Page 14 of Savage Escape

“Sounds... like a file?” Caden quirked an eyebrow at him again.

“Yeah, a very nice file. Except it’s not like you fell outta the sky. No matter where I dig or who I question, there is nothing on you.” It had been frustrating as hell.

Thieves, good thieves, were not at all like their Hollywood and cartoon depictions. They were highly intelligent and highly organized beings. But that did not exempt them from having social security numbers and families. There was never, in all the cases he’d worked, zero on the criminal.

Except, of course, for Caden Quinn.

“Really?” Surprise colored her tone almost bordering on shock, which had Nathan all ears.

“You sound surprised?”

Had there been some secret file with her name on it that he hadn’t found? Was his government secretly keeping tabs on her? If that were the case, why would they send him in practicallyblind? Maybe it was a departmental thing no one, even though they all swore under the same flag, purposefully tipped their hand.

“Well yeah,” shrugging, she settled against the wall again with only a little wincing, “but I guess I really shouldn’t be.”

“I can’t tell if that’s a jab at the government or you’re genuinely surprised that they didn’t have more on you.”

Her face closed off and Nathan’s spidey senses were screaming. There was something. Something she thought the government had on her.

“You can’t?” Eyes blank and head tilted like she didn’t purposefully just evade his question.

Frustration. The woman was frustration itself. But Nathan was retired now, so secret files or no, he wasn’t ever going to see them. So instead, he carefully filed away that little tidbit and went back to his original intent.

“So how bout it?” Eye contact made and breath held, Nathan waited as patiently as he could.

She regarded him for a moment, bit her bottom lip, and narrowed her eyes at him.

The thing about Caden was not that she was the only criminal who had gotten away, but she was the only one who consistently had him tied in knots. Mostly because he had and could get nothing on her. But she was also one contradiction after another.

Other thieves he could understand because they made sense. Their pieces fit together. Even if he didn’t have the whole story, he could still make sense of them. But with Quinn, it was frustratingly different. Every time he interacted with her, she gave him a whole new jigsaw puzzle piece that didn’t fit with any of the ones he already had.

Where other thieves were tightlipped and angry when Nathan popped up, she was all eager smirks and very verbal. The fight in her, the thing that kept her crawling throughditches, razor wire, and bullets with what was left of a dead man handcuffed to her and shrapnel logded in her hip, was like nothing he’d seen. But there she was, half dead already and not giving a piss about it.

“And what exactly do you want to know?” Shoulders relaxed slightly, fingers uncurled, palms turned up.

“How ‘bout your real name?” It was one of those top-of-the-list questions.

Lips pursed and those dark eyes were on him again. Her arms folded across her chest and Nathan, once again, held his breath. Finally, she let out a long sigh, and her arms unfolded.

“Ava.” It was soft and heavy with all manner of unsaid things behind that one word. “My name is Ava.”

“Ava. That’s pretty. Where’d you get Caden from?”

“It’s my middle name.” Her shoulders relaxed, and she kept her eyes on him.

“So if by some miracle we—” her eyes narrowed on his and Nathan rolled his eyes, “—Igot outta here and looked up Ava Caden Quinn I’d find you?”

“Nope. Quinn’s not my surname. It’s Collins.”

Nathan did not like the fact that she’d told him so casually. A first name wasn’t bad—there were probably a million Ava’s in the States alone, but a surname added to it made it that much easier to find her. And she’d given it to him without even so much as twitching.

The mercenary was obviously set on dying.

“Ava Caden Collins, huh?” Nathan kinda liked the sound of it. “Well, where’d you get Quinn from?”

The smirk fell from her lips and Nathan watched as fists formed.

“Somebody dead.” Her face closed off and her eyes got cold. Those thick lips pursed and her eyes strayed to the ceiling.

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