The Psy-Changeling Series, Books 6-10 (98 page)

A quick nod that sent her glossy hair swinging. “It was part of his job description to wine and dine human and changeling businessmen and women. As a result, he occasionally found himself in the society pages.”

Max felt Sophia glance at him with those amazing, perceptive eyes, knew she’d made the same cognitive leap he had. “Would it be fair to say he’d made some personal connections within those groups?”

Nikita took a moment to think about it. “Not in the human or changeling sense. However, certain individuals had come to have a measure of trust in him because of a shared history of successful deals.”

“An unquantifiable loss,” Sophia said. “One that you will feel the effect of for some time.”

“Yes.” Nikita looked at Sophia for a long, quiet moment before returning her attention to Max. “I’m beginning to see the pattern it appears you already have, Detective.”

“So my next question won’t come as a surprise—who doesn’t like you getting into bed with the other races?” Edward Chan, Max was certain, had only been considered a traitor by association. It was Councilor Nikita Duncan who was the key.

“That,” Nikita said, “is something I’ll have to think about.”

Sophia spoke into the small pause. “I’ve heard rumors of a group called Pure Psy—the members seem to believe that contact with the other races is tainting the purity of our Silence.”

“Yes. They’ve begun to gain a measure of support in the Net.” Nikita returned to her desk. “I have some additional data on them that I’m sending you now—please brief the detective, Ms. Russo.”

It was a dismissal from a woman who was used to obedience, but Max wasn’t finished. “Whoever’s behind this, he or she is getting bolder—they’re going to come directly after you sooner rather than later.”

“I’m protected. That’s why Edward and the others are dead—the assassin went for the next best thing.” A razor of a glance. “You’d do well to protect yourself. You are, after all, only human.”

 

Sophia didn’t say anything to Max until they were in the car heading out from the Duncan building. “Does it bother you?”

“What?”

“Being thought of as less because of your humanity?” It bothered her a great deal. Max was worth far more than any other man she’d ever met.

But he shook his head, his lips curved in a distinctly satisfied smile. “Nikita felt the need to point out my humanity because she’s been forced into a position where she has to rely on a measly human. That has to bite.”

“It’s an irony, is it not?” Sophia murmured, thinking of connections, of mothers and fathers. “She’s one of the most powerful people in the world, her net worth in the billions—and yet she doesn’t have a single person in her life whom she can trust not to thrust a knife into her back.”

“She made her choices.” Max had no sympathy for a woman who’d disowned her child. He knew exactly how bad that had to have hurt Sascha.

When Sophia didn’t say anything, he glanced at her. “What about you, Sophie? Who do you trust?”

Her answer rocked through him. “You’re the only person I’ve ever told of my parents’ rejection of me.”

“Strange, isn’t it?” His voice came out harsh, raw with emotion.

“What?”

“That the two people Nikita chose to work this case are both people whose mothers threw them away.” It couldn’t be a coincidence, not with the resources Nikita had at her disposal.

Sophia’s organizer flashed at that moment. “Nikita’s lab techs have done a first-look analysis of the forensic data—the blood on the mirror was the victim’s, the DNA and prints in the public areas belong to either Chan or Nikita’s other employees, all of which can be explained by the meetings he held in his home office. No unexplained or suspicious DNA in the bedroom.”

“That was fast.”

Sophia’s answer was practical—and said a thousand things. “She’s a Councilor.”

“Hmm.” Pulling to a stop in front of a small, bustling restaurant, he turned off the engine. “It’s almost half past two. You can tell me about Pure Psy over lunch.” From what he’d heard so far, the group sat in diametric opposition to Nikita’s growing business alliances with the other races—but he needed to know more about their tactics to judge whether murder might be part of their arsenal.

Sophia didn’t move to step out of the car. “We can’t risk being overheard.”

“Takeout it is, then.” He wanted nothing more than to be alone with her, to take the next step in this strange courtship of theirs. “What do you want?”

“It matters little to me.”

Max had already slid back his door, but now he paused and looked at her, realizing how far she’d retreated within herself, her expression so remote he knew it was a front, meant to hide the vulnerable truth. “Damn. I’m sorry.” Every protective instinct he had, awakened to quiet, intense life. “I didn’t think about it.”

“It’s alright.” Those night-violet eyes held a surprise that rubbed those same instincts very much the wrong way. “It’s not something you need to think about.”

That she’d say that after the unspoken depth of this connection between them made him want to reach forward and tug her into a hard, hot kiss—remind her of the truth in a way she couldn’t ignore. But he couldn’t touch her, not yet. “Yeah,” he said, “I do.” Because slowly, inexorably, she was becoming his . . . to watch over, to know.

A wash of shadows in that stunning gaze, a silent indication that she’d heard the message behind the words. “Thank you.”

Such a polite statement hiding so much emotion. “Don’t worry,” he said with a slow smile that made the polite mask slip, her expression flickering with suspicion, “I intend to take my payment in kisses.”

Exiting the car to her sharply indrawn breath, he headed into the restaurant. The buzz of human and changeling energy surrounded him from every side—voices rose and fell in animated conversation, the odd burst of laughter punctuating the hum. A woman brushed by him as she left, throwing him an apologetic glance over her shoulder. Another patron almost ran into him as he got off a stool around the island that surrounded the chefs in their open-air kitchen.

Ignoring what for him were distractions, but would for Sophia be a small slice of hell, Max placed his order using the built-in pad on the counter.

The waitress put the order in front of him less than five minutes later. “You look like a cop.”

He raised an eyebrow as he scanned his debit card over the reader.

Laughing, she leaned forward, her cleavage displayed to cheerful advantage. “We get a lot in here—there’s an Enforcement station two blocks over.”

“You’ve developed excellent radar.”

“You’re not from around here—I can hear the accent.” Taking something from her pocket, she slid it across the counter with a smile. “For you.”

Picking it up when she turned to deliver another order, he saw that it was a small personal card made out of Japanese
washi
, bearing the name Keiko Nakamura and a cell phone code.

“Lucky man,” a morose male said from his left. “I’ve been trying to get her to go out for a coffee for months.” Envy was a thorny vine around every word.

“I’m off the market.” It had been true since the instant he first laid eyes on Sophia Russo, whether he’d known it at the time or not.

A gleam of interest. “Can I have the card then?”

“Sorry.” Max dropped it into the takeout bag. “Keep trying.”

Keiko’s rejected suitor scowled into his udon soup as Max walked away, his mind already on a woman with eyes full of secrets dark and painful.
My Sophia
, he thought, and it was a vow.

 

Sophia lifted the takeout containers from the bag as Max went to grab the plates from his kitchen area. When she saw the small white card, she assumed it held the number of the restaurant. Then her eye fell on the text. “Who’s Keiko Nakamura?”

“What?” Max walked out with the plates. “Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s going in the recycling.” Putting down the plates on the table, he plucked the card out of her hand and placed it in the bin marked for the recycling chute.

But Sophia couldn’t let the point go. “You met her at the restaurant?”

“Yes.” Placing two glasses of water on the table, he pulled out a chair with a spare efficiency that struck her as quintessentially male. “Waitress.”

“When a female gives her contact details to an otherwise unfamiliar man,” she said, trying not to be distracted by the heated strength of him so close . . . so touchable, “it is for private reasons.” As with that woman in the elevator at Vale’s apartment. “Women seem to always be giving you their cards.”

Max opened one of the containers and served some sushi onto her plate using the disposable chopsticks. “That bother you, Sophie?” A low, deep tone, a masculine smile that made her skin go tight with warning.

Remembering too late that Max Shannon was a cop used to digging deep, reading truths and lies, she opened the other container. “What is this?”

“Tempura.” Max put what appeared to be a battered prawn onto her plate, his voice holding a distinct male amusement. “Try it. And you haven’t answered my question.”

Having removed her gloves and washed her hands earlier, she used her fingers to pick up a piece of sushi. “I suppose I should become accustomed to women . . .” She paused, unable to think of the correct term.

“Hitting on me.”

“Yes, I should get accustomed to women hitting on you,” she said. “After all, you are a beautiful man.”

Color flagged Max’s cheeks. “I’ll let you—and
only
you—get away with that. But never in public. Got it?”

She was so fascinated by the disarming glimpse of embarrassment that she blurted out a need so deep, it would ravage her if he refused. “I would rather you not respond to any such invitations while we are . . .”

His gaze met hers, his attention so total that she felt as if she was in the sights of some great bird of prey. “While we are?” he prompted when she didn’t continue.

She’d come this far, couldn’t go back now. He knew about the otherness, about the cold justice she’d delivered to those who’d hurt society’s most vulnerable, and he hadn’t turned away—she was still too terrified to ask him why, but it gave her the courage to say, “While we are learning each other.”

“Learning each other,” Max repeated, as if measuring the words. “And will you let me in, Sophie?”

“Yes.” Something stirred deep within her, something that was at once dark . . . and lonely. Unutterably, absolutely lonely. “Be with me, Max.” Saying that was the hardest thing she’d ever done—it felt akin to tearing out her heart and placing it at his feet . . . and hoping, just hoping, that he wouldn’t crush it.

Max didn’t say anything for several long moments. When he did speak, his voice seemed to have dropped an octave. “Do you know what you’re asking, what I’ll demand of you?”

The tiny hairs on her arms stood up at the leashed intensity of the question. “Yes.”

Max picked up a piece of tempura, but instead of putting it on her plate, lifted it to her lips. His eyes held a silent challenge. And Sophia found her bone-deep vulnerability retreating under a wave of determination—Detective Max Shannon was not going to disconcert her so easily. She parted her lips and took a bite. Eating the other half—a shocking intimacy—he returned his attention to her face. To her mouth. “Won’t whatever you experience spill out into the PsyNet?”

“It’s a risk, yes,” Sophia admitted, feeling her lips turn dry, her throat seeming to swell. “However, like all Js, my PsyNet shields are airtight, so the risk is acceptable. Even if there is a leak, any irregularities will be attributed to my disintegration as a functioning J, rather than to such a blatant breach of Silence.”

His lips thinned. “And once those irregularities become too strong, you’ll be taken away to be retuned.”

“Reconditioned,” she corrected automatically. Part of her wanted to tell him the final truth—that her chances had run out, that their relationship would accelerate her disintegration . . . and that she’d choose a fugitive’s death before allowing her personality to be erased, her memories of Max scrubbed away to leave her a hollow shell.

But if she shared that, he’d never agree to her request, this man who looked at her as if she mattered, as if she was worth protecting. And she needed him to agree—the hunger inside of her, it was so vast, so endless, so dark and cold, she didn’t know how she’d borne it this long. “I’ve survived reconditioning a number of times.” When he didn’t say anything, she rubbed her damp palms on her thighs. “Max?”

Max heard the well-hidden tremor, the touch of vulnerability, and had to force himself to keep from soothing away her worry. Because that would be a lie. He was well and truly hooked on Sophia—but no matter how easy he was with others, how laid-back, he’d never be that way with this woman he was coming to consider his. No, with her, he might play—
would
play—but he’d also push and demand and take. And she needed to understand that.

Making a decision, he stood and walked around to brace his hands on the table on either side of her, his breath stirring the tiny curls just above her ear. He saw her hands clench on her thighs, the scent of her a mix of vanilla, lavender, and something a little wilder, uniquely her own, a flower that had never known the hand of man. “Be sure, Sophie.” Today, this minute, he might possibly be capable of walking away. But if he touched her, if he claimed her . . . there’d be no going back.

Sophia’s answer was immediate. “I am sure.”

But he saw the strained angle of her jaw, the taut line of her body. “Are you?” When she remained stiff within the bracket of his arms, he drew in a deep breath . . . and let go of the reins. “If we do this today, if you accept me, then you take me as I am.” He forced himself to give her one final chance, though the need to take her at her word, to finally taste the temptation that was Sophia Russo, was a pounding beat in every cell of his body. “I won’t be controllable, and I sure as hell won’t do only what you ask of me.” He brushed the shell of her ear with his lips.