Page 1 of Marked

Chapter 1

Cain

I return to the room, but she refuses to look at me. She is sitting on a high-backed chair with her back turned to me and her eyes glued to one of the laptop screens. Her wrist is still cuffed to the radiator. It forces her to sit in an awkward position with her left arm stretched out behind her and leaning forward as far as possible to see the screen. The laptop is turned on, but from the looks of it, Riley hasn’t made it past the login screen.

“Decent security set-up,” she comments. Her voice is stiff and cold, her steely gaze still fixated on the screen. “Way better than those lame Wi-Fi spots you had me hack.”

Disdain drips from every syllable, and it makes her words sound more like an accusation than a simple remark. I step closer to where she is sitting, expecting her to turn and face me. Instead, she stiffens noticeably as I approach.

“Thank you,” I respond. I am suddenly aware of how much I tower over her. “Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

She nods quietly, still averting her gaze from mine.

Tense silence stretches between us. Neither one of us moves or speaks. I’m not sure what to make of her demeanor. She wasn’t exactly in a light mood when I left her here alone to make my phone call, but this behavior is new. It’s like she’s frozen solid now, her body barely moving except for her breathing, and her face is hidden behind the dark strands of hair that cascade down to her shoulders.

My chest tightens when a horrid thought creeps out from the darkest corner of my mind.

Was she eavesdropping on my call?

If so, what did she hear? Would she even be able to make sense of it?

Wouldn’t she confront me about it?

Riley never struck me as the kind of girl to swallow her feelings, especially anger and fear. If she heard me talking, she had every reason to be scared and angry at me—and she would most definitely throw those emotions right in my face.

Besides, if she’s been sitting like this ever since I left the room, it’s doubtful that she heard me speaking on the phone considering that it is on the other side of the door about five feet away from where she is right now. And with her attention focused on the laptop screen... I made sure to speak in a low voice. I always do when I’m talking to one of the Scivolas. I adopted that precaution long ago, but right now Riley gives me reason to worry that I wasn’t careful enough.

“Who were you talking to?” she asks, catching me off guard. It’s an innocent question, really, but even though she poses it in a nonchalant way, I notice that her voice is laced with a hint of repulsion.

“None of your business,” I tell her, producing the key from my pocket to unlock the cuff around the radiator and free her arm.

She lets out a small sigh of relief when it releases and rolls her shoulder for a bit. The cuff dangles noisily from her wrist as she stretches her tortured arm. She finally turns her face in my direction and I immediately notice her stern expression.

“I’m part of your dirty little business now,” she sneers at me. “Why even bother to keep things secret?”

“Trust me, the less you know, the better for you.”

She rolls her eyes. “What movie did you steal that line from?”

I pull up another chair from the table next to us and sit down. She shifts away from me, making sure that our legs don’t touch when I move closer to pull the laptop away from her.

It’s best if I don’t ask her if she heard me talking on the phone. If she did hear me, she can try to make sense of what she overheard on her own—and if she didn’t hear me, the question alone would draw suspicion. It’s best to just ignore her attitude for now and get back to business.

After all, that’s what we came here for.

“Let’s start with the Covey’s set-up,” I begin after logging in and waiting for the laptop to fully boot. “They have several safe houses in the area, and they are continually moving from one to another for obvious reasons. Even though we have eyes on them at all times, it’s pretty much impossible to know their every move. For a while, I thought that they were moving Charlie and his computer between these houses, but after observing him for a while, I strayed away from that suspicion.”

“Why?” she interjects.

“He’s not moving around the safe houses a lot, not even the headquarters,” I tell her. “It must be somewhere else, most likely in his home, which is not a part of the usual Covey buildings.”

I pause to gauge her reaction, but Riley only nods quietly. Her eyes remain focused on the laptop screen, and her lips are pressed into a thin line.

“His movements are quite irregular and hard to predict. There are times when we don’t see Charlie at all, suggesting that he’s not closely involved with the Covey’s day to day business, which makes sense, considering—”

“So, what do you need me to do?” Riley’s authoritative tone cuts through my words like a steely blade, taking me by surprise.

I regard her with an inquiring look from the side, but she keeps her gaze focused on the screen in front of us, her facial expression unchanged.

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