Dungeon Games (3 page)

“You want us to go undercover,” Sean surmised.

“Eve isn’t going anywhere,” McKay said immediately. “She can profile the fucker for you, but if he’s killing subs, you can’t expect me to send her in.”

Watts stepped up. “Look, we don’t need a sub. We’ve got a good line on a sub to send in. I haven’t talked to her myself, but we’ve identified her as a potential victim. We found her name on a grain of rice the unsub left on Officer King.”

“We?” Harris said, his eyes wide.

Clayton pointed a finger Harris’s way. “Just explain the findings. We don’t need a ton of attitude.”

Harris straightened his tie and smirked for all he was worth. “They didn’t even realize it was there. I didn’t work the first couple of cases. The other guy is an idiot. I found it this morning. It was very small, a little trace. He’s looking to lead us down a rabbit hole and no one had found the way yet.”

Oh, Derek was so glad he didn’t have to work with this asshole on a regular basis. “Are you going to explain or just give us a lot of literary references?”

“But they’re good references. You have to admit I have style.” He sighed a little. “Fine. Besides the obvious bondage, I found something odd in her hair. I’ve got a very specific routine. I check every inch of the victim. I don’t miss a damn thing. I found something weird in her hair. A grain of rice. A lesser tech would have missed it or thought it was a coincidence. Maybe she’d been cooking earlier. But it didn’t get past me. That was a clue and I had a feeling about it.”

Hill huffed a little. “I want to murder him myself half the time, but he’s got uncanny instincts.”

“What does rice have to do with this?” Liam asked.

Harris rubbed his hands together in obvious delight. “So much. It’s the little things that truly make a crime a work of art. I bagged that grain of rice and it was the first thing I studied. I knew it was meaningful. I got it under my scope and that was when I found it. A name was written right fucking there. We’ve gone back through the other victims and in each case there was a single grain of rice with the next victim’s name on it. Who the flying fuck does that?”

Alex frowned. “How the hell did he get it on there?”

It was the kind of thing he’d seen at amusement parks and festivals.
Your Name on a Grain of Rice
. He’d seen booths offering the keepsake a couple of times. He’d never heard of it being left on a victim.

“You know the name of the submissive you think is going to be the unsub’s next victim?” Eve asked. “I would love to talk to her. I know a bit about Amanda. If you would give me information on the other victims and let me talk to this woman, it would help me with a profile. I assume that’s why I’m here.”

Hill nodded. “I need you, Eve. You’ve done amazing work for us in the past. I’ve been given the go-ahead to pay your usual rate and double if you have to work overtime.”

She shook her head. “No. This is pro bono, Clay.”

Alex agreed. “McKay-Taggart is at your service. This is personal. Just tell us what you need.”

“I think he needs one of us to act as the next victim’s Dom,” Sean said.

Hill nodded. “We need one of you to make contact with the potential victim. We’re bringing her in to talk, but we thought a friendly face might help to sway her to work with us. She should be here in a few hours. I’m going to brief you and then you can help explain it all to her. We need her. If she decides to run, we might lose him and he’ll kill another girl.”

A cold feeling hit his stomach. He’d always had an uncanny sense of when the shit was about to hit the fan, and it threatened to take him over now. Someone he knew?

“What’s her name?” The question was tight, forced from his throat.

“Karina. Karina Mills. She’s a private detective from what I understand. I was told you know her quite well. It’s why I actually think we might have caught a break. She should be good undercover, right?”

She wasn’t working undercover. They wanted bait. Pretty, sweet bait with spectacular tits and an ass he’d been dying to spank.

“I’ll do it. I’ll be her Dom.” He was startled to hear the words coming out of his mouth, but he wouldn’t take them back.

“Damn straight you will,” Alex said. “You’re the only one of us who can, Derek. Simon and Jesse are in England. Tag will kick our asses if Karina gets murdered. She’s practically on the payroll.”

One of us. That was what McKay was talking about. Amanda might have gone to Sanctum, but Karina was truly one of them. Karina was a fixture at both Sanctum and McKay-Taggart. She was also a pain in his ass.

And this is your shot to get your hands on her, dickhead. Don’t fucking blow it. You’ll have to be with her, sleep close to her, protect her. You can fuck her and get her out of your system and then you won’t have this ache in your gut every time she walks in a room. You can be free of her. You’ll see it wouldn’t ever work. You’ll know.

“I’ll take care of her. This is my case.” He needed to use the words his old Army buddies would recognize and respect. “My op.”

His op. His way. His charge.

Fuck.
Karina Mills was going to be in his care, his responsibility.

One way or another, he would save her. Whether she liked it or not.

* * * *

Karina Mills looked out the window of the conference room and wondered exactly what the hell she’d done to piss the DPD off. She had to admit, it was the first time in a long time she’d had her ass hauled to jail.

Hey, Kevin, at least this time I wasn’t in cuffs.

It was so hard to stand in a police department and not think of him. Years had passed and she could still remember how he looked sitting at his desk in Brooklyn, the one across from his partner. It was always neat as a pin, perfectly organized. Perfect. Like Kevin himself. Her smiling protector.

Unlike that asshole Derek Brighton, who always frowned her way. Always made her feel like she was dirt underneath his shoe. The one and only time they’d played together had been beyond awkward because they’d been in the middle of a case that ended with him accusing her of impeding an investigation and her siccing IA on his ass in revenge.

She shouldn’t have done it, but she wasn’t sure how to apologize. And it was likely for the best because they didn’t fit.

So why was she so damn attracted to him? Why did she sit around and wonder why he smiled at all the other subs but never had one for her? Why did he and he alone have the capacity to make her remember who she really was?

She could clean herself up. She could do good. She could fly right, but underneath all of it, she was still a junkie.

Once an addict, always an addict. She was one misstep away from sticking a needle in her arm, and the minute she forgot it, she would fall off the very sturdy wagon she’d built for herself.

Thank god for sealed records or she wouldn’t have a job at all. She seriously doubted McKay-Taggart would pay her intensely high fees if Big Tag knew she’d been a high school drug addict and minor criminal. Li O’Donnell likely wouldn’t play cards with her, and he certainly wouldn’t let her anywhere near his precious Avery.

She would lose all her friends. Ashley and Jill would probably back away. It was just what people did when they realized how badly she’d fucked up in the past.

Need rose, hard and fast. The need to get out of herself for a while, to not think about anything, to shut her never-ending thoughts up. She very calmly took a long drink of coffee. Bitter. Not a hint of sweet. Just like she liked it. She stared out and thought about hitting a meeting. She would find the nearest one the minute she got out of here.

Hiding who she was—it was a no no in the book of sobriety and yet she couldn’t make herself talk about it to her new friends. Couldn’t put herself out there to be judged and found wanting.

She didn’t even want to think about what Lieutenant Brighton would do if he found out about her past. He would likely give her his trademark hot-guy smirk and tell her he’d always known there was something wrong with her.

Or worse, he would look at her with pity.

She took a deep breath and for the millionth time wished Kevin hadn’t died. Wished he’d been less of a hero. Wished her Dom, her husband, was still with her, easing her way through life, teaching her control and the beauty of submission and trust.

If anything ever happens to me, you be brave, Karina. You be the woman I know you can be. You don’t have to accept who you were. Be the you you want to be. My beautiful wife. My strong sub.

Guilt gnawed at her gut because as much as she’d loved Kevin Mills, she’d never felt the shock of lust she got the minute Derek Brighton walked into a room. It was perverse. It was wrong.

Sometimes it was all she thought about. Years and years had gone by without sex and she was all right with it for the most part. Only Derek had sparked the need in her.

The door opened and Karina turned, frowning as a whole line of people she knew very well walked in.

Eve and Alex McKay were followed by Sean Taggart and Liam O’Donnell, and that gorgeous bastard Brighton. She looked at him freely because he so rarely glanced her way. She was free to study him since he avoided her eyes. He was roughly six two with a pelt of brown and gold hair he kept in a cut that would have made his old CO proud. There was just the hint of a five o’clock shadow on his jaw, though it was barely one o’clock in the afternoon. He probably shaved twice a day, as though his masculinity was always trying to make itself known. She’d thought often about kissing that rigid jawline of his until it softened.

Not that he would ever soften for her.

She could stare at him for hours and it was all right because he avoided her.

Except this time his eyes came up. Brown eyes that always seemed so cold now heated as he stopped and stared at her, his eyes going from hers to her breasts and hips in a bold assessment and then right back to lock stares with her.

A challenge. She felt a little huff of breath leave her and then she averted her eyes out of habit. He was staring at her the way a Dom would when sizing up a sub, and she’d been trained on how to act. She caught the hint of a smirk hit his face and then turned from him.

She didn’t have to take that from him. He wasn’t her Dom and he never would be.

“Hey, guys. What’s up?” She asked the question casually, but suspicion was creeping into her brain. Why had she been brought to the police station if Big Tag wanted a meeting? He typically just called her private cell and told her to get her ass to a place of his choosing and then he bitched that she overcharged him and asked when she was going to implement a coupon program.

Would he send in Alex McKay to let her know he wouldn’t do business with her anymore? Tag always seemed like a man who would do his own dirty work.

Eve walked straight up to her and threw her arms around her, hugging her tight.

Karina understood the value of a hug. She immediately opened her arms, not questioning her friend. Eve was tense, her whole body shaking slightly. Karina’s heart opened. She put a soothing hand in Eve’s perfect hair. “It’s all right, honey.” Eve was good people. “Whatever happened, I’ll help you. I promise.”

Alex came up, his green eyes kind. “Amanda King was murdered last night.”

Karina was the one holding on to Eve now. Amanda had been a sub at Sanctum. She’d been the troublesome one, attempting to be a Queen Bee. She’d had a hard outer shell Karina had never been able to crack, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel the loss. She’d known the woman.

“You could have been a little gentler, Alex,” Derek complained.

But Karina knew there was no gentle way to deal with death. And she had a sudden suspicion of why she’d really been called in. How did he know? How the hell had the detective figured out she was working a case that involved a dead sub? Tanya Wilson’s mother had begged her to find her baby girl. Unfortunately, Karina had found the police report that led her to Jane Doe, who turned out to be Tanya. Sweet kid. Twenty-fucking-two years old. She’d been beaten and raped and her body had been dumped in an alley like she didn’t matter. Like she’d never mattered. Like she hadn’t hugged her momma before she went to sleep and led her high school debate team to a regional championship. Her life had been taken and pared down to nothing.

And Karina couldn’t accept that. Tanya Wilson’s great crime seemed to have been experimenting sexually in the D/s arts. A monster had lured her in and then made perverse something that should have been sacred. Karina had a five hundred dollar retainer with the promise of absolutely nothing else and she was on the case. She would find whoever had left Tanya Wilson’s mother in perpetual mourning for the child she’d lost.

She’d been very quiet about it, not wanting to tip anyone off. It had occurred to her to ask Simon Weston to work with her, but he’d been called away to London on another case and she’d lost her shot. She couldn’t ask the others. They were all married and she loved their wives. She couldn’t pull the husbands away. And she sure as hell wouldn’t ask the lieutenant. He would just as likely toss her ass in jail as work with her.

Was he going to do that now?

A man she’d never met before walked into the room, and Karina’s eyes widened. Stetson hat. Pressed blue jeans. Bolo tie over a dress shirt.

Damn.
The Rangers were involved. If they were involved, it meant she’d been on the right track all along.

“It’s a serial case. Shit.” She flushed a little, stepping to Eve’s side. “I’m sorry to have cursed, sir.”

Derek Brighton’s eyes flared. “You’ve never been sorry before.”

Had he thought she was talking to him? She hadn’t meant Sir, but rather had simply meant to be polite to the baddest ass in the room. If there was one thing she’d learned since she’d moved to Texas, it was to respect the highest authority in law enforcement. “I was talking to the Ranger.”

The big guy tipped his head her way. He was a glorious specimen of masculinity. She put his age at forty and it looked good on him. “Ma’am. I’m Clayton Hill with the Texas Rangers. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Mills. I’m sorry it’s under such tragic circumstances. You knew the victim?”