name. I want everything.”
“Roman! Don’t leave me!” Heather pleaded.
He was opening the door.
“I don’t have a name!” Heather all but screamed. “I never met him in person! We met on the Dark Web, and he paid me—he kept paying me. Wired the money to my account in the Cayman Islands. I’d email him info and—stop! Roman, don’t leave me—”
He opened the door and walked out.
“Did you use your computer for the emails?” Dex asked in the voice that sent a shiver down Lacey’s spine. “The one we confiscated already?”
A miserable nod was Heather’s response. Her attention was still on the closed door. Except, now the brown-haired agent from before was strolling back in. His posture was just as perfect as before.
“Thanks for the cooperation, Heather. That wasn’t too painful, was it?” Dex inclined his head toward Lacey. “Ready, love?”
More than ready. She stood up and took the arm he offered toward her.
Heather let out a guttural cry and rushed at them. Her cuffs were lifted high as she prepared to strike—
But the agent grabbed her. “Ma’am, you’ll be needing to sit down…”
“Why are you so important to him?” Heather yelled at Lacey. “Why you?”
Because he thinks I’m his sister.
Then Heather gave a keening laugh. “I might not have gotten you, but he will!”
He?
“You’re with a monster, the worst of the worst, and you don’t even know it! Ask him! Ask your precious Dex how many people he’s killed, how many lives he’s destroyed, how many—”
Dex pulled Lacey outside. The door closed behind them. “That was getting ugly,” he said, his voice now ever so casual. As if a woman hadn’t just shouted he was a monster and a killer.
Lacey shook her head. She saw another agent close by. A female agent with a gun holstered at her side.
“No one else enters this room, Diana,” Dex ordered.
“Absolutely.”
Dex led Lacey down the hallway. It turned to the left, and there was Roman. His head was bowed. He had the posture of a man who’d just gotten the hell knocked out of him during a boxing match. Maybe he had.
“I didn’t know.” His voice was wooden. “You won’t believe that. You’ll think I’m a fool for not realizing she was working for someone else, but…I didn’t know. I swear it.” He glared at Dex. “Don’t fucking say I told you so again.”
“I have a man who’ll be coming to work on Heather’s laptop. He’ll be arriving within the hour. When it comes to tech, there is nothing he can’t discover.”
Lacey wondered if this was the same man who’d already dug up so much information on her for Dex. Hadn’t he told her the fellow’s name had been Antony?
“You know that you don’t get to leave the lodge, right, Roman?”
“Yeah, figured as much.”
“Good. You’ll be staying with—well, why don’t you just consider them new bodyguards for the time being?”
Bodyguards. Lacey figured they were really just guards. Dex motioned vaguely with his hand and two men stepped from the shadows. They each grabbed one of Roman’s arms. The guy on the left was huge, with a carefully shaved, bald head and hard, angry eyes. The man on right was smaller, still obviously strong, but with thick, dark hair that he’d styled back from his high brow.
“Thanks so much for your cooperation,” Dex continued carefully. “Much appreciated.” He focused on Lacey. “I think we should get some brunch. Lunch.” He frowned at his watch. “Whatever. You haven’t eaten, and you’ve had a long day already.”
“I want a DNA test.”
Lacey flinched at Roman’s demand.
Dex stared into her eyes. “What do you want, Lacey?”
The truth. Wasn’t that what she’d always wanted? “The test.”
“Then consider it done.”
Didn’t he need a sample from her? From Roman and—
Hell, he already had samples. He just hadn’t run the test. Hold on. Or had he already done it? Her eyes narrowed on him.
Dex sighed and led the way toward the elevator. He’d had to use a special key card—and code—in order to reach the basement. Once she’d seen this whole hidden lair part of the place herself, she’d realized the whole lodge was just some kind of front. Sure, plenty of the guests were real. But a supposed retreat for the rich and famous was actually a location for Dex and his spies to keep tabs on everyone.
When she thought of all the things that went on behind the scenes of the world, stuff most people would never imagine, her stomach knotted.
The elevator doors closed, and they began to rise.
“No.” Dex’s voice was