Page 17 of Pucked Around and Found Out

Xaden unknowingly handed me the kingdom without even realizing it.

The irony is almost beautiful.

The woman perches on the edge of the table, crossing her arms over her chest and staring down her nose at me like I'm beneath her. The man claims one of the chairs, laying files on the table before turning to look at me with that same insufferable smugness.

My lip twitches in a snarl.

“You can either comply with our requests, or we can make this hard for you, Miss Kellar,” she says.

“I like it rough,” I spit back.

Her shit-colored eyes narrow and I have to bite back my smirk.

Find a way to get under your opponent's skin. Force them to make an error. Getting angry always causes someone to fuck up.

Carnage's voice echoes in my mind, and I can tell I'm already getting to her. I just need to keep pushing her buttons until she reveals what she really wants from me.

“Let's cut the shit, shall we?” She doesn't wait for me to respond. “You're here because you have information.”

I raise a single eyebrow. Saying nothing.

Her face shows cracks, a small twitch in her right eye, the corner of her mouth lifting slightly.

“You think fucking Xaden Devlin makes you untouchable?”

I keep my expression blank, giving her nothing.

“You're in here on charges of aiding and abetting, resisting arrest—” I snort and she continues, “—obstructing a police investigation. You'll be charged with second-degree murder of a federal agent⁠—”

My patience snaps.

“Enough with the bullshit charges, Deputy Director.”

Surprise flashes through her eyes for a split second before she snuffs it out, regaining her composure.

Yeah, bitch. I know exactly who you are and what you did to my friends.

She looks at me for a moment with something in her face I don't expect.

It's gone almost before I can register it, snuffed out and replaced by the professional blankness she wears the way other women wear foundation. But I caught it. Half a second of something old and personal and nothing to do with me.

It is the look of a woman who is not here because of a career.

She's here because of something that happened to her.

I don't know what. I have no context, no reason to follow the thought further. But I file it carefully in the growing inventory of things I know about Deputy Director Fiona Williams that she doesn't know I know.

She wants me to believe this is professional.

I think it has never been professional.

Whatever is driving her, whatever purpose she has built this operation around — started somewhere specific and personal and probably has a name, and the name is not the Devlin Cosa Nostra or the Kellar Cartel.

I keep my face blank.

I wait.

“Well, it appears you are informed,” she says carefully.