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"Mate, I don't know what you want me to say."
I flipped over another photo, and Elise’s beautiful face came up. Her smile was wide, and her eyes were bright and full of hope. She usually wore her hair short, but in this photo it cascaded past her shoulders, with a dark and lustrous curl. "Her. This woman was blown up in a car bomb. A car bomb either put there by you or one of your minions."
“I sympathize with you, but I really don’t know what you’re on about.”
"Sure you do?"
This time there was something in Connor's eyes. A doubletake. And I knew he recognized her face. "I'm not telling you anything. Do you know who the fuck I am?"
"Yes, which is why you're here. ConnorLohman, midlevel enforcer for Antonio Igno. But something happened five years ago to change your luck. Before that, you couldn't even get a free email address. And then suddenly you were Connor Phelps, globetrotting financier. Can you tell me how that happened?"
"Turns out I have a way with numbers."
"And a way of bullshitting. Just tell me how you did it, Connor. No one moves up that fast. No one makes changes that quickly. I want to know your secret. But it will be a secret just between us since we're mates and all."
Connor sat back and shook his head. "We’re not fucking mates, and nothing fucking happened."
"You don't have to talk tome. Obviously, we have a whole team of people who make it their business to get people like you to talk. I'm only here because of this woman, and you know what happened to her,mate." My fingers tapped Elise’s image. "Elise Cochran. She's what matters here. I want to know your involvement in her murder."
Connor looked at the photo again. "Who was she to you? Was she your bird or something?" Looking up at me and my intense stare, he kept going. "What you don't seem to understand is that sometimes bad things happen to good people. They get caught in the crosshairs. All because of their associations. I don't know your friend. But she did look like a fine piece of—"
I had Connor's lapels in my hands so fast he didn’t see me coming. "Start talking, asshole." I was glad I’d locked the door so it would take the other agents on watch duty a moment to get in.
"Ah, I see shedidmean something to you. All I can say is I've seen her photo before. No need to get all testy." He laughed. "But I have to say you’re the stupidest son of a bitch I've ever met. You don't even know what you have in your hands right now."
I frowned at that. "What?"
"Did you have fun at the auction last night?"
I puzzled at his question. "The auction? What the fuck does that matter?"
He grappled and tried to shove away from me. I released him and he plopped back into his seat. "You don't even get it. You and your merry band ain’t got a fucking clue. You're trying to call the shots, but you don’t even know what kind of game you’re playing. Look at the players on the board, shithead. Stop fucking around with pawns when you could have the king."
"What do you mean by that?"
Connor shook his head. "No, I'm not talking. If you don't know what you have, I'm not telling you. But you keep coming in here asking me questions. I'll wait.” He glanced around. “This place is real nice. Not dark and dingy enough to give me the real heebie-jeebies orI'm going to die todayfeels. It’s clean, doesn't smell bad, and there's not standing water and electrodes everywhere. No Albanians named Boris who like to pull out people’s fingernails. That tells me you’re part of the government, which means you’re not going to kill me. So I’m just going to sit here and keep my fucking mouth shut.”
I lifted a brow. “You want to be in a place that’s filthy and smells bad? That can be arranged.”
“Yeah, then maybe I’ll talk to you. But this is child’s play. You don’t scare me. Especially when you’re an idiot. The whole lot of you. I am not going to do the work for you when you don’t even know what you have right at your fingertips. You're here asking questions about the past, but not even the right ones. You had a fucking raven in your hands, and you didn't even know it."
I glowered at him. What the fuck was he talking about? A raven?
SAINT
Later that night, I was still mulling over the raven question.
Since it was a mission day, I was staying on Rogue's campus for the night in the bungalow I’d been assigned to with Lachlan. Lachlan on the other hand was staying on site with Saffron, so I had the place to myself. After a long shower, I crashed, too bloody knackered to think. My mind had different plans as visions of Kaya Reynolds played in the forefront.
She needs someone to protect her, and you bitched out of duty.
No. Gabe would make sure she had the protection she needed. She didn’t need me around, and Gabe sure as hell didn’t need me distracted on duty.
As I drifted off, trying to force my brain to quiet, I couldn’t get the image and taste of Kaya’s soft lips out of my brain. Only fits of sleep happened, not the kind of rest I needed to interrogate Connor again.
I groaned as the phone on my nightstand buzzed somewhere around 6:30 in the morning. I’d not had nearly enough sleep for a call this early, but when I saw who was calling, I picked up immediately. “Are you letting me back at Lohman?”
Gabe’s voice was croaky, but clear. “The asset you refused to protect is in the process of breaking into All Saints Tech.”
