Page 78 of Defiant Beta

I sit back in my chair, studying her closely.

The city could erupt in violence at any moment because I’m not doing my work. Yet here I am, sitting in my office chair, watching Della Jackson.

“I would think a security company might serve you better. They’re in the business of finding people and things.”

She shakes her head. “The only security company I’ve heard of knows my sister. I don’t want it getting back to her.”

“There are countless companies in the city,” I remind her.

“Trust some random security company with my secrets?” She snorts. “Great idea.”

“What secrets?” I ask, as if I hadn’t voiced those same worries to Levi and Xavier.

Silence.

“I have work that you’re keeping me from, Miss Jackson,” I say, to provoke a response.

“Stop calling me that,” she snaps, cheeks turning pink.

“Then stop wasting my time,” I counter.

We stare at each other.

“I want three men dead.”

I don’t need to ask who those three men are and why she would want them dead. I saw the belt marks on her back, the bruises on her face and body.

“That sounds an awful lot like premeditated murder.”

“When someone hurts you, you hurt them back.” Her eyes harden, chips of deep blue ice. “This is not murder. This is revenge. Surely you have underlings to do your bidding.”

I strangle my need to smile. “Underlings?”

She deflates. “Yeah, that was probably wishful thinking, huh?”

“Why do you want these men dead?” I ask, curious if she’ll open up to me.

“Why were you pretending to be a math professor?” she counters.

The mistrust is mutual.

“I can help you, you know,” she says, sitting back in her seat and crossing her legs.

“With what?”

She waves one arm around. “Whatever thing you were doing there. I was a student. I might have seen something.”

“When you weren’t trying to set the school on fire?”

“I had my reasons,” she says tightly. “And if you can, though it might be very hard with the passage of time,tryto remember whatyouwere like in school.”

I choke back a laugh. The last time I laughed was an eternity ago. “Are you calling meold, Miss Jackson?”

She stares at me without expression.

She’s nineteen to my thirty-one, so she’s not entirely wrong.

“What was your point?” I ask.

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