Savage was waiting in the corridor as Trygg came out of a closed-door meeting in Lazaro Archer’s office late that afternoon. “How’d it go in there?”
“About as good as you might expect.”
Savage grunted. “Shit. That bad, huh?”
“Five dead bodies, and one of them just happens to be an embedded JUSTIS operative who’d been working Santino’s crew for the past two months.” Trygg shook his head. “The commander should’ve handed me more than just my ass. If Lucan Thorne had his way, I’d be tossed out on it right now.”
Trygg’s own honor—thin as it was—practically demanded he resign his post with the Order and find something else to do with his time and varied skills. The fuck-up outside the club with Sia was completely his fault. He’d lost all sense of reason when he watched Crespo leave with her. Seeing the bastard pawing Sia out in the parking lot like some barfly whore had pushed him right to the edge of a red fury he couldn’t leash. But it was the scent of her spilled blood—the realization she’d been wounded—that had obliterated all of his logic and control.
He’d not only forfeited the night’s mission to track a member of Santino’s inner circle, he’d jeopardized months of work for both the Order and a covert team inside JUSTIS.
To put a cherry on top of the whole stinking pile of mistakes, he’d also lost Sia in the process.
They had gone their separate ways after the massacre at the club. She headed straight to the shelter on foot, a fact he knew only because he covertly followed her there, needing to be certain for his own peace of mind that she made it home without issue.
As for him, he’d been at the command center ever since, doing his damnedest to glean more intel off the SD card and any other data lead he could chase down. What he really wanted to do was smash something with his bare fists.
Sia was livid with him and for good reason, evidently.
He still couldn’t believe she had planned to return to her colony without so much as telling him about it.
Then again, if she was that hellbent to get back to her people, who was he to stand in her way?
He should be the one holding the damn door open for her to walk her haughty ass out of his life, out of his thoughts. Out of his heart.
Her fine ass, he corrected himself grimly.
But he didn’t want to think about that or any other of Sia’s many fine qualities.
He had a mission to put back on the rails and he intended to do it.
Savage broke into his thoughts as the two of them started down the corridor. “What do you suppose the odds are that Santino’s business in Trapani tonight is still a go?”
Trygg shook his head. “We can’t be sure, but we also can’t risk losing the chance to find out. Lazaro and Lucan just gave me my orders. I’ll be heading south to stake out the area as soon as the sun sets.”
Savage cocked his head. “A stakeout? Last I knew, we were gearing up for a raid if the lead turns out to be a hot one.”
Trygg swiveled a flat look at him. “Change of plans, courtesy of JUSTIS. Since I put a wrench in their side investigation, they’re demanding the Order surrender any collars to them. If there’s a bust to be made, they get the win. We’ve just been downgraded to an eyes and ears operation only.”
Savage scoffed. “In other words, we do all the work, and then we phone it in to JUSTIS for them to take the credit?”
“Sounds about right,” Trygg muttered. “Lazaro and Lucan aren’t happy about it, either, but since we all want Santino put out of the Red Dragon business, we’ve got to play nice—at least for now. Lucan and the team in D.C. have their own problems with JUSTIS and the layers of corruption that have infected the organization. As for me, I don’t give a shit who I report to. I just want to see the job done and Santino wiped off the board for good.”
As they approached the residential area of the command center, the sound of female voices carried from one of the rooms on the main floor. To hear Savage’s mate, Arabella, and Lazaro’s mate, Melena, was no surprise, but it was the other soft voice that made Trygg’s feet slow beneath him.
Sia.
Trygg couldn’t hide his surprise as he and Savage reached the large arched entryway and found the three women seated together on the sofa and chairs inside. They had a tray of fruits and cheese in front of them and glasses of red wine in their hands.
Trygg’s gaze rooted on Sia. “What are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you too.” Her tone was cooler than her gaze. In fact, if he knew anything at all about females, he might have guessed she’d been crying recently. “I came to say good-bye to my friends.”
“Good-bye?” He tried to ignore the disapproving looks of the two women. “You mean you’re leaving Rome?”
She nodded and his heart felt as if it were suddenly caught in a fist.
“When?”
“As soon as possible. Tomorrow, most likely.”
Fuck. He would be gone to Trapani in a few hours on a mission that would easily last most of the night. Which meant the odds of seeing her again after this moment were slim to none. He told himself it was for the best. If seeing her right now felt like hot iron talons raking deep into his chest, what would he feel like if he had to watch her leave?
“Where are you going to go?” His words came out rough, more demand than question.
“I haven’t decided yet. I may eventually go back to the colony and appeal to the council to pardon me.”
“I see.”
Just then, he noticed the leather thong that looped her wrist, its small crystal orb shimmering in the soft light of the room. He knew what the crystal was. The Atlantean male and friend of the Order’s, Zael, wore the same kind of teleportation amulet around his wrist. It was how he transported himself between the mortal world and his own.
Now Sia had one too. From her friend Phaedra at the shelter, if he had to guess.
So, her mind was truly made up. One way or another, Sia was determined to go back where she belonged. He nodded, the tendons in his neck feeling tight.
“Okay. Then good luck to you, Sia.”
Before he was tempted to say any of the lame things that were leaping to his tongue, he wheeled around and stalked out of the room without another word.
He got all the way to his quarters and had stormed inside the room when Sia’s voice sounded in the open doorway.
“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say to me?”
He stood in the center of the room, his glower trained on her as he turned to face her. “What do you expect me to say?”
Her answering laugh was brittle. “You’re right. This is exactly what I should expect. I’m sorry if I’m bothering you with my presence, Trygg.” She turned around, then seemed to reconsider almost as swiftly. “No. You know what? I’m not sorry I’m bothering you. I’m sorry that you weren’t like this before.”
“Before what, Sia?”
“Before I threw myself at you like a fool the other night. If you’d been this cold and detached all along, none of it would have happened.”
He wasn’t so certain of that, but he didn’t point it out. “Fortunately, once you’re gone we won’t have even more to regret.”
She flinched as if he’d just struck her. “What a cruel thing to say.”
“Is it?” He honestly didn’t know. A remorseful sigh gusted out of him. “I’m not good at this, Sia. I don’t know what things to say that won’t hurt you. All I really know how to do is to hunt, to kill. That’s who I am.”
“No. That’s what you were forced to be as a child.” She stepped farther inside the room. “Who you are now is up to you. The same way I now need to decide who I am going to be.”
“You do know, Sia. That bracelet tells me you’ve already made your choice.”
She touched the crystal orb, then glanced up at him with a plea in her eyes. “Then help me change my mind, Trygg.”
He stepped back, possibly the first time he’d ever retreated from anything in his life. “Don’t ask me to. I don’t have anything to offer you. Not while Santino is alive.”
She remained silent for a long moment, emotion playing over her lovely face. When she finally spoke, there was a quiet resignation to her voice. “Then offer me the truth before I go. Why is it so important to you that Roberto Santino is stopped?”
“You know why. I’ve told you, I’ve pledged my arm to the Order and this is a mission I intend to see through to the end.”
But Sia was too smart to let it go at that. She listened in silence, but her gaze was anything but satisfied with his rote answer. “Why are you pursuing Santino so single-mindedly, Trygg? Is it to put a stop to the pain he’s causing the Breed population with his dealing in Red Dragon, or is it because of how you described the way he’s using young boys?”
“Isn’t either one of those reasons enough for anyone to want the asshole dead?”
“Yes, it is,” she replied quietly. “But I’m asking about you.” She took another step toward him. “Can’t you at least let me in long enough to tell me what happened to you? Trygg, did Roberto Santino—”
“No. It wasn’t him.” His answer was sharp and quick, like the slice of a blade. Trygg rubbed the scar that ran the length of his cheek. He had no intention of taking this jaunt down memory lane, least of all with Sia.
But she was pushing him to give her his truth. Pushing him like she had the other night in her apartment. She had been pushing him out of the safety of his darkness and into her light all along.
“I was fourteen when my Hunter’s collar came off,” he told her, each word a whip as it left his mouth. “The lab where Dragos kept us was suddenly open, the locks undone. My cage and all the other boys’ were sprung open. We scattered. We all just…ran. I wandered New England for several months. It was snowing, bitter cold, when a human woman saw me walking barefoot on the side of the highway in Connecticut and pulled over to pick me up. Her name was Vicky. She had yellow hair and a smile that seemed to take up half her face. She offered me shelter and a bed. Her bed. But I didn’t know that when I got into her car.”
Sia winced as he spoke, tenderness in her eyes.
“She lived in a rundown apartment building in one of the bigger cities. There were always men coming and going, often dozens in a day. Sometimes she sold them drugs. Other times she sold them her body. After a while, she started selling mine. She pimped me out to women, men, multiples. Anyone who would pay.”
Sia made a sickened, strangled noise. “You were just a child.”
“At fourteen I was hardly a child,” he corrected tonelessly. “But I knew nothing about sex or addiction. I didn’t know enough about people to realize she was using me.”
“She did more than use you, Trygg. What she did was unconscionable.”
He shrugged, in no need of sympathy. He knew his gaze was sharp and cutting as he held hers now, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t allow himself to care what Sia thought of him or he might finally break like he never had before.
“I traded one form of enslavement for another. Dragos kept me prisoner with a UV collar. Vicky chained me with kind words, at least at first. I let her trade me because I thought she cared about me, even loved me. When I finally saw through her lies, I told her I was leaving. To make sure she understood I was serious, I shaved my head to get rid of the long black hair she insisted I keep. She was livid. She came at my face with a kitchen knife.”
Sia swallowed, her horrified gaze drifting to his scar. “Oh, Trygg.”
He smiled coldly. “I could’ve stopped her before she cut me. I allowed it to happen. I let her ruin my looks, then I turned the blade on her and slit her throat. I left that same night and never looked back.”
Now Sia’s horror seemed to tilt on its axis. Good. Better she look at him with wariness, even fear, than let her last moments with him be ones of pity.
Trygg chuckled humorlessly. “I told you what I was, Sia. A killer. Maybe now you understand.”
She shook her head. “You defended yourself. But why did you let the wound stay after you left Vicky? You’re Breed. Your body should have healed itself before leaving a scar like that.”
“I didn’t want it to heal. I wanted a reminder, so I starved myself for blood as long as I could afterward. My body was too depleted to mend.”
“And you keep your hair shorn as a reminder too,” she murmured softly. “Trygg, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for everything you’ve had to endure.”
He blew out a harsh breath. “Don’t be. You asked for answers, and I gave them to you. Now, go back to your perfect, sheltered little world with your people and leave me to my business here.”
He turned away from her as a dismissal, waiting to hear her footsteps leaving the room. But she didn’t leave. She came up behind him and her hands rested gently on his back.
“What more do you want, Sia?”
“I want you. Don’t you see that?” Her cheek was warm where she pressed it against him. “Don’t let me walk away like this. I want to feel your arms around me again. I need it, Trygg. Even if it’s the last time.”
He stiffened, steeling himself to all of the emotions that warred inside him at the thought of her leaving for good. When he pivoted to face her, he knew his eyes were ablaze with amber. “One last fuck before you go, is that it?” His words were cruel, but they were the only defensive weapon he had as he stared into her stricken gaze. “I don’t perform on command anymore, Sia. And I don’t need your pity.”
She staggered back on her heels. Tears welled in her wide blue eyes, but they didn’t fall. Her breast was heaving, her mouth slack as she mutely shook her head.
Then she slowly turned away from him and walked out the door.