Read Unleashed Online

Authors: Crystal Jordan

Unleashed (8 page)

BOOK: Unleashed
9.23Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
“Often enough.” Quill soaped up and rinsed off with quick efficiency. “Is that a problem for you?”
“No.” The other man snorted. “I've hidden a lot over the years, just for different reasons.”
“How noble.”
He barked out a laugh. “Hardly. It was dirty and exhausting.”
Interesting. Quill tilted his head, finding himself as curious about and fascinated by Kienan as he was by Gea. It made him want to push to know more, especially since the wolf seemed less recalcitrant than the fox. For the moment anyway. “You must have liked something about it to stay there for so long.”
Kienan let his head fall back against the wall of the shower, sighing. “I did like it. For a long time. And then I didn't. It was a challenge, and I liked that. It was risky, and I liked that, too, liked the rush of
almost
getting caught. I liked winning.”
“Sounds like all the reasons I got into my line of work.” Which was even more interesting, and unexpected.
“Surprised we have anything in common?”
“Yes.” It was the truth, something he normally weighed before he gave it to anyone, so it stunned him to have it come out of his mouth so easily around this man. When had he last tried to find common ground with anyone if it wasn't to gain the upper hand in a business negotiation?
“You still like your work, though. I got damn tired of lying to everyone about everything, never knowing where I'd be sent to next, who I'd be trying to deceive or kill.” Something close to shock crossed Kienan's face, and Quill would guess he was even more stunned to have revealed anything to a virtual stranger.
Neither of them was the type.
Quill nodded. “Though, like you, I grew weary of the web of deceit that was waiting to catch me, so I transitioned into more legitimate lines of business a few years ago. I still keep my interests . . . diversified . . . but that's just good business. Keep my hands in every pie I can reach.”
“I could see that.” The wolf pushed his hair back from his face. “There's not a lot of ways to diversify in my line of work. My former line of work. I guess I'm looking for a new challenge.”
Quill cocked an eyebrow. “I assume you're not angling for a job.”
That made the wolf-shifter break into a rare chuckle. “Not even close. I'd be a terrible businessman. The bureaucracy was bad enough in government work.”
“True enough. Though a well-placed cred can slice through some of the red tape.”
Kienan blinked. “Bribery.”
“You disapprove?” Why he felt the need to ask, Quill would never know.
The wolf squinted through the steam, his gray gaze focused on Quill. “Is that what you're hoping for or just what you're used to?”
“I gave up caring what people thought of me a long time ago. I did what I did to survive.” He shrugged but couldn't meet that piercing gaze. Something tangled in his chest that he didn't understand, so he pushed it away. “Growing up in the Vermilion doesn't leave you with a lot of
legal
revenue sources outside of prostitution.”
“Were you ever a jade?”
“No, I own interest in a few jadehouses now, but I never worked in one, never sold my body for money.” He grinned. “Though some might argue I sold my soul instead.” His smile faded and he cleared his throat. Why had he said that? Why did he feel the need to explain himself to this man? The wolf was a temporary distraction, nothing more. It was of no importance whether he understood Quill's motivations. He turned off the shower and stepped out, turning his back on Kienan. “The truth is, I never knew my father and my mother was a blisshead who sold the drug to feed her addiction. I took over in order to keep a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs. My incentive was money, not drugs, and after I made my first few creds, I wanted more.”
“And you always will.” The words were quiet, as unassuming as the man himself.
“I like to be in control. In my house, everything revolved around my mother's addiction. It controlled our whole life. Worse was when she had a man around who tried to ‘teach me some respect' or father me in any way. I usually ended up getting my ass kicked.” Over and over again. Quill had the scars to prove it, too, inside and out. Only the most tenacious bastard would have made it out of his childhood alive, and he was nothing if not a survivor. He laughed, the sound harsh. “There was always someone bigger than me on the street, so I had to be smarter and faster. And I decided that someday I'd be the one making the decisions.
I'd
be the one dictating my own life.”
He didn't like to think about that time, rarely let himself. He'd learned long ago to look forward, not back. But the memories swamped him now, those ugly moments that shaped who he'd become. How many times had he been beaten so badly he couldn't stand? How many bones had been broken before he'd even turned ten? How many times had his mother stood by and watched, so out of her mind with bliss she didn't know or care what was happening? His gut roiled, and he swallowed hard. No, there'd been no control for him then. He lived by the whims of his mother's habit.
If he didn't want to starve to death, he'd had to deal the drug she craved so badly and figure out how to keep his stash out of her hands. Seeing what it did to her had probably been the one thing that had saved him from diving into that same stupor. His friends back then had fallen prey to it, one by one, but Quill wasn't going out like that. He fucking refused to give his life to a drug, to spin so far out of control he didn't give a shit if people he loved were beaten to death in front of him. He'd scrabbled and scraped and fought, done things he never wanted to think about ever again to get out. He'd do it all again if he had to. Never again would he live like that. Never.
Kienan hummed. “My work taught me I can only control so much, and in the end, there was always someone I answered to, always someone yanking on my leash and calling the shots. I controlled myself and my part of an operation, everything else was out of my hands.”
Seizing on the chance to talk about something besides himself, he faced Kienan. “And you were okay with that?”
“I didn't have a choice. That was what I did.” The wolf shrugged. “It's who I am. Who I
was.
”
“Then who are you now?”
Kienan sighed, shook his head. “I'm trying to find that out. I didn't . . . I don't know how to be anything else.”
“Good luck figuring it out.”
“Thanks.” A rueful smile flickered on and off his lean face.
Quill wanted to know more. Perhaps it was sheer feline curiosity, but he'd never met a man who affected him this way, who intrigued him for reasons that had nothing to do with business. So he asked again, “How long are you going to be here?”
That gray gaze grew shuttered. If he was difficult to read normally, it was impossible now. “Here in Tail? Not long. Here in town? Like I said before, I'm not sure. I hadn't planned beyond stopping to see my cousin.”
Quill cocked his head. “While you're in New Chicago, why don't you let me show you the town?”
“I'd like that.”
Well, this was a first. A lover he actually wanted to spend time around, who wanted to spend time around him. With Gea, that street went only one way. Which was how Quill liked it, of course. Kienan was just a temporary distraction until he left. Nothing was any different than it usually was. Quill would get back to his business and his solitary life soon enough. He would end it when he decided it was over, as he did with all his affairs.
 
Gea shrugged out of her pack as she jogged up the stairs to her flat. Lorelei had had one of her jades deliver the bag the day after she'd left it in Kienan's room. Nothing had been missing from the bag, though there had been a note from the wolf requesting that she contact him. She'd ignore that, as well as the two vidmessages Quill had left for her. A week later, and her willpower was still holding. Barely, but it was holding. She took one day at a time.
Flashing her ident card at the panel beside the door, she let herself in and dropped her bag on her desk. Her home was also her office. She was on the second floor of a downtown skyrise, a few blocks from the old piers that jutted out over Lake Michigan. The rear of the flat held her bedroom and kitchen, and the front room served as her workspace, with a large antique wood desk that was the only thing her father had ever given her.
After a trip to the wash closet and then the kitchen to get a bite to eat, she sat behind the desk and pulled her bag toward her, digging out her vidcam. She interfaced it with her home system and downlinked the vidpics she'd taken for one of her clients. A cheating spouse, which was her bread and butter. Another case closed. Her client should be satisfied, if not entirely pleased to be proved correct about his wife's dalliances. But that was how her business went. Not all news was good news, but being right offered its own vindication.
She sat back in her kleather chair, tapping her fingers against the desktop. Her newest case was the one troubling her, namely, the information she
wasn't
given. A bit of digging in the last week had confirmed that Breck had owned the Gutenberg that went missing. The bible had been scheduled to go on auction for charity just before Tam disappeared. The auction had been canceled suddenly, and rumors had gone around that it was because the Gutenberg was stolen. However, her client had never reported it to the police nor had he filed an insurance claim.
While the vidpics downlinked, she accessed her messages from her palmtop. She grinned at the first one—an informant letting her know where she could find the elusive Meier. About damn time that intel came through. She'd been putting out subtle feelers for days and come up dry.
The next message was from Quill, the last one from a blisshead who was hoping to score more creds, but she'd already had his information for a week. She deleted everything but the message from her informant. The stupid female part of her wanted to keep the one from Quill and savor the concern in his voice, but even on the small screen of her palmtop, she could see the irritation in his gaze that she was ignoring him. There was nothing she could do about that that wouldn't get her in deeper than she wanted to be with her mate. Her
mates.
Deus, she still couldn't believe there were two of them. She had the worst possible luck.
The large vidscreen embedded in the wall across from her desk beeped, informing her that she had an incoming call. Quill wouldn't attempt to contact her office, would he? The thought barely had time to form before she saw the code was attached to Breck. Her erstwhile client.
She tapped the vidpad embedded in her desk to accept the call. “Prime Investigations.”
“Hello, Gea.” The man looked tired, lines bracketing his eyes and mouth as if he hadn't slept in a while. The screen showed him sitting in the same office where he'd interviewed her ten days before.
She nodded in return. “Mr. Breckenridge.”
“Call me Breck, it's less of a mouthful.” He ran a hand through his blond hair, mussing it. “I'm calling for an update. What do you have?”
Deciding not to beat around the bush, she got down to business. “Why didn't you tell me she stole a Gutenberg Bible from you?”
He blinked, then looked aside. “It wasn't relevant. It was a write-off I was auctioning for charity.”
Bullshit. An artifact like that going missing was always relevant, so she called his bluff. “Then why are you searching for her, if not for that?”
A muscle ticked in his cheek, and his blue gaze cooled as he met her eyes again. “That's not your concern.”
“It may help me find her. It
would
help to know what she's running from.” Gea brought one knee up to her chest, bracing it against her desk. “People react differently depending on the severity of a situation. I need to know how dire she thinks her circumstances are. What did she take from you that you want bad enough to have her hunted down?”
His jaw worked and he rolled his shoulders. “I hired you to investigate where she went, where she is now. That's what you should concern yourself with.”
“I
am
investigating, and what I'm finding is that my client is withholding valuable information that's keeping me from doing my job.” She made her voice as chilly as his. Client relations be damned. If he wanted to fire her for doing her job, then she didn't need to be working for him anyway. She ignored the fat retainer she'd have to return to him if he canceled her contract. “Do you want me to find her or not? If you do, you need to be straight with me.”
“She's my mate.” His gaze was clear and icy as it drilled into her. “I trust that information will remain private.”
“Of course.” She swallowed hard. “Does she know?”
“No. I've never told anyone and cheetahs can't sense it.” He spread his hands and leaned toward the vidscreen. “Let me be as straight with you as I can—I don't give a shit what she's stolen, I just want her back. So find her.”
BOOK: Unleashed
9.23Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Murder at the Spa by Stefanie Matteson
2 Game Drive by Marie Moore
Murder and Salutations by Elizabeth Bright
Blood on Mcallister by Matt Chisholm
Beverly Hills Maasai by Eric Walters
The Daydreamer by Ian McEwan
Love Is Blind by Kathy Lette