Page 46 of Fight or Fly

“Leona McCready,” he said, in his rich Russian accent. “Come with me. We must speak now.”

Jax tensed, and I had the horrible feeling he was doing the mental math to decide if he could lunge forward and break Nikolayev’s neck before falling over dead beneath a hail of gunfire from the guards. My own heart pounded uncontrollably, but I threw up a hand toward him, palm out, and said, “Jax.Don’t.”

This was what I’d asked for, after all. I didn’t want to have to worry about Jax erupting into violence while I was trying to decipher the finer details of this situation. I also didn’t want Kam present, where he might be used against me. Of course, I was deluding myself—he and Jax could be used against me just as easily while they were trapped in this cell. It still made me feel better not to have them directly under Nikolayev’s angry gaze, though.

“Don’t,” I repeated. “It’s all right. I’ll be back in a bit... or possibly, I won’t be. Either way, I love you both. Never forget that.”

Jax looked like he was holding onto his control like a thread. Kam had the expression of someone who knew exactly what it was like to watch a loved one walk out of a room for the last time. I wrenched my eyes away from them and turned to the Committee chairman.

“Lead on, then,” I said.

The guards escorted me out. A moment later, the door to the cell snicked shut and locked behind me, cutting me off from my fracturing alpha and my sad-eyedodama. The security door in the hallway opened for us, and then it too, slammed closed behind us. Nikolayev led the way deeper into the building, the two armed guards flanking me in clear threat.

We ended up in a conference room. It wasn’t large, but it was oddly normal looking—like any such room you might find inside an average office building. Nikolayev gestured me curtly to a seat and dismissed the guards, who left without a word.

“Not worried I’ll try to shiv you with the plastic spoon from breakfast?” I asked, fighting the damned omega compulsion to bare my throat to this overpowering terror of a man.

“I have neither the time nor the patience for banter,” Nikolayev said. “No more than I have time for your alpha’s dramatics. Give me all the information you have on Rhys Beckett’s disappearance.”

“To what end?” I asked. “You’ll forgive me if I’m not in a hurry to answer, when you want to see him dead as much or more than Sloane does.”

It was a risky opening gambit, and indeed, Nikolayev’s eyes flared with murder for a split second before he hid the expression behind a granite mask. Nevertheless, I needed to understand what was happening here before I started handing out information that might come back to bite the entire alphomic underground in the ass.

“I intend to retrieve Beckett from Sloane’s custody,” Nikolayev said, biting the words off. “By force, if necessary.”

“Okay,” I replied. “Let’s dig into that a bit further, please. Why should I consider it preferable for Beckett to be in your custody rather than Sloane’s? What are you offering that would make it a good deal for me? Because it sounds an awful lot like exchanging the frying pan for the fire.”

Nikolayev stared at me. It felt like he was staringthroughme. I valiantly tried to hide the shudder that wanted to break free.

“You know better than that,Ambassador McCready.” His voice lowered to a lethal purr, and he placed heavy irony on the title. “Or have you so quickly forgotten our mutually beneficial exchange in Montreal?”

His presence felt like a physical pressure in the atmosphere, weighing down my shoulders—trying to make me bend beneath it. It was all I could do to hold his gaze, unblinking.

“Are you implying the possibility of concessions in exchange for getting what you want?” I asked. “Because I feel I must point out that when you had dealings with me before in Montreal, you thought I was a beta.”

He raised an eyebrow—though I got the impression he was working hard to convey that level of insouciance. “Did I indeed? You are aware of my reputation, are you not?”

That stopped me in my mental tracks.

They say he can sniff out an omega at twenty paces, even with pheromone suppressors.

Had he known, even back then? That was what he was implying, and not very subtly. It might be the truth, or it might be a lie. But if it was true, it meant that Nikolayev was not, in fact, hell-bent on mindlessly catching and killing every hidden omega in existence. Which made him more strategic than I’d given him credit for. And, if possible, even more dangerous.

“Do you want Beckett dead?” I asked bluntly, focusing every omega sense I had on his body language—searching for deception.

“No,” he replied blandly.

“Do you want him alive so you can torture the same information out of him that Sloane’s after?” I pressed.

“I don’t need his information,” Nikolayev ground out. “I only need to ensure Sloane doesn’t get it.”

Every instinct I possessed screamed that I shouldn’t be able to get under Kostya Nikolayev’s skin this easily. I shouldn’t be able to interrogate him like this. I was a known omega fugitive—his prisoner. This was wrong, wrong,wrong... but I couldn’t see the lie. I couldn’t see the shape of the gap where the puzzle pieces were missing.

“I require that you exercise whatever persuasion is necessary to tame your angry alpha so I can use him in the retrieval mission,” he said. “Do you have an active mate-bond with the two alphas Sloane captured to use as leverage?”

“What? Why?” I demanded, completely derailed yet again.

“Answer the question.”

---