Page 4 of Hunter's Game
Eden felt that familiar tension between duty and survival. The DEA wanted evidence of theartifact smuggling operation, but getting too obvious about gathering it would blow her cover.
“Already handled.” She pulled up the camera feeds, showing carefully engineered gaps in coverage. “Anything involving Mr. Romano gets special treatment.”
She clicked through another series of files, scanning the documentation that accompanied the latest artifacts—detailed condition reports and restoration proposals, all bearing Dr. Katherine Chen’s signature at the bottom. The curator’s notes were meticulous, almost obsessive in their attention to certain details while gliding past others in a way that felt deliberate. Eden had studied enough of the woman’s reports over the past months to recognize patterns in what she chose to document versus what she seemed to strategically ignore.
Something about Chen’s precise documentation style nagged at her—the careful way she noted irregularities while appearing to miss obvious discrepancies. It reminded Eden of her mother’s own notebooks, the ones she’d found hidden away after Sarah’s death. The same deliberate balance of observation and selective blindness.
“Good girl.” Merrick’s approval still had the power to make her skin crawl. “Romano’s taken quite an interest in your technical skills. Says you remind him of someone he used to know.”
Eden’s pulse quickened slightly. “Just doing my job.”
“Your job.” Merrick’s laugh held no humor. “Is to be whatever I need you to be. Whatever the club needs. Remember that.”
“Always.” She met his eyes in the reflection of her screens, letting him see what he wanted – the devoted daughter, the loyal soldier, the perfect tool for his ambitions.
He never saw the weapon she’d become. The justice she’d learned to be.
The door opened before he could respond, admitting one of the prospects. “Boss, Romano’s asking for you. Says it’s about the new pieces.”
“On my way.” Merrick squeezed Eden’s shoulder one final time. “Keep monitoring those feeds, baby girl. Let me know if anything interesting shows up.”
Eden waited until he was gone before allowing herself to shake. Three months of maintaining her cover, of playing the prodigal daughter returned to help modernize daddy’s business. Three months of gathering evidence while pretending she didn’t know the truth about her mother’s disappearance.
Three months of waiting for the right moment to destroy everything Merrick Mitchell had built.
Her reflection stared back at her from the monitor’s dark surface—high cheekbones from her mother, the sharp jawline from her father, and eyes that had seen too much too young. At thirty-two, Eden’s face carried the kind of hardness that camefrom years of undercover work, though she knew how to soften it when the role required. The small scar along her left cheekbone was a reminder of her father’s temper, hidden now beneath careful makeup.
Her phone buzzed with a message from her DEA handler: “New intel on Romano’s operation. Meeting tonight.”
Eden deleted the message, already planning her excuse for leaving the compound. The regular Tuesday night supply run would give her perfect cover for meeting Thompson.
She was halfway through adjusting the security logs when that familiar prickle hit her spine – the one that had kept her alive through years of undercover work. Someone was watching.
“Impressive system.” The cultured voice made her blood run cold. “Though I notice certain cameras seem to develop convenient malfunctions during sensitive operations.”
Eden turned slowly, keeping her expression neutral as Viktor Romano emerged from the shadows. He moved like old money and older violence, his expensive suit doing nothing to hide the predator beneath.
“Mr. Romano.” She pitched her voice perfectly – professional with just a hint of daughterly deference. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Few people do.” His smile never reached his eyes as he studied her screens. “You’ve doneremarkable work here. The digital integration, the automated alerts...it’s all very sophisticated.”
“Just trying to modernize our operations.” She used the same words she’d given her father, but Romano’s smile suggested he heard the difference.
“Yes, very modern.” He moved closer, examining her work with disturbing intensity. “Though some of these protocols seem... familiar. Almost like something I’ve seen before.”
Eden felt that prickle again—warning or recognition, she wasn’t sure. “Security systems tend to follow similar patterns.”
“Indeed.” Romano’s eyes met hers, and for a moment she saw something ancient and hungry there. “Though some patterns are written in blood rather than code.”
Before she could respond, her screens lit up with movement. Someone was accessing the compound’s network from an external connection.
“Interesting.” Romano watched her fingers fly across keyboards as she traced the breach. “You handle system breaches the same way she did. Same efficiency, same...gift for being exactly where needed.”
“She?” Eden kept her voice carefully neutral even as her pulse quickened.
“Your mother.” Romano’s smile turned knowing. “Sarah had a similar talent for digital security. Among other things.”
Eden’s hands stilled on her keyboard. “You knew my mother?”
