Rolling my hips against him while the knife keeps him frozen in place, I let go of his lip, but not until the taste of blood fills our mouths. “You thought you had me, didn’t you? Thought you could make me your good little girl?” I trace the knife higher, letting it drag along the bulge in his pants. “But you forgot something important,” I purr, “I create the monsters. I don’t submit to them.”
“You,” his breaths, tinged with blood, rumble, “will pay for this.”
“Is that a promise?” I lean forward until my lips brush his ear. “When will you learn, Tristan? In this game, I’ll always win.”
An awkward cough echoes over our breaths. I glance over Tristan’s shoulders. Brandon is standing, eyes unsettled where to land. “I…I’m sorry.”
I smile at the boy. “Sorry for what? Tristan was showing me a couple of self-defense moves. Afterthatnight, he thought I needed it.”
“Yes, Mrs. Abel, I mean…Birdie, ma’am.”
Sliding off the counter, I can’t resist throwing another smirk at Tristan, and then I walk over to Brandon. “Where are you from?”
“Texas.”
Texas and the military, it explains a lot. “And how old are you?”
“Twenty-one.”
My brow cocks at Tristan, who is still facing the wall. It won’t be a nice look if Brandon sees his boss so messed up with a hard-on the size ofTexas. “And he sendsyouout in the freezing cold to chop wood. It’s a shame that a grown-a—” I swallow the bad word around the boy, “—man huddles in the kitchen and lets the youngest member of his team do all the hard labor for him.”
“With all due respect, ma’am, I’m a soldier and a fully trained security detail. I’m capable of doing any task my boss assigns me.”
“I’m sorry, Brandon. I didn’t mean that in any offensive way to you. I have no doubt you’re more than capable, and that’s why you’re off wood chopping duty. Instead,youwill train me. Maybe I’ll learn something I don’t already know.”
Brandon, flustered, shoots a look between me and Tristan, who, at last, stares back in our direction.
“Oh, don’t look at him. He’s your boss, but I’mhis.” I flash a full smile at my fuming bodyguard. “By the way, Tristan, I need the internet.”
“What for?”
“What everyone uses it for, silly. Social media, of course.”
CHAPTER 13
Tristan
Birdie doesn’t do social media. What the hell is she up to now? What new mastermind plan has taunting me to the point of shattering inspired? It seems my destruction has become her diabolical muse these days.
“Gatsby, hit the shower,” I grumble, turning to face her. The kitchen is still charged with tension. She’s turned provoking me into an art form, each challenge designed to push me closer to the edge while keeping me guessing about her true motives.
“Sir,” he says, his feet too eager to escape the awkwardness.
“Gatsby,” Birdie crosses her arms over her chest, mischievous defiance in her gaze, “I thought that wasmysafeword, not yours.”
The things I’d do to that mouth… The things I’d do to show her she should have never messed with someone like me…Time will come, Birdie. Time will come, Reagan.
“The whole point of coming here is staying off the grid so that no one tracks you or knows where you are, and you suddenly wanna post to your story?”
“You said there’s no cell service here, but you reached Brandon to order him to come here, contacted the rest of the team to get our traps in motion and Boston to get working on that list of everyone who worked at the school in Miami. It means you do have secure comms that can’t be traced to this place, and it can’t be the radio in that bunker, right?”
I watch her carefully, an attempt to decipher what new game she’s playing now. She must be already three steps ahead in whatever plan she’s formulating. “Yes, I’m using Monarca’s own network with proxy servers and satellite comms that will trace back to freaking Kyrgyzstan.”
“Where?”
“Exactly.” A hint of a smile tugs at my mouth despite my better judgment. She has a way of making me forget myself, of turning every interaction into a dance between protector and provocateur.
She shrugs with practiced nonchalance. “So there is no problem for me to use the internet.”