Page 68 of Secrets

“Answer me.”

Alexi’s brows lift. “You know what? You’re not very pleasant. Is there a complaint department around here? I’d like to file a formal one. This treatment I’m receiving needs to be documented.”

Every surrounding agent goes completely still, all of them either too surprised or too scared to say a word. This only fuels his big ass head. “No? Then I guess?—”

“Would you like to speak to the director?” My molars crack with how hard I snap them together. I have had the worst week and him being here feels like yet another undeserving punishment. Still, I need to know what the hell he’s doing here. Why now? Something tingling in the back of my brain is telling me not to blow him off.

“Why yes, I think that would be a grand idea.” He pulls one of his hands from his pocket and makes a show of gesturing to the hall opposite of the one he came in.

Reluctantly, I step in front of him, careful as I allow him to walk behind me toward my uncle’s office. He’s out, like most of the agents, dealing with an influx of cartel activity, but I’m sending a silent prayer that someone in the damn office with some sense has notified him of Alexi’s arrival.

We make it back to my uncle’s office without a disturbance, and I’m quick to shut the door behind him. I walk around to sit in my uncle’s chair while Alexi takes the one across. The one I’ve sat in too many times to count.

His brows immediately furrow. “Can the bureau not afford suitable chairs?”

I bite back my agreement and ask him what’s more imperative at the moment. “Why are you here, Babin?”

His eyes flicker toward me before his lips pull up in one corner. “I figured it was time you and I hash things out like adults. Let the past be the past and all that.”

“And why in the hell would I do that?”

Alexi looks at me as though I’ve grown a second head and vomited on his brand new loafers. “Because why do you want to continue wasting your time chasing your tail? I’m literally untouchable, and the best you’d get out of any judicial system is a slap on my wrist. And even that’s pushing it, considering they know I’m a lot more dangerous than the cartel you have running around. Which—how about handling your pest problem in your own city instead of worrying about me?”

His arrogance makes my childish confession a little more palatable. “Because you’re the worst fucking human I’ve ever met. Don’t sit here and act like you have completely forgotten about locking me out of the mansion butt-ass naked after ghosting me rightin my fucking face!”

It could absolutely be the fatigue caused by tossing and turning every night, or being emotionally drained from everything that’s happened, but the anger unravels faster than I can stop it as I force myself to relive that horrible day. The one where I told him how much I enjoy fucking him and how nice it was to escape to Noxus and forget my shit life for a while.

He stood up, grabbed my clothes, ignored me talking to him, and then had the damn dogs chase me outside. Never in my life had I been more humiliated or degraded.

Alexi’s pupils flare and his jaw unhinges as if he…as if he’s just remembering who I am.

Fucking asshole.

“That’s right! I remember you now.” His arms circle over his stomach as he releases a laugh that has my hand returning to my gun. Body bouncing from the laughter, he slaps his knees dramatically. “That shit was so funny. And you were so fucking pissed.”

He continues laughing for I don’t even know how long before I finally get aggravated, standing as I realize that if I stay any longer, he’s going to have a hole in his chest and I’ll be thrown in jail, settling in.

“Goodbye, Alexi. Send my regards to Elena.” My heart squeezes when I say her name. “You deserve each other.”

He sobers, though the heavy sigh he releases says he still finds himself tickled pink. “That’s why I’m here, actually.”

My eyes narrow. “I swear to God, Alexi, if you tell me something about fucking her, I’ll put a hole in your cock right now.”

Snatching the black band from his hair, he threads his finger through the strands. “No, no. That woman wears one of those metal pairs of panties with a lock. I’m here because she was taken. Kidnapped, I guess. though, I don’t think that’s the right word because she’s not a child.”

My heart plummets. “Elena was abducted?”

He snaps his fingers. “Yeah, that’s it. Abducted. The cartel has her.”

My lips part to say something, but panic invades my airways instead, making it hard to even breathe. Despite the crushed heart she’s left me with, I have never wished ill on her. Never wanted her hurt, especially not like this.

My mind races over a million and one things that could be happening to her, what they could be forcing her to do.

My stomach twists and my esophagus burns with bile.

Still, I try to act as though I’m not bothered by the news. If not to keep me from breaking down in front of this asshole, then at least to hide that he has something I want—her safe return.

The frailness of my words gives me away, though.

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