There were pictures of her with her siblings, her with just her niece, her with her parents, but my favorites were the ones of her by herself, mainly because they weren’t posed. Whoever had taken the shots had captured candid moments. In those, her smile appeared more carefree, brighter, revealing a set of dimples that poked in on each cheek and added a cuteness to an already stunning woman.
What her social media didn’t give me was any clue as to why a beautiful woman like her would be in a swanky bar, lifting wallets from veritable strangers. My curiosity piqued, I minimized the tab and pulled open another one, doing a deeper dive into her family. My gut told me a person couldn’t get as good as she was at picking pockets without having a teacher. But there wasn’t a record on any of them. Either they were all really good at what they did, or Stella was just born with lightning fast sticky fingers.
Something told me that wasn’t the case. There’d been something in her gaze that night at the bar, something other than the discomfort I’d witnessed. It had looked and felt a lot like desperation. She hadn’t wanted to be there, doing what she was doing, so there had to have been a reason she’d gone through with it. When the answers didn’t appear out of thin air, I went back to those pictures that had me so damn captivated.
I lost track of time and my surroundings as I bounced back and forth between my favorite photos of Stella, so entranced I didn’t hear someone enter my office until they spoke.
“Who’s Stella Ryan?”
Son of a bitch.
Turning in my chair, I saw Sage Caine standing on the other side of my L-shaped desk, leaning forward to get a better look at my computer screen. “Can I help you with something?” I asked gruffly, clicking the X on the browser to close it out.
She smiled smugly, moving to one of the chairs close, lifting her body up by the arms of the chair and folding her legs beneath her, making herself right at home. Sage had started at Alpha Omega a couple years back, handling the administrative side of things that we all fucking hated. She was now married to our tech badass and all around grumpy asshole, Xander Caine, and occasionally helped us by going undercover when a case called for a woman’s help.
She was a vital part of our operation here on many levels, but the damn woman could be a pain in the ass, that was for sure. She and Xander were like oil and water. It didn’t make sense that they ended up together, but no one could deny they were perfect for one another. They loved to push each other’s buttons just so they could fight and then “make up” in dark corners around the office. It was a wonder none of us had gone blind after accidentally walking in on their post-fight clinch. It had gotten so bad, locks had been installed on every door in the building . . . to be safe.
“She’s super pretty.”
For the love of God.
“Don’t you have a husband you should be torturing or something? Or, here.” I reached for a stack of documents sitting near the edge of my desk and tossed them into her lap. “Some filing to fill your time and get you out of my office.”
She looked at the paperwork for a second like she didn’t recognize what it was before using her index finger to delicately brush the documents from her lap and onto the floor. “Oh, silly boy. You know I only do filing when I damn well feel like it.”
If it had been anyone else, I would have argued, but with Sage, it was pointless to try to make her do anything she didn’t want to do. She and Roxanne practically ran this place, and they did it with an iron fist, to the point that a bunch of men retired from special forces were fucking terrified.
“Fine. Then can you at least leave so I can get back to work?”
That knowing grin on her face grew even bigger. “And by work I’m guessing you mean get back to cyber-stalking the hot-ass chick on your computer?”
I knew I should have headed home right after lunch instead of coming back to the office. I could have sworn I’d felt a small niggling of a headache back at the diner. That would have been a perfect excuse. I should have called in sick the rest of the day, done my cyber-sleuthing at home instead of here where there wasn’t a moment of privacy.
But no, like a chump, I’d ignored the impending aneurism throbbing in my brain, and had come back to the office. Now thanks to Sage, I could feel my heartbeat behind my eyeballs, and that vein in my skull was moments away from rupturing and killing me. I was sure of it.
“I’m not cyber-stalking anyone. It’s for work,” I lied. “A possible case.”
I was so full of shit. Sage knew it, and she didn’t hesitate to call me on it. “You know all potential jobs come through me, right? I’m the one who keeps all your calendars, so I know the schedule of every one of you guys like the back of my hand. Try again.”
“She’s just some girl.”
Sage rolled her eyes like she was dealing with an unruly toddler she wished she could handcuff to the time-out bench. “Sweetheart, that’s not a girl. That right there is a woman. I suggest you learn the difference, and fast.”
“Fine,” I relented through a clenched jaw. “She’s just some woman.”
I could see from the expression on her face that hadn’t pacified her in the slightest. “And how do you know her?” she pushed harder.
The fastest way to get her the hell out of here would be to give her the truth, so I did . . . quickly. “It’s no big deal. She just caught my attention at the hotel bar in the city a week or so ago when I was surveilling Markoff.”
“Because she’s so gorgeous?” she teased knowingly.
No way in hell I’d admit that out loud, no matter how true it was. “Because she lifted a dude’s wallet so easily I was impressed.” At the memory of her stealthy thievery, I couldn’t help but grin a bit. She really was good.
“She robbed a guy?” Sage asked, confusion marring her expression.
“He was a dick,” I defended for some inexplicable reason. “She sat at the bar for a bit while the guy harassed the bartender. It wasn’t until he was storming off after making a scene that she made her move, almost like she’d been waiting to find a person who deserved it. And trust me, if someone in that bar deserved to have their wallet stolen, it was that asshole.”
“Huh,” Sage hummed thoughtfully. “Okay, I think I might like this chick.”
Of course she would, she was a badass in her own right, a woman who’d been raised by her hardcore biker dad and all his biker friends. Also, she was slightly psychotic.
“I was good to sit and watch what she had planned, but then she lined Markoff up in her sights, and I had to step in to stop her before she got herself into some serious shit.”
“Damn,” Sage muttered, scrutinizing me in a way that left me feeling fidgety and uncomfortable. I was a grown-ass man, for Christ’s sake. A thirty-six-year-old who’d seen and done more shit than most people would in their entire lives. I’d trooped through more war zones than I could keep track of, seeing the very pits of hell and the worst humanity had to offer without so much as blinking. Yet this tiny slip of a woman had me squirming in my chair. Fucking pathetic. The only silver lining was that every man in this building had the same reaction.
And if she got in the mood to rip one of our heads off, look the hell out. One glare from Sage Caine could have your balls burrowing back up into your body for safety. No wonder she had a man as big and terrifying as Xander wrapped around her little finger.