Taking Sides (ARC Operatives Book 2) (7 page)

Russi stalked over to her, ignoring her words and then grabbed her by the shoulder.

“Hey-“ she protested, trying to yank away, but his grip was like a vice around her.

“See, he talked about you,” Russi said, his eyes glittering in his face as she stared up at him. The unease in her stomach turned to outright fear when he twisted her around, grabbing her other shoulder and then slipping his hands down the length of her arms to bind around her wrists. He forced her forward before she could breathe, and she found herself pinned over the kitchen counter that took up half of the inside wall of her apartment. All in the blink of a second, and then she realized why he’d been assigned to train Nico. His augmentation wasn’t super hearing, but super speed, just like Nico. Panic fluttered in her throat, and she wondered what the hell he was doing. She stilled herself, thinking up ways she could get out of the arm hold he had her locked in.

“He mentioned how clever you were, when I was training him during your first year,” Russi was still talking, his voice a burr in her ear as he transferred her wrists into one of his hands, his other hand going to her hip. Her heart started pounding in the cage of her chest and she made a soft noise of panic. What the hell was he doing? His fingers dug into the pocket of her jeans and she squirmed. “I know you kept a copy of the video sessions on a USB stick, you always back your work up, I know you do. Nico told me that about you.”

“Russi, what are you doing?” her voice was shaking and she tensed as his fingers dug into her thigh through the thin fabric of her pocket.

“C’mon, sweetheart, where did you stash it?” He yanked his hand out and shoved it across her hips to feel into her other pocket. Daria’s eyes were wide in her face and then she jerked at her hands, twisting her shoulders.

“Stash what!? You think I took a USB from the site?” She tried jerking again, but he held her tight, his hand shifting to her back pockets. “Oh fuck
no
,” she hissed as his hand crawled into the first one, his hand hot through her jeans, making her feel sick to her stomach. “I didn’t take anything from site? Seriously, Russi, cut it out, what the fuck is wrong with you?” She growled at him and tried to knock her head backwards, catch him in the face by surprise. He grunted and then laughed.

“Nice try, kid.” He shoved her down hard against the counter, pain exploding along her cheek when her cheek made rough impact with the tile. “I’ve been training since you were trying on dresses for Homecoming. I know you made a damn backup of the video footage, and I am gonna find it. Is it in your bags? Or somewhere else on your body?” He leaned in close and she could feel his breath hot on the back of her neck. Full out panic was starting to set in as he rambled on manically, his hand feeling over her clothes. “Don’t think I won’t go looking, sweetheart, because I don’t got a problem with crossing the line to get what I want.”

Her breath was coming hard and fast in her lungs and ice trailed down her spine at his words.

“I didn’t make a copy, Russi, I swear to god, let me go right now and I won’t report this to our SO, okay? I didn’t even have time to make a copy of anything. Why would that even matter to you, anyway?” During training she’d always copied her mission files just until the debrief happened, so she could review any footage she’d taken in prep for it. Not everyone bothered, but she liked to go the extra mile since she hadn’t scored the highest in her recall classes and going over video surveillance tended to pique her memory.

“We’re a little past that point, darlin’,” he said, a dangerous lilt in his voice that made her decide she wasn’t giving him another inch of benefit. Her eyes rolled as she looked for anything close enough to use as a weapon, and she suppressed a shiver when everything remotely useful was out of reach. All she had was her body, and his strength vastly outmatched her own. “If we gotta do this the hard way, the hard way it is.” He kneed her thighs apart roughly and pinned her heavily into the kitchen counter. The tile’s edge bit into her stomach and all the air left her lungs. She strained to breathe as his hand worked around to the front of her jeans.

“What the fuck,” she gasped out as he flicked open the button there and unzipped them. His hand dug inside her pants and then yanked them down. Daria cried out and bucked against him as her jeans slid down her thighs to catch on her knees. “Fuck! Russi, you asshole.” She strained and jerked in his arms, lifting her foot up to try and kick at him. He had to reach down and grab at her thigh, his nails digging in her skin.

“Keep fighting, I like it,” his words were dark, husky with lust and fear bolted right to her stomach. She cried out and then screamed when his hand slid into the waistband of her underwear.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“I’m gonna kick your ass,” Daria choked out through clenched teeth as his fingers scraped over her skin. Hot tears were welling up in her eyes and she willed them not to spill over. She wasn’t going to cry, wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her hurt like that.

“Not likely, you’re too slow,” his voice was like oil creeping down her skin, and she felt a rise of bile in the back of her throat as his hand slid over her thigh. “Who do you think inspired them to augment Nicolai? I was the first of our kind, he’s just a damn copy. There’s nowhere you can run that I can’t beat you to.”

She inhaled when his fingers curved around the front of her thigh, thumb sliding along the her bikini line and anger flared in her belly. His head was close behind hers this time, and he’d let up on her neck in order to search her. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the pain, then slammed her head back hard, catching him right between his eyes.

He cursed and his hand loosened on her wrists for a split second, but it was enough for her to twist out of his grip. She stumbled sideways, her legs catching on her jeans as she tumbled to the floor hard. He was after her in a moment, crashing to the floor and grabbing onto her hips. Daria shrieked, kicking out, her foot catching him across the chin.

Russi grunted in pain, his fingers digging deep into her skin as he yanked her backwards. Absently she felt something warm dripping on her legs, and when she looked back she realized it was his blood, she’d broken his nose. Seeing the red on his face galvanized her, adrenaline flooding her system as she scrambled across the floor. There was a thundering noise in the distance, and just as she was feet from the door, he grabbed her by the ankle and yanked her back. Her skin scraped over the floor as she was dragged and she screamed.

Daria reached out, flailing one hand and wrapped her fingers around the handle of one of her kitchen drawers. She yanked hard, pulling it right out and swung it backwards with a grunt. Utensils scattered everywhere, hitting her arm and her back, but she caught Russi by surprise right across the face with the sharp corner of the wooden drawer. He let out a roar and went to launch himself at her.

She rolled to the side as he came down on top of her, his body crushing hers into the floor. Her breath exploded out of her lungs with the force of him slamming himself down onto her. She stared at his face, his smile sprawling across it, triumph in his eyes. His lips pulled further apart, fear thrumming in her ears and deafening her. He flinched, time slowed, and she heard the door swinging open. It battered against the wall, there was a streak of color above her and then Russi was gone, his weight vanished from on top of her.

Arms wrapped around her from behind, and the world went from silent and slow to loud and bright in a blink. Nicolai was on top of Russi, his fists a blur. A spatter of blood hit her in the face and she was yanked backwards by her unseen captor. She cried out and elbowed them in the gut hard.

“Christ, Griffin, it’s me, dammit, stop fighting-“ Balfour was hanging onto her, pulling her out of the apartment. She could hear Nicolai hollering and snarling, the sound of his fists wet and thudding against flesh. Rykov brushed past them both without a look and ran into the apartment.

Daria thought her heart was going to explode, and she twisted in Balfour’s arms to stare at him. What the hell was happening?

“Stay here,” Balfour ordered her and then ran into the apartment leaving her in the hall, half-naked and dazed. She thudded back against the nearest wall and slid down it, her legs refusing to support her. Multiple sets of black boots stomped past her and through her front door. She closed her eyes slowly. Nicolai was in her apartment. How? Why? He was back in Montana, or should have been, under arrest. Her thoughts were swimming, her brain foggy, and there was a pain on the side of her head pulsing into slow awareness. She lifted her fingers to her temple, feeling warmth and wetness coating them. She pulled her hand away and stared at it. Red blood dripped down the length of her fingers.

“Oh,” she said to nobody, as Balfour and his twin emerged in the doorway of her apartment. She blinked at him and then he was a set of triplets, staring and pointing at her, asking her questions, or so she thought. “Stop talking all at once,” she ordered the three Balfours, and then slumped over sideways. The men looked over their shoulders and yelled something, but the noise was fuzzy and reverberated around in her brain painfully.

Closing her eyes seemed like a great idea, she thought, everything would be better if she just closed her eyes.

~*~

“Wake up,
Mila
,” Nicolai’s voice was rough, and the familiar weight of his hand on hers brought her forward, into the present. Daria stared up at the ceiling of his apartment, the scene of his cologne and soap floating crisp on her senses. There’d been EMTs, an emergency room, doctors, an MRI, a few stitches in her scalp. Balfour and Rykov had been at her side for most of it. Then Nicolai had pushed open the curtains that surrounded her emergency room bed, her heart had folded up into itself and she cried for the first time since she’d hit the floor under Russi. That had been the night before.

“Hey,” Daria’s own throat was a little husky and sore from too much sleep and from screaming for her life when her new partner had decided to try to give her a cavity search and then beat the crap out of her. She still felt stupid for letting him get the drop on her, even if she knew that the most hardened regular agents had difficulty keeping up with an augmented. Somehow she felt she should have been able to do more damage to him, or get away, even if that was a ridiculous expectation to hold herself to.

“Rykov and Balfour are downstairs, they have new information for us both.” Nico’s blue eyes were warm as he searched her face for… something. His arms slipped around her and he pulled her to sit up, mindful of her stitches as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Do you think you are comfortable with a visit just now?”

Daria sighed. Her head was aching, but not so much that she couldn’t put up with a little visit from her senior agents, and her curiosity was piqued. She wanted to know more about what they’d found out. She was still shaken from the hairpin turn her heart had taken from the moment she’d thought Nicolai had betrayed him to when he’d been preliminarily cleared of immediate wrong-doing.

Luckily the story had been sorted out quickly enough for them to chase her and Russi back to New York. It was all rather hazy to her, but she’d put her questions on hold to focus on getting better and being able to look at things without her head feeling like it would split open.

“Griffin, we brought cinnamon buns, so get
your
buns down here,” Balfour called up the stairs cheerfully, and she couldn’t help the smile that threatened to crack her dry lips.

“I think I’m good to see them,” she said and then took Nicolai’s hand as he helped her out of bed. She wasn’t as steady on her feet as she would have liked to be.

A few minutes later she was ensconced on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket that Nico forced on her. Rykov was oddly casual, sitting on the floor by the coffee table, her red nails raking through her black hair, both stark against her pale skin. Balfour was tapping a file folder in his hands as he sat on one of Nico’s leather armchairs.

The man in question, Nicolai himself, was hovering right behind her, his hand on her shoulder like he was afraid to let her go. Things were… not repaired between them, but better. They hadn’t exactly had the time for an in-depth conversation about everything that had gone down. Now that she was awake though, she wanted to know exactly what had happened, and depending on what the three of them told her she’d make her decision as to whether she’d be returning to her studio apartment or staying at Nico’s.

Her heart clenched tight in her chest as indecision warred inside of her. She needed the full story, and would’t unbend until she had it.

“Someone promised me cinnamon buns,” Daria said weakly, drawing the blanket tighter around her. Without a word Nico was gone and then at her side again, a steaming cinnamon roll on a plate with a fork tucked in against it in his hand. She didn’t know what to say, other than a quiet thank you, and took the plate from him.

“So,” Balfour said, tapping the folder in his hand faster against his palm. He gave Daria a tight smile and then closed his eyes.

“Russi was a plant,” Rykov said, apparently running out of patience waiting for Balfour to talk. “We reviewed the surveillance, and while you were asleep he snuck off more than once to visit the camp, once he knew we were locked down and weren’t going to move.”

Daria thought on that. She was a heavy sleeper, she wouldn’t have noticed if he’d snuck out of their cabin, but it surprised her none the less. Nico sat beside her, his hand on her knee over the blanket. She glanced at him and his gaze met hers, challenging her to tell him that she didn’t want him touching her.