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I’m sure there are many other, more elegant ways to express my world falling down around me, but not this second.
I’m fucked.
Not even Quinn will be able to explain away how a dead man’s fingerprint ended up on a murder victim.
14
The Summit
Quinn
When I look back over my life, after I’ve become an old retired, washed-out detective with a back brace and arthritic joints, I wonder if this moment—this pivotal moment—will be my ultimate failure or biggest triumph.
A triumph over myself, that is, for making my own rules, not being afraid to go against the grain of justice to protect those I love.
Either way, I won’t regret my cho
ice. Some things we just have to accept in spite of ourselves. Who we originally believed we wanted to be.
I imagine Sadie had to have given herself this lecture at some point. Right before she made a decisive judgment call to kill a perpetrator who would otherwise go unpunished, would continue to hurt and murder, and she rationalized if she didn’t do it, didn’t tip the scales of justice in her favor, the injustice would continue.
Hell, I don’t know if she ever battled her conscience at all. Maybe it was as easy as flipping a coin for her; heads she knifes them, tails she shoots them.
I scrub my hands down my face, detesting the smell of leather and coffee filtering through Larkin’s building. The main conference room has become a surveillance hub, equipped with numerous monitors and equipment I’m not even sure how Larkin got his hands on.
I don’t want to know. I’m here for one purpose, and when that purpose walks into the room, my heart fucking stops.
I recognize Avery—but if you didn’t know her, really know her, then she’d float through the room as a tantalizing stranger. Her blond hair is now a thick, rich auburn brown. Her face glows, a fair porcelain, with contrasting dark makeup shadowing her eyes and lips. Smoky and elegant, she’s any man’s fantasy.
She wraps her arms around her waist, shrinking beneath a satin dress, but Alexis pushes Avery’s hands back to her sides, forcing her to lift her head and look the part of a bought and owned sex toy.
My feet are moving me toward her before my brain catches up.
“Only bow your head when you’re in the presence of your Master,” Alexis tells Avery. “Don’t talk to any other men unless Carson gives you permission. Don’t look into their eyes; that’s an insult to your Master.”
Alexis continues to give Avery instructions as my eyes rake over the black dress and exposed skin. The scars I felt along that skin have been concealed, along with the deep gash that runs the length of her bottom lip and chin. My fingers curl into fists as I tamp down the urge to run my thumb over her lips and wipe the makeup away.
I want to see all of her.
Avery’s eyes flick up and latch on to my gaze. “With the mask, I think this will work,” she says. “No one there should recognize me.”
Alexis glances between us and, noticing the tension, assesses Avery quickly before she decides it’s all right to leave her side. “I’ll go check on how Carson’s doing. We’ll go over a couple more things before it’s time.”
“Thank you,” I say to her as she starts to walk off, and she returns my leaden gratitude with a tight smile. As Avery is determined to do this, at least it seems she’s getting instructions that will keep her safe.
And I’ll be right here, on the other side of the monitor, just minutes away should anything go wrong.
Still… “You don’t have to do this,” I say. “There’s still time to inform the Feds.”
She shakes her head, her soft, newly dyed tresses whispering over her creamy shoulders. My throat constricts. “We can’t chance that something will go wrong, that the Alpha would be alerted. If the auction doesn’t happen as planned, we might not get the chance to find him again.”
She’s right. I could retrieve the phone Special Agent Bell gave me right now; it’s a trigger ready to be pulled. But at what cost? Those women’s lives? Avery’s? When we apprehend the Alpha and his accomplices, it will not be in The Firm.
I can’t risk the Feds rushing in and blowing this op.
“I know this is the last place you want to be.” She reaches out, but drops her hand just as fast. “But thank you. I feel better…safer knowing you’ll be watching. Even if…”
I take her hand in mine, trace my thumb over her wrist. “Even if tomorrow I have to start an investigation into Wells?”
