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Even if he never fully believed it.
Her arms felt like hundred-pound lead weights as she lifted them and placed them on the armrests. Being tied up in a basement again wasn’t something she’d ever thought would happen, and panic started to crawl its way to her chest, making her breaths come in shallow gasps.
“Not gonna tie you up.” Zach spoke for the first time besides giving one-word orders of walk, sit, wait.
“W-what?” Brilliant, question the man who said he wasn’t going to restrain you.
“You gonna try to run?”
Despite the gravity of the situation, a harsh laugh escaped her. Where the hell would she go? She’d have to eat spinach and do pushups all day, every day, for the next ten years to even have an ounce of the muscle mass Zach had. “No, I’m not going to try to run.”
He nodded and walked across the small square room, leaning his back against the wall. The minutes ticked by slowly, leaving Stephanie to wonder when someone would burst through that door and her interrogation/torture would begin. Maybe they’d be kind and just end it swiftly.
A shudder rolled through her, catching Zach’s attention. “My woman fucking loved you, you know that?”
Tears filled her eyes. “She’s amazing. I love her, too. I care about everyone I’ve met here.” She purposefully used the present tense.
Zach snorted. “You can cut the bullshit now, fed. You’re lucky you’re not a fucking man.” He cracked his knuckles and rolled his shoulders. “I’d be allowed first crack at you if you were a man.”
The sound of the door opening was followed by the heavy tread of boots clomping down the steps.
Copper.
She swallowed and tried to keep from sobbing and begging for her life. Anything he wanted to know, she’d tell him. She owed him that much. Owed it to Maverick.
When he reached the end of the steps, he walked straight to the corner of the room where another chair rested and dragged it over to her. The scraping of metal along the concrete floor scored her eardrums and raked along her spine.
“You fucked my boy up,” he said once he was seated, his forearms resting on his massive thighs. “Never thought I’d see that guy go in for anything more than easy pussy, but damn if you didn’t wrap him around your little finger.”
Even if they weren’t planning to physically torture her, this emotional agony just might be worse, because, while they all thought it was an act, she was just as destroyed as Maverick.
“They teach you that shit in fed school?”
“N-no.” Geez, it sounded like her vocal cords had been dragged behind Copper’s bike for miles. “It wasn’t an act.”
Copper laughed. “I know they tell you to say that shit.”
Tears filled her eyes once again. Crying was utterly useless, but she couldn’t seem to stop. There were so many volatile emotions swirling through her, and it seemed her eyeballs were the only places to release them.
“Got a few questions for you,” he said as he scratched his trimmed beard.
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
He raised an eyebrow as Zach muttered, “bullshit” under his breath.
“I assume your boss was counting you as one of the dead agents, but who is the second?”
A chill ran down her spine as Copper talked so callously about her death. Like it was a foregone conclusion. “It was King.”
Both men reacted to the news with shouts of, “What the fuck?”
Not bothering to wait for further questions, she just launched into the story. “The Handlers have never really been on the FBI’s radar. No one really gives a shit that you’re suspected of loan sharking and money laundering when the Dragons are running drugs and women one county over. We always planned to leave your stuff to the local PD.”
Copper watched her with curious eyes, relaxing into his chair somewhat, while Zach stood sentry near the steps like there really was a chance she’d make a run for it.
“Keep going.”
She nodded and took a breath. Her voice sounded stronger, less full of terror. At least they weren’t going to attach electrodes to her earlobes to get her to talk. “King was my partner in the Cybercrimes Unit. He had an extensive undercover history but wanted something that would keep him home, since he had a wife and kid. About a year ago, the Bureau needed someone with his background, and he was placed with the Dragons. I had no undercover experience, but they used me as his contact in DC. I still worked Cybercrimes, but I was his handler, basically. Just over two months ago, he missed a few check-ins with me. The Bureau sent me here to make contact. I was scouting around in the woods outside Shark’s cabin when I was caught.”
As though that day happened only last week, the helpless feeling of fear tightened her gut. “I ended up alone with King, or Agent Daniel Rey, for about five minutes. He could have easily let me go, but it was then I discovered he’d gone all in with Shark.”
