKTOR

“Do you often hire temporary contractors?” Wren asked as we left the club.

“Not for what we want you to look into for us.” Holding her hand felt too good. Her slender fingers fit with mine so naturally. The word temporary didn’t fit in my thoughts of her.