Page 255 of Golden Eagle

She didn’t have anything against Val’s mate, but she didn’t know much about her aside from the fact that she was newly-turned, a civilian, and a potential liability.

“Okay, you can go in,” Mr. Pat Down said, and leaned over to turn the door handle and push it wide for them.

Trina had to blink against the onslaught of light: the too-bright fluorescents were on, droning faintly.

The conference room was long and narrow, hugging the side of the building, its whole outer and inner walls composed of windows: one side looking into the rest of the floor, shielded with blinds, and the other overlooking the street below, bare, offering a glittering glimpse of the windows in the building across the way. Entrances marked either end, a liability that Trina and her team planned to exploit, later.

In the center, a long, high-gloss table, ringed by chairs.

Dr. Fowler sat at the far end, formal and proper, hands folded on the tabletop, two more guards standing behind him, one to either side of his chair.

“Good evening,” he greeted pleasantly. “Take a seat.”

Fuck you, she thought, because she was a Baskin.

But she said, “Thank you,” and pulled out a chair, because, career tanking or not, she was a detective, and this was a game she recognized: intimidation.

Jamie sat down across from her, and Mia beside her – between her and Fowler, interestingly enough.

Trina had rehearsed what she’d say, recited it aloud in her head all day, so when she spoke, it was smoothly, without betraying so much as a hint of emotion. “Dr. Fowler, the last time we met, we came to agreement.”

“I remember it well. And it’s you who’ve violated it, Detective.” He gave a small, satisfied smile, and tilted his head so the lights flared off the lenses of his glasses, obscuring his eyes.

“I disagree. I haven’t shared the video I have with anyone. Meanwhile, your facility has not only endangered my pack, personally – which you agreed not to pursue – but it’s responsible for thehorrificmurders of civilians. That’s a breach of a verbal contract if I ever heard one.”

His smile widened. “I see your vocabulary has improved since last we met. Very well: in your own words, you told me that we weren’t to, and I quote, ‘come after you.’ We have not done so.”

“When you’re killing people in my precinct, that’s an act of aggression.”

“Toward you? No. That was merely a tying up of loose ends.”

She’d heard murderers refer to their victims in all manner of impersonal terms; offhand statements that would make anyone sick to hear.

But hearing that from Fowler enraged her. A feral clench of anger in her belly that left her wanting to bare her teeth, like Lanny or Nik or Sasha would have.

She tamped the urge down and said, “I thought it was bad when you kidnapped Sasha. I thought it was bad that your feral wolves were so uncontrollable that there’d been a mistake, killing that family, when you were tracking us. But what you’re talking about now is purposeful, premeditated murder, and that seems like an awfully big jump from doing what you have to for your cause, and having some kind of predilection.”

He lifted his hands, brought his fingertips together, a lightly-held triangle beneath his chin. “You think I enjoy it?”

“I think somewhere along the line, it wasn’t enough to make medicine and fight a war. You got a little taste of power, and it went straight to your head.”

“A detectiveanda psychoanalyst. I’m impressed. What do you want, Ms. Baskin? Why are we here?”

“To explain to you that our agreement is terminated. I’m done trying to negotiate with someone without a shred of morality.”

He chuckled, a quiet, delighted laugh that belonged in the throat of a movie villain.

She’d started to shake, fine tremors that wouldn’t be visible; an internal shivering that was all nerves, but which would only get worse if this dragged on, or she didn’t have an outlet for the adrenaline. She drew herself upright in her chair, and leaned her forearms on the edge of the table. “Dr. Fowler–”

“No, no.” He waved, an easy gesture. “I don’t mean to offend you. I commend your bravery, really. But, honestly, what do you think you candoin this situation?”

She allowed for a pause, like she was considering; like she was uncertain. She wanted him to think that.

“If you think me beyond negotiation,” Fowler continued, “then what do you hope to achieve through this meeting? Surely you don’t hope to overpower me, somehow?” He turned his head side-to-side, glancing purposefully toward Jamie, and then Mia, then back to Trina, his gaze pitying.

“No,” she said, angling her upper body toward him another fraction, trying to offer the tiny, wireless camera set in the collar of her jacket the best view of him. It looked like a lapel pin, a little golden lion, and Much had explained that their mage, Tuck, had enchanted it, much like he had with the flash drive, so that it would work better, and transmit more cleanly than a bulky mic pack and wire like undercover detectives wore. “I guess…” She affected uncertainty, now, for the first time. “I guess I just want to understand the point of it all. Why are you doing this?”

He smiled, patronizing. And she knew what he was thinking, what she’d hoped he would take her up on: that he wasn’t going to let them leave this meeting alive, and that it couldn’t hurt anything to indulge her curiosity. If her job had taught her one thing, it was that egomaniacs loved to hear themselves talk. They loved explaining their brilliance to the idiots around them. Showing off.

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