Page 90 of Marked By the Devil

It was impossible to track who was saying what and what was going on where. With how out of control the press conference got, it seemed like someone wanted to arrest the agents who were violently shouting at the more superior-ranking members. They all got in each other’s faces, but it was the final show of Smithson, yelling directly at the camera, that would be imprinted in my brain for a long time.

“You’re a traitor, Wren Green. You’re nothing but a pathetic traitor to the law!”

More local officers showed up to get control of the room. The next scene was cut away to a different reporter, retreating toward the rear of the building, stating that the press conference was cut short and may resume later.

Elena muted the TV while it switched to a commercial.

I lowered my head and rubbed my face.

“You’re not a traitor,” Carina said.

I sighed, looking up. “It still stings for him to even say that. To me, someone who’s only ever wanted to do good and make a difference in the world.” I shook my head, saddened at how everything was so shifted and distorted now.

“He had the audacity to stand there and tell the world that I was the one who had to be hunted down and held accountable for what I have done?” I furrowed my brow, letting my anger fuel me into this fit of rage. “I stopped him from committing crimes. I’m trying to help stop him from getting more work requests from Gregori’s new middle man and acting on them.”

“And that’s how we know that you are good, Wren. You’re not a traitor.” Elena came to sit on the other side of me.

“Screw what he wants the rest of the world to think,” Carina said.

“We know what to think of you,” Mila added quietly from where she sat in the chair, still holding Luka who slept blissfully.

“You are good, and you belong with us,” Elena said, “not them.”

I smiled at them, embracing the easy friendships and comradery that they induced me to feel.

It felt too right, too good, to be included in their small group, and I prayed that Viktor would never change his mind about how my “stay” here could be as long as I wanted it to be.

Which would be forever if I had it my way.

I never wanted to lose the close friendships that I’d been forming with these women who proved that we could all contribute to protecting this strong and unshakable sense of family.

33

VIKTOR

Iwaited near the building where the press conference was held. The men who came with me were only on standby, should there be any chaos or violence.

Besides, I wanted to see the man himself.

Even from a distance, I wanted to lock my sights on Smithson and know that the man who tried to get Wren killed would soon suffer. I doubted that it could have been personal. He didn’t know Wren when he had her go to the stakeout that one night in his place. He wasn’t aware of anything about her except the fact that she was newly transferred to the department. To him, she was just a person, a body, someone nameless and unidentifiable to him that he could sacrifice in place of himself.

It wasn’t personal. Not then. But since the bullet had missed her and since she had run away only to ultimately be caught by me, it had become extremely personal for me.

It was personal now, with him shouting and trying to insist on national television that he was innocent and that Wren was a disgraced agent on the run and wanted for her “lies”. The short, beady-eyed man’s hatred became extremely personal when he tried to spin what the reporter was insinuating, that he was behind mass corruption and was accepting dirty money for bribes.

In terms of exposing him with the maximum attention and impact, it was going well.

He stood up there blustering and panicking. A vein showed on his brow as he yelled and screamed and defended his name. Other agents joined the melee, verbally making asses of themselves as more questions were flung from the press pool. Security guards and officers moved into place, trying to form a wall between the agents giving the press conference and the reporters who all stood and were clamoring to see and speak to the agents.

It was a mess.

But what I wanted to witness and gloat about a little more was how some of the people on the stage didn’t seem too pleased about the reporter’s accusations.

There you go.

Start the seeds of doubt.

None of us were in this for Smithson to get his hands slapped. A mere disciplinary action wouldn’t be enough. Watching him lose his job would be cute, I supposed, but it was his life that he owed in repayment for trying to get Wren killed, for having any part in Gregori’s plans.