Page 19 of Assassin's Game
She gave a hiccupping laugh. “Don’t I?”
When I started to respond, Maris held up a hand to stop me. “Let’s just drop it right now, okay?” She jerked her chin toward the other room. “There are more important things to focus on than my pity party.”
Red flashed before my eyes, but before I could deny it, Maris was out the door.
“Someone want to finally explain to me what happened?” she asked as she crossed to grab a plate from the table.
“Our observations went to hell in a handbasket,” Monty muttered.
“Your observations.” Titus pointed toward the camera. “Mine went just fine.”
Rhys, ever the stickler, forestalled our trip down the comparing-dicks rabbit hole. “Our mark had an uneventful, vanilla lunch interrupted by an unexpected encounter with the enemy.”
I trailed Maris across the room toward the computer. “We don’t know that he’s the enemy.”
“For now he is,” Rhys said, and I swore I saw a flash of warning cross his face. My stomach knotted. He couldn’t know about me, about the whole damn reacting thing that had me confused and conflicted; that was impossible. I couldn’t bear for him to know, because if he did, if any of them did, they’d blame me for Suit Guy getting away. As their team lead, the person they expected to make snap decisions in a crisis and control the ins and outs of every mission, getting thrown off-balance because I wanted to jump a man’s bones was unacceptable, period.
I wasn’t the kind of woman who let her hormones lead the way. Emotions, maybe—I wasn’t the emotionless robot Maris seemed to think I was—but not hormones. Ever.
Finally a second beep announced the completion of the download. Titus rubbed his hands on a brown paper napkin, I swear with glee. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
A grid of tiny thumbnail images covered the screen when I took up position behind Titus. Over his shoulder I scanned each line, but not fast enough. Titus double-clicked one about two-thirds of the way down the page before I could get there, and a larger version of the thumbnail popped up.
Suit Guy.
Frozen in midstride by Titus’s camera, the man looked just as big and sexy as he had in real life. A small, polite smile tugged at his lips. Dark sunglasses concealed his eyes, though I couldn’t forget their yellow-brown depths when he’d winked at me across the restaurant. Between the glasses and beard, his face was just concealed enough to make deciphering his features difficult.
Titus grunted, probably coming to the same conclusion I had. “Okay, let’s work some magic, shall we?”
Maris moved up beside me, and a small sound of surprise left her lips. “I know him.”
I jerked around to stare at her. “You do?”
“You do?” Rhys growled at the same time.
Maris shot him an irritated glance before focusing on me. “Yes. I saw him on theAtlanta Journal-Constitutionwebsite while I was catching up on local news.” Something we usually did when we landed in a new town, but I was certain none of the rest of us had taken the time to do it yet. We’d hit the ground running with this messed-up shit. “At least I think it was him. Hang on.”
Titus turned his chair around, and the four of us watched Maris cross to pick up an iPad. She flicked it on and began to scroll on her way back. “There was an article about the founding of a group home for orphans. It caught my eye because it’s specifically designated for siblings, so they can stay together and not be separated into foster homes when they come into the system.” She clicked on something on her screen and nodded. “Here it is. That’s him.”
She turned the iPad over to me. The screen showed an article with the title, LOCAL BUSINESS HELPS KIDS IN NEED. To one side were two images, one of a business complex and one of three men.
And there was Suit Guy on the end.
“No beard,” Titus pointed out.
I nodded in agreement, scanning the image captions. “This”—I pointed to the buildings—“is Hacr Technologies.”
Rhys whistled. “Talking serious players there. The company is famous for being on the cutting edge of tech research. I forgot they were headquartered here.”
“With good reason,” I said. “These guys are the brothers who own the company.”
Titus was already typing on the keyboard in front of him. “Levi, Remi, and Eli Agozi. They inherited the company a little over six months ago when the oldest brother turned thirty.” Titus clicked on links, following the trail of information faster than I could track. I focused on skimming the article in front of me. “Some kind of coup attempt at the time of the takeover ended in a shootout, according to what was leaked to the papers.”
One eyebrow went up at that. “A shootout?” Physical altercations weren’t all that common in corporate America, at least not in the boardroom. Most of the backstabbing that occurred there involved intellectual knives, not real ones.
“Yeah. The family lawyer was convicted after pleading guilty. He’s in prison.”
“There are more images available of the oldest Agozi brother than the other two,” Monty pointed out from his console farther down the table. “Seems to be involved in a lot of charity work.”
