Page 33 of Spiders in the Grove

“You’re kidding, right?” I say into the sweaty cell phone pressed to my ear. “We’re knee-deep in shit over here; we leave now, we’re going to lose Artemis’ trail. Are you sure you want to take that risk?”

“Those are my orders,” Victor says on the other end. “Drop what you are doing, catch the first flight to Mexico, and meet my contact at the address I gave you.”

“She’ll never forgive you for this,” I say, and shake my head at Osiris and his bitch of a sister, Hestia, waiting for the news; but they already have an idea what the call is about.

“You’re not going to interfere,” he tells me. “I only want you there in case something goes down.”

“If something goes down, then you expect me to help her, and that’s interfering. Besides, I doubt even on the first flight out we’ll make it there before that auction ends.”

“You are closer than I am,” Victor says.

“I’m not going to fucking Mexico,” Osiris puts in. “I don’t give two fucks about that girl—we’re working with you to find our brother and sister, and that’s it.”

“We didn’t sign up for this,” Hestia adds.

“Tell them I did not expect them go with you, nor do I want them to,” Victor says, able to hear their voices beside me. “First flight,” he re-caps. “All of your identification, and your invitation, will be with my contact. Dress appropriately; you will be posing as a buyer.”

“She’s going to see me, Victor—she warned you about interfering, and you know as well I do that it also meant going in there like this. Actually, this way is worse—she’ll think we’re babysitting her; that would be enough to piss me off, that’s for sure. Why not send Niklas?”

“He cannot be reached.”

“Fredrik?”

“Do as I say.”

He ends the call.

Dropping the phone crushed in my hand to my side, I sigh deeply, seriously fucking annoyed.

“I can’t believe he wants me to do this,” I say, though more to myself. “We’re this close”—I press my thumb and index finger an inch apart in front of my squinting eye—“and he wants to fuck it all up because he….god, I hate even saying it.”

“What? That he loves her?” Osiris says. “Jealous much?”

My face scrunches up. “Oh, hell no—I don’t do love. It just disgusts me, is all. I don’t care who it is.”

“Wise woman,” Hestia puts in, and for the first time since we started working together, we agree on something.

I think on it a moment, glancing between Osiris and Hestia standing underneath the setting sun. We look like rogue assassins straight out of a video game, dressed in black from neck-to-toe; guns at our hips, and our boots, and our backs; the breeze blowing dramatically through my long, blonde hair as I stand tall on the rooftop of the city’s tallest building; the smell of the hunt is thick in the air; the cool, tingling feeling of excitement racing up my spine. This is what I live for—the hunt, the chase, the game, the capture—not babysitting someone who doesn’t need it. Or babysitting at all.

“Let’s go,” I tell Osiris and Hestia, waving at them to follow.

“Not going with you, remember?” Osiris points out.

I turn around. “I’m not going to Mexico, either. Come on; let’s get back to work before we lose your sister’s trail.”

Osiris raises a dark brow amid that sexy, sculpted brown face of a god—I haven’t had him yet, but he’s on my to-do list.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” he asks.

Hestia doesn’t care either way—she’s as ready to get moving as I am.

“Victor will get over it,” I say.

“Well, I’m talking about the girl,” Osiris says. “If something happens to her, I imagine Victor won’t be as forgiving.”

“Izabel can handle herself”—I pull the gun from my hip, check the chamber, and then slide it back in—“and as soon as Victor, and everybody else in his Order figures that out, and stops spending so much precious time on her, the better off the organization will be.” I point a finger at them both. “You mark my words: if everybody continues focusing on her wellbeing, instead of just letting her make her own fucking mistakes, Izabel will be the fall of Victor’s Order, and likely the death of everyone in it.”

“Does that include you?” Hestia asks.

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