“How do you think I know about you being assigned this investigation? I know this city, and I have no doubt I’ll find the source. My only objective here is to speed up the process. Phantom will be hitting the streets soon.”
Orla had been struggling in his grasp, but his words stopped her movements. He removed his hand, and she remained in place, deep in thought. “How do you know that?”
She may have asked the question, but when she started pacing, Sam figured she knew he’d never give her the answer. “The police need to be informed.”
“About what? A rumor? And if the information is solid, as soon as they make a move, the target will have changed locations. The rumor is that several labs are being built. I only have to find one, and for that, I need your help.”
Her blond head snapped in his direction. “Stop it? How? Kill them as you killed those two guys at the bar? Or the others in that explosion?”
Sam had no qualms with killing someone if it saved thousands of lives. “If we don’t shut them down completely, they’ll come back. And you don’t want that happening.”
She seemed to consider his words. “Those who intend to spread Phantom on the streets deserve to die in my book, but that’s not how the police will see it. I won’t be part of a hit if that’s what you’re planning.”
He could go harder on her, but he suspected it would only strengthen her position. Instead, he returned to his bike. If she wouldn’t help, he wasn’t going to waste any more time on her, even for her breathtaking face and enticing ass.
“Wait!” He turned slightly to look at her. He could see wheels were turning hard and fast in that smart brain of hers, and he waited for her to speak. “Let’s work together on this. Tell me what you know, and I’ll tell you what I discover.”
Sam smiled behind his mask at her guts as he got on his bike and started the engine with a roar. “No. I won’t put anyone else in danger.”
Orla took another step. “You’re already working with someone. You were in contact with them, and they helped us escape. I think you need my help with this, and I need you.”
Sam shook his head. He knew he’d be able to get to the bottom of this on his own; he’d done so many times before. The only difference here was the time constraint. If he could get information from her to close this faster, he would. But he wasn’t dumb enough not to realize she had another motive for her sudden generosity. After all, she was a journalist.
“It’s the middle of the night, and you have nothing yet. Damon Evans didn’t have time to tell you anything useful. You have squat, so unless you can miraculously come up with new information, there’s no reason for us to work together.”
The woman gasped, clearly taken aback by this bit of information, but Orla Karlsen wasn’t the kind of person to quit easily. “I’ll get the information. How can I contact you?”
Sam took one last look at her. “You don’t. If you find anything worth my time, I’ll find you.”
Read Night Justice
Sneak Peek: Lost Bastard
Book one of the Dark Sparrow Series
Read about Deva and Aleksei
https://books2read.com/u/mBO2BR
It seemed that survival instinct never died. As she pushed the stop button on her machine and shut down her mp3 player, only silence surrounded her, but she wasn’t fooled. For the last two weeks, Deva had trained at night after work and never felt discomfort or unease. The reason she felt it now meant she was about to become prey and she’d be dammed it if she’d ever be that again.
Forcing herself to get her breathing under control, she looked around both for the threat, and anything she could use as a weapon. When she left her father and his crew, she had taken extensive self-defense training with Beatrice and her husband, helping to get her footing back, and she hadn’t ceased training ever since.
As she moved silently across the mat, she took one of the bamboo sticks used for agility training. It wouldn’t inflict much damage, but she knew how to use it and where to hit to inflict enough pain to distract whoever was lurking inside the gym. It may not be enough against a firearm, but she felt more secure with something in her hand.
The greater space of the gym was empty, and there was no light in any of the offices, except in her workspace where she had left one of her ambient lamps on. Deva hesitated before entering. It was a dead end, and if someone had broken into the gym, she would be trapped. But her phone was in her bag, and she needed it.
“You can come in. I won’t eat you up unless you want me to.”
Deva didn’t recognize the voice but detected the Russian accent. Aleksei. Leaving the stick outside the door, just in case, she let out a steadying exhale before entering the room. The Russian fighter, still in a fitted black t-shirt and black tech pants, was sitting on her massage table, a fucking grin on his gorgeous, rugged face. His liquid silver eyes danced with mischief. His tattooed arms flexed as he gripped the table’s edge, drawing attention to his body.
“Hell, Voronov! Why are you trying to scare me?”
And the cad simply smiled, lifting his hands in capitulation. “I didn’t want to scare you, Deva. But I had left my phone in the locker room and just came back to get it.”
“The front door was locked.”
“It’s only a lock, Deva. Something that can be opened easily by someone with skills, don’t you think?”
The way he said her name, lingering with a deep rumble, heat pooled between her legs. Deva hated her reaction to him as much as she understood it. Sometimes the body had ways of making its needs known.
“And this is not the locker room. You are in my personal space, sitting on my worktable.”
“Da. I see you have excellent eyes. And when I returned, and you were still here, I thought it was the perfect moment to ask you for a... treatment.”
Deva knew better and crossed her arms. “I’m off the clock, and I don’t offer the ‘services’ you are clearly asking me for.”
Something flashed in his fascinating eyes before his face closed off. “I know what you do here, and I’m not looking for a whore. I have no interest in that. I’ve never paid for sex in my life.”
And Deva was convinced it was true. With his muscled body and the charisma around him like a magnet, there was no way a sane woman would say no to him.
“So, what do you need, Mr. Voronov?”
His stance calmed at her question, and a smile returned to his lips. “Please, call me Aleksei. I decided to jog back here, but I started to feel a slight pain above the right knee. At first, I thought it would calm down once my body had warmed up, but instead, it increased.”
Was it an elaborate lie or the truth? Even if she had her suspicions, the therapist in her decided to check it out. She crouched in front of him and started to unfasten the side of the pants from the ankle up to two snaps above the right knee. There again, was more ink. Crouching in front of him, she started to run her fingers on each side of the joint, pressing to detect anything unusual. “Does that hurt?”
“No.” And he wasn’t lying; his breathing was deep and slow.