Page 55 of Altered By Fire (Undercover Sinners 1)
But not to Konstantin Petrov.
He would've made my life a living hell if I'd stayed. And fuck, the only reason he let me run away in the first place was because he thought he could catch me. He still does, too, and I know it. Catch me, cage me, cut off my wings. Of course, he made me sit through that awful dinner party first …
"I don't want to be caged," I whisper to Mace, and he lets go of me suddenly, sitting back with a sigh and shaking his head. His long dark hair obscures his eyes for a moment as I sit up, my face wet with tears I hadn't known I was even shedding.
"I can't do this, Hawke," Mace mutters, and I have no idea what he's talking about. I sit there and stare at him for a moment until he finally looks over at me, our gazes clashing like lightning, sending sparks through a tumultuous sky.
"Can't do what?" I ask, but Mace simply shakes his head. "You killed Dmitri," I whisper accusingly. There was nothing else to be done with the man, I know that. He's a monster, and the second he got out of here, he'd have made it his life's mission to hunt down and kill every single one of these men. Like a trapped viper, he had to be disposed of before he shared his venom.
"You thought we'd do anything else?" Mace asks, but no. No, I should've known this was coming, shouldn't really be surprised at all, should I? As I sit there with the big man with the massive arms and the wide chest, the kind face, and the shuttered expression, I remember him holding me, naked, on the floor of the bathroom while I wept.
Mace … is basically the opposite of Arsen.
"Why do you want me on your team?" I ask through weird, staccato tears. I'm not crying for Dmitri, obviously, or even for Kisten but rather … for the woman I want to be that I'm not sure I'll ever have a chance to become.
"We …" Mace starts, and I can hear a split-second of hesitation in his voice. "We had a woman with us before, and we work better that way. Too much testosterone makes a mess of things."
I raise an eyebrow, totally fucking skeptical, but then Mace stands and holds out his hand.
"Come with me," he says, his dark gaze locked on mine. "We'll get some coffee … and I'll tell you about Portia."
My eyes look first at Mace's hand, then his face, his hand again.
I reach out to take it.
Curiosity killed the cat, right?
Nobody ever quite said what it did to the pussy though.Chapter 15MACEThe last thing in the world I want to talk about right now is Portia. But I can tell that seeing me shoot Dmitri is really fucking with Talia's head, and for the first time in a long time, I want to take care of someone.
"Are you sure we can be up here?" she asks, standing at the edge of the tiny rooftop deck and peering over the railing. The breeze picks up the long chocolate-honey strands of her hair and teases them around her face, sticks them to her lips. She pulls them away with two fingers and glances over her shoulder at me.
"You think we'll get sniped or something?" I ask, but there's not much of a chance of that. Clearly, Konstantin Petrov and his people have no idea we're here—not the team or his daughter—or else he'd have already stormed our castle gates.
"Never put it past Daddy," she says with a sour bite to her voice. The wind is sticking her black tank top to her generous curves, highlighting a narrow waist and large breasts. She's luscious and plump as fuck, and I can't imagine why Hawke wants to turn her into the thin, lean, mean fighting machine that was Portia.
Natalia moves back over to the tiny table and sits in the chair next to mine, picking up her coffee cup in small hands and putting it to her lips as I marvel at the shape of her fingers, the length of them. I've never noticed a woman's hands like this before, not once. Not even when I thought I might be falling for Portia.
"So tell me about this mystery woman/nurse/invaluable member of the team?" she asks, running the tip of one finger around the rim of her coffee cup. She pauses suddenly and glances up, like she's just thought of something. "You must have a name for your team, right? Like some sort of moniker?"
"Hawk Security, Personal Protection, and Asset Management," I say with a slight smile, "but no 'E' on the end of Hawk this time."
"HSPPAM," Natalia sounds out and then crinkles her tiny triangle of a nose. I've also never fucking seen a woman's nose as cute before. There must be something seriously goddamn wrong with me. "H-spam is not a good team name. How about something cool like Alpha Team?"
