Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 64938 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64938 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
“I heard you two can hear each other’s thoughts. That’s cool as hell.” Ex sat on the couch and watched Meridian smoke his cigarette. “I’d never be able to figure out what the hell that one was saying in his mind. Thank fuck.”
“Are you gonna answer the question or not?” Mirage snarled at Ex since Meridian, with his abundance of confidence, was apparently too damn cool to respond to anything.
“Sure, we’re here to discuss yesterday’s mission and what we’re going to do about it today.”
Mirage looked at Grace, then asked, “Excuse us. ‘We’?”
“Despite how fucked-up the Lion’s accusation was about the organization, it has to be taken seriously. He wouldn’t lie,” Meridian said, his voice deep and raspy as if he’d been smoking those cigarettes all his life.
Mirage sighed, knowing they were right. If they were doing the organization’s dirty work, they had to know for sure and put an end to it.
But he would’ve preferred to stay in a sex-infused bubble with Grace for the rest of the week.
Grace turned and winked at him, making Mirage’s dick react before he left to go into the bedroom.
Ex huffed. “You’re not gonna be able to stick your heads in the sand like two dumbass ostriches. If we work together, then—”
“Calm down,” Mirage grumbled. “He’s going to put on some clothes.”
“Well, that’s a relief. He looked obscene in those things.”
Mirage rolled his eyes.
Ex took a pear and began to peel and eat that, too, while Meridian leaned against the balcony rail and lit another smoke, staring without blinking those obsidian-colored eyes.
Ex stood at the breakfast bar.
“This condo is nice as hell. Everything looks custom-made. I don’t do much with my place. I’m hardly there to enjoy it, so why bother.”
“Yeah, uh, I guess same for me,” Mirage agreed, hoping neither of them brought up the obvious while he stood there in nothing but a towel.
They were silent for a long time, long enough for Mirage to become uncomfortable.
“We saw Grace almost break your handler’s shoulder off for touching you.” Ex looked serious. “When did you two develop feelings and start fuckin’? Especially when you’re not supposed to have, no less, feel, that kind of pleasure.”
Mirage closed his mouth so he didn’t look like a fish flung onto a pier.
Meridian
Grace came out with perfect timing for Mirage to avoid the question.
Meridian was offended that Grace wasn’t the least bit worried about a killer like him walking so close behind him.
Ex was now in front of his partner, and Grace pressed his chest to his partner’s back as he punched in the code to open the door to his apartment.
They were barely inside when Ex huffed, “Let’s get down to business.”
Mirage went into the back to put on some clothes, then reappeared with a laptop.
“First thing we need to figure out is how we’re going to keep the meeting with Lion and Omega out of the debriefing and feed the director a halfway believable story.”
“I think the first thing we do is shock the hell out of them and throw them off their game,” Meridian spoke up. “We’ll go to debriefing together instead of you two at thirteen hundred and us at eighteen hundred. And we go in full field attire, looking prepared for battle instead of a meeting.”
Grace looked as if he agreed.
“I’m the master of shit-talking,” Ex bragged as if that was a noble quality. “I’ll answer the questions in debriefing and run them in circles with asinine details.”
Mirage was sitting in his recliner, clacking away on his keyboard, when he piped in.
“Grace, every department is probably in fear of you right now after what you did to Spectre. No one will want to badger you or me. And, Meridian, since you look evil enough to be Satan’s first cousin, I think you should use your face to keep them from getting too demanding.”
Meridian flipped him off.
“Now, everyone has their roles.”
Ex noted, “Except you.”
“I’m gonna grab one of the higher-ups’ badges so we can infiltrate the director’s floor and file rooms.”
Meridian didn’t think that was a good idea. It was too risky.
“How the hell are you gonna do that without someone catching you? Guards patrol the halls all day and night.”
“I won’t get caught, trust me. By the time they think they saw someone on the cameras…I’ll already be gone.”
Mirage closed his computer. “I’ve just memorized the evening hours for the lab and the guard rotation schedule. We’ll have little time to spare to find Benton and the other Ravens. We do this tonight.”
“We’ll see you in time for debriefing,” Ex said before he and Meridian left.
Grace
The elevator descended to their floor. When it opened, Ex and Meridian stood there in their black-on-black everything.
They looked lethally sexy.
Mirage walked in first and pressed his back to one side of the elevator. Grace followed and leaned against Mirage’s chest, feeling the thumping of his heart against his spine.