Page 93 of Taming Achilles

“What the fuck, Pip?” Geo turned to me, his eyes filled with hurt and anger. “Why?” He grabbed me by the biceps, his fingers digging into my flesh. I felt it start to bruise. “Why are you hurting yourself?”

“Calm yourself, you filthy Scot,” I pushed him away from me.

“I will, when you start making sense, you pesky Englishwoman!” He lurched forward, grabbing me around the nape of the neck. “Why are you hurting yourself?”

His hands came up to cup my face. His brown eyes were pleading to understand. And those eyes, which I had avoided for so long, melted into a place in my heart that had always been reserved just for him.

“To do my job.” Be cold, Pippa. You’re a professional. Be British, goddamnit, and sod the rest!

I pulled away from his touch, and placed a finger on my cheekbone, and winced. It was tender and certainly blue. I lightly coughed as I composed myself, pulling in my years of training. This was my World Cup. The event I had trained for my entire life. I loved a tough interrogation more than any runway or sport. More than any great red carpet or performance. Interrogations could get my blood boiling.

Maybe that makes me psychopath, but there is a delightful satisfaction in being able to make your defeated enemy suffer. Fuck their dignity. Make them squeal.

I pulled my hair from its coif. A few, delicate placed strands were ruffled out of place, and I tenderly touched my swelling cheekbone.

With one hand, I ripped open my shirt and tore my bra strap, then spun around in front of Ajax and Brett, who gave me a thumbs up. Geo looked at us as if we had all gone completely insane.

“Break a leg,” said Ajax, taking his seat.

“Oh? I get to be the bad guy?” Brett looked excited, coming to his feet. He looked me over, then tilted his head. His eyes went down to the ring on my finger. “You may want to …”

I looked down at the fake engagement ring. The ring that meant nothing. I pried it off my finger. It stuck on my knuckle, and I had to twist it off. I tossed it onto the table. I swear, I heard Geordie take in a deep breath through his teeth.

I ignored him and turned to Brett instead. I gave him a curtsy, and we laughed before I took a breath and got into character. A damsel in distress. Frightened, and in need of that very thing that makes men feel like men. The need to be rescued.

“Ready?” Brett asked.

I shrugged, and we shared a smile, before he grabbed me by the hair, and with a feral growl, started dragging me down the hall. I kicked and screamed, loud enough to be heard through the halls, up to the steel door that led to the interrogation room.

Brett slammed the door open, and I was hit by the stale air that permeated from the dank space. Despite the drain, the lingering scent of faeces, urine, and sweat hit me like a brick wall. It was the scent of a locker room, mixed with despair and fear.

And I was a woman who belonged there now. A prisoner, full of despair.

Brett threw me in, and I crumpled to the ground, my bruised ribs adding a bit of drama to my performance. Brett took his foot and landed a kick to the back of my thighs, and I yelped in pain. Brett leaned down and took my hands roughly behind me, planting a knee on my lower back and zip-tying my hands together.

Brett turned, slamming the door behind him, leaving us in the silence.

I whimpered, the tears real. With the soreness in my bruised ribs, I was able to conjure up the pain and hurt of the past few weeks, to cry. But I felt my skin prickle, knowing that there were cameras in the corners, and their eyes were on me. Brett, Ajax … and Geo. I could feel his brown eyes boring through the screen, the camera, and into my skin, reaching out like a caress.

I struggled to sit up with my hands bound behind me, looking around as if for the first time and seeing the stretched out frame of Jason Rhodes. It was different, seeing him in person. The way the fluorescent lights cascaded down and coloured the top of his head, his shoulders and blackened the swollen features of his down-turned face.

“J-J-Jason?” I whispered, with a hint of hope. A small bit of feeling in a tone coloured by despair.

His tired, hopeless head tilted up, and dropped again. Then it rose and fell, as if he was blinking away the hallucinations of starvation and days of senseless beatings. Shirking off the powerless helplessness that the guys had been instilling in him.

“Pippa,” he said in a dreamy, slow sigh, like a whispered sigh.

I kicked my way towards him, scooting on the floor. “Jason!” I said with more conviction, as if his name was a cry to heaven.

I let out a loud cry of despair. “I’m so sorry! You were right! I couldn’t trust him. He put me in here … Jason! Oh! Jason, what have they done to you?”

A man in love is an idiot. They always are. The moment Callum fell in love with Lea, the walls he had erected to become a good man had fallen by the wayside, and the old brutish killer that he was trained to be came to the forefront. I saw it in his eyes. The joy he felt in destruction.

Rhodes? He was lonely. I had known that from his background. He fell hard, and fast, became obsessed and toxic. Fixated. The very thing that made him a good operative made him a dedicated and terrible lover.

That work ethic and obsession made him a good agent for whoever had hired him in this Kemet conspiracy. Or maybe he was the head of the snake. But I’d never know for sure until he confessed his secrets to his fellow prisoner.

And I’d stay here for as long as it took until I got the answers I needed. And I’d have fun doing it. My father liked to quote Machiavelli. His favourite quote was “it is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.”

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