Page 22 of Twisted Devotion

“Good morning, Mr. Hawthorne,” a petite blonde girl says from behind the dark oak desk.

Her sugar-sweet voice makes me cringe inwardly. No one is genuinely this happy in the morning. I try to take a look at her aura, but come up blank. Perhaps she’s hiding it from me because I’m a stranger.

Or maybe she’s hiding it from Jackson.

Jackson offers the young-looking receptionist a charming smile. “Morning, Bethany,” he says back, pulling out a keycard. “This is Kelsey Young. She’s joining the team for a few months.”

Her soft blue eyes flit over to me, and she smiles warmly. “It’s nice to meet you, Kelsey.”

I offer her a polite smile in return. “You as well.”

We continue past reception after Jackson presses his keycard against a panel on the door. The lock clicks and he pushes the door open, holding it for me.

“We’ll keep things easy today,” Jackson says to me as we walk down a long hall with closed doors lining both sides. The walls are taupe and bare, not a single painting or print to decorate. “I’ll give you a tour of the facility this morning and introduce you to my team at the meeting. Sound good?”

“That sounds fine,” I say. A low key first day will allow me to get a feel for the place. Scope out the surroundings and get my bearings.

“Excellent,” he beams. “I’ll take you to my office so you can drop off your things. It’s a fairly small site, so I don’t think you’ll have any issues finding your way around, but if you have any questions, just ask.”

Why can’t this be the Jackson I interact with all the time?This guy, I don’t mind. It’s the arrogant guy I’ve gotten the majority of the short time I’ve been on this assignment that drives me up the wall. He also does other things to me, but I’d rather not think about that—especially here of all places.

Jackson stops walking while I’m lost in thought, causing me to plow into him. He grabs my elbow, saving me from falling backward, and I immediately pull away, muttering an apology.

“You good?” he checks.

“Fine,” I say flippantly, glancing at the closed door we’ve stopped in front of. “This is your office?”

“That’s what I said when you were too busy staring at me to hear what I was saying. Or to notice when I stopped walking.”

“Ha,” I deadpan.

He laughs softly, swiping his keycard again to get into his office. “It’s not a huge space, but make yourself at home. The plan is to expand the site eventually, but I’d like to get the first year under our belt before that happens.”

“That’s probably smart,” I comment, stepping into the room as he switches on the light.

Jackson nods, pointing to a black cabinet on the other side of the room sandwiched between bookshelves. “You can store your things in there. Kitchen is down the hall, last door on your right. It’s unlocked. Every other door in this place is locked. Bethany will set you up with a keycard this afternoon that will grant you access to every room. I’m the only other person in this place who has that level of clearance, so you should feel very special.” His tone is serious, but the charming sparkle in his eyes tells me he’s trying to keep this entertaining.

“Do you have any procedures scheduled today?” I ask, walking around the room and taking it in. The set-up is simple, with a desk and chair straight across from the door and a small sitting area with a couch and glass coffee table off to the side. His desk is covered with papers and a few books; there’s barely enough room for the computer screen that sits dangerously close to the edge.

Like the hallway, the walls in Jax’s office are bare. The lighting is abysmal and the window behind his desk is covered by heavy navy curtains. The darkness of his office is surprising considering the abundance of natural light at his home.

“I’ll have to double check the schedule, but I’m fairly sure we’ve got a couple tomorrow, and then that’s it for the week,” he says.

The number of clients being treated per week doesn’t seem that high, but when the price tag attached to this completely non-guaranteed and potentially lethal procedure is thirty thousand dollars, it doesn’t take many appointments to meet a profit margin.

I’m boggled that fae are paying so much money to remove their abilities, their immortality, and everything about themselves that makes them superior to the human race—all with a likely chance that they may not even survive the transition. There’s no money back guarantee on this shit, either. It’sfinal saletaken to a whole other level.

The success rate on the procedure is about seventy percent. I’m not a doctor, or someone who considers herself to be good at math, but I’m not sure I’d take those odds when the other thirty percent—an ironic reflection of the cost of this procedure—is death.

8

After getting familiar with his office, I follow Jackson as he shows me around the rest of the facility. It’s set up much like a therapist’s office. Everything is warm-toned and soft.

Jackson takes his time introducing me to the members ofhisteam, as he calls them. There were brief profiles on each employee of the facility in the file I was given for this assignment, but meeting everyone in person helps connect faces and names.

Shannon and Emma are redheaded, blue-eyed twins in their thirties. They’re medical specialists who perform the procedures. According to Jax, he’s been friends with them for years and knew before the facility opened that he wanted them to work for him. I can appreciate his need to have people here he knows well and trusts, considering how lucrative yet high-risk his business is.

We run into them while waiting for coffee to brew in the kitchen. The space is barely big enough for all of us to grab our caffeine and move on, but all the essentials are here. Being so far out of the way of any sort of drive-thru, I’ll have to remember to start bringing something to snack on during the day.

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