Page 58 of Marked By the Devil

It’s like I’ve entered another universe.

A butler asking if the painkiller cream he’d purchased for me worked was not a figment of my past. I’d never had anyone to care like that or to look out for me like that.

“A little,” I admitted. “It’ll feel good when I can take a break from these many hours at the keyboard, though.”

A break seemed like a joke. This wasn’t a “normal” job where I could plan vacations.

I left all those musings aside when I was driven to Adrik and Elena’s home. Even though I had the laptop here, I still would go to the large mansion and work alongside her. We would get on video calls with Trojan too. The call we had scheduled for this morning took a turn for the worse, though.

“I checked your phone,” he said as a greeting once we were all in place and facing our screens. Luka napped in his portable crib behind me and Elena, stationed at our computers side by side.

“Yeah? Any activity?” I asked. My phone had fallen out of my pocket that first night I’d been with Viktor. When he tackled me to the ground, it dropped and cracked. It hadn’t survived the damage, but a week ago, Trojan was able to hack into the number and transfer it to another device that he could monitor it from. It went hand-in-hand with my being “missing”.

So far, the texts, voicemails, and emails were all of the expected nature.

After a week or so of my capture, Smithson reached out with vague messages, asking where I was, who had this phone, and if someone had located this device to return it to the police station. He seemed to realize that my number was still active.

Then when those all went unanswered, and when that car tried to hit me, it seemed like he had upped his game, asking where I was, why I was hiding, and warning that I better be careful and watch out. I supposed it would’ve been more helpful if those messages could’ve been found before Viktor took me out to eat for that “work” meeting.

A couple of days ago, he’d ramped up the messaging again, asking where I was and why I had gone AWOL on the agency.

“Yeah, there’s activity.” Trojan cleared his throat. “I’ll send it to you both now. But to sum it up, he’s threatening you, warning that you’ll be killed if you don’t report to the agency. Or killed if you do.”

“Both?” Elena asked with an incredulous huff.

“Damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” I muttered.

She put her hand on mine. “You’re safe here.”

I knew I was, and I smiled at her as thanks for her commiseration. Viktor had shown me how safe I was with him and his family, and I didn’t take that for granted.

“He’s been making more threats about your not coming in,” Trojan added. “And he’s officially declaring you a double agent now. He’s saying that you’re officially fired and wanted.”

“Wanted?” I snorted, shaking my head as I opened the emails he’d just sent to me and Elena with this “team meetup”.

The irony practically killed me. My being on a wanted list when I had dedicated so much of my life trying to bring down those with such a designation.

“He can join the club, then,” I said bitterly.

I didn’t want to dwell on how I’d changed my tactics in fighting crime. It still gnawed at me that I was siding with the Volkovs. I often wondered what my mom and dad would think of me, being here with Viktor and his family like this. When I pondered it, I knew that they’d be just as mad that Smithson and countless others were prone to being bought off, though. In fact, they would’ve been more incensed that their fellow members of law enforcement could turn traitor to their own.

“Officially wanted?” Elena asked. “Like they’re looking for her?”

“I’m still looking into how far they’re searching for her, but these messages make it clear that they see her as someone to bring in.” He sighed, sounding annoyed. “Even if they aren’t sending out anyone to hunt you down, they’re trying to needle at you with direct messages.”

I skimmed through them, my anger igniting into pure fury.

How dare you!

How dare you imply that I’m a deceitful person?

I hadn’t ever taken a bribe. I had never wanted to play the system or lie under oath.

Seething at this new information, I tried not to let my emotions get to me.

Assess. Ascertain. And act.

I had to keep my cool and know that I was ultimately doing the right thing. That I wasn’t in the wrong. They could call me a criminal all they wanted and it wouldn’t change a thing. Because I was still doing the right thing—stopping bad people from doing bad things. I was picking and choosing by trying to bring down the bribed officials while siding with the Volkovs, but evil was evil and I’d stand by what seemed like the lesser one.