Leader Lion (Protection, Inc 5)

Fiona

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Fiona Payne woke up blindfolded on a cold floor, with her ankles tied together and her hands bound behind her back. Her head ached, and she felt dizzy and nauseated.

I’ve been drugged, she thought. Or hit over the head.

Her thoughts felt slow and sluggish, as if they were swimming in some thick liquid. She forced herself to breathe deeply and concentrate.

What’s the last thing I remember...?

Piece by piece, her memories returned. She was undercover on My Fair Lady. She’d bribed a stagehand to leave the production, then showed up looking for work and taken his place. But in the weeks she’d spent working on the play itself, she’d become satisfied that nobody she worked with was involved in any plot.

That left the producers, who had offices outside of the theatre. She’d then bribed one of their assistants and taken her place, which enabled her to get access to their computers. But once again, she hadn’t found anything suspicious. Then it had occurred to her that men of their generation often weren’t very computer-savvy, and might be doing things the old-fashioned way. So she’d decided to do another and more thorough search of the offices themselves.

And she’d found something. One of the producers had a secret drawer in his desk. She’d used the hidden catch to open it...

...and something had pricked her finger.

I was careless, she thought. I missed a booby trap.

And someone had found her.

Was he still there?

She lay quietly and listened. Yes. She could hear breathing. Several people breathing. Two? Three? More? She couldn’t tell.

Fiona considered her options. She was tied up with rope. If she shifted, her bonds would snap and her blindfold would be pulled or torn off. Normally she’d never shift in front of people who didn’t already know about shifters, and she bet her captors didn’t, or they’d have used handcuffs and chains just in case. But she’d do it if it was the only way to save her life. Her enemies would look like lunatics if they claimed she’d turned into a leopard. They probably wouldn’t say a word for that exact reason.

And if they didn’t even know shifters existed, she’d not only have the element of surprise on her side, she’d have the element of shock.

On the other hand, she had no idea who she was up against or even how many of them there were. Based on the booby trap and the way she’d been tied up, she faced hardened and experienced criminals. They’d have guns, for sure. Shifters healed fast, but a bullet in the head would kill her as easily as it would kill a human. And any professional gunman confronted with a surprise snow leopard attack would be as likely to shoot and keep shooting as he would to drop the gun in terror.

Lie in wait, hissed her snow leopard. Let your prey come to you.

Good plan, Fiona replied silently.

She twitched as if she was just then waking up, then rolled toward her side, hoping to feel the concealed pistol she carried in a thigh holster. But it was gone.

Dammit.

But she wasted no time, but carried on with her plan. Fiona twitched again, then moaned. Making her voice high and shaky, she said, “Hello? Is anyone there? Help me!”

“Cut the bullshit,” came an unfamiliar male voice. “We’re on to you.”

“What?” She tried to sit up, then moaned again. “My head hurts. Why can’t I move?”

“I said, cut the bullshit.”

Footsteps stalked toward her, and the toe of a boot prodded her in the ribs. Fiona had been expecting that, but she let out a scream. Even if they did know who she was, there was no harm letting them think they had her at their mercy.

Play weak, hissed her snow leopard with satisfaction. Then rip out their throats!

I’m not ripping out anyone’s throat, Fiona replied. I’m never going to rip out anyone’s throat. Haven’t you figured that out by now?

Her snow leopard gave a discontented hiss. Clearly, she had not.

Rough hands yanked off her blindfold. Fiona blinked at the bright electric lights. As she’d expected, she was on the floor of the office she’d broken into. Her purse, which contained a cell phone and her other gun, was across the room, far out of her reach. At least no one could use it to identify her; all her IDs were fake, and the phone had no contacts or true information on it.

The producer with the booby-trapped desk, Mr. Moore, stood at the back wall, looking nervous. Sweat shone on his bald head, though the room was cool. He was clearly no threat. But the burly man looming over her, whom she’d never seen before, held his gun like he knew how to use it. And so did the other two men who flanked him. All three had the dead eyes and blank faces of professional killers.

Yep, thought Fiona. We’re definitely lying in wait.

But there was a bright side. Her captors were clearly hit men, which confirmed that My Fair Lady was connected with organized crime. Now all she needed to do was find out who their boss was and who he’d sent to sabotage Mars: The Musical, and the case would be solved.

But Fiona was having a hard time focusing on the bright side. Unpleasant tingles of fear crept up and down her spine. As a bodyguard, she was used to dangerous situations. She was used to being outnumbered. And she was used to being alone. But when she looked from those dead-eyed men to the barrels of their guns, a memory popped into her mind, so vivid that it felt like she was living it all over again:

Dry leaves crunched underfoot as Fiona ran to rejoin her teammates, adrenaline pumping through her veins, her nerves singing with the fierce joy of a battle fought and a mission accomplished.

Of all her teammates, she was closest to Shane, and she’d been frantic when he’d disappeared. But they’d tracked down his captors, a black ops agency called Apex, and broken him loose. Fiona had personally set the charges that blew up the base he’d been held in, destroying the Apex headquarters so they could never harm him again.

“It’s done,” she started to call as she reached the grove that was their rendezvous point. “I blew up the—”

And then she saw Shane, sprawled on his back on the forest floor with his shirt soaked in blood. He was gasping for breath, his face ashen, his eyes closed. A woman she didn’t recognize tore his shirt open while Ellie slapped an oxygen mask over his face.

Fiona must have asked what happened, though she didn’t remember speaking, because Hal said, “He took a bullet to the chest.”

She sank down beside him, clutching at his hand. It lay limp and cold in her grasp. Her friend was dying, and there was nothing she could do but hold his hand and watch...

Her snow leopard growled, jolting Fiona back to reality.

Your packmate survived, hissed the big cat. And you will not get shot. We are too quick and clever for that.

Right, Fiona replied, forcing herself to keep calm. And now I know which producer is in with organized crime, so mission accomplished. Sort of.

The burly man had said, “We’re on to you,” but he hadn’t said who he thought she was. She’d constructed her cover identity well. Mr. Moore had probably found her in his office and called whoever his organized crime contact was—probably the same person who had arranged to have his desk booby trapped—and that person had sent in the hit men. Probably all they knew about her was that she carried a concealed weapon and had tried to break into the producer’s desk.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she begged. “I’m sorry I tried to steal from you! But I didn’t get any of your money. You can search me.”

The hit men looked unconvinced. But Mr. Moore shot her a confused look, then asked the burly man, “She was after money, not information? Kurson, should we call the cops?”

“Shut up,” said Kurson. “You’ve already said too much. And no, we’re not calling the fucking cops. First, we find out for sure who she is and what she wanted. Then...” He glanced down at Fiona. “Then we decide what to do with her.”

Then you kill me, she thought, chilled.

Fiona had seen his face, and Mr. Moore had given away his name. Even if she did convince them she was a thief, they wouldn’t turn her over to the police. They wouldn’t want law enforcement poking around their business, and the police would get very suspicious if she told them about the booby-trapped desk with its drugged needle. Not to mention that rather than calling 911 immediately, they’d tied her up and held her at gunpoint while debating what to do with her.

Fiona switched tactics, though she was rapidly losing faith in the possibility of talking her way out of this. She dropped the frightened expression, and said, “I’m with the FBI. If you take off right now, you have a chance to run for the border before my team breaks down the door. If you shoot me, they’ll track you down no matter where you are.”

She looked straight at Mr. Moore. “That goes for you too. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t personally pull the trigger. If they kill me, you just conspired to murder a federal agent. That’s a death penalty offense.”

The producer went white. Turning to Kurson, he said, “What do we do? I don’t want to run for the border! Maybe we can make some kind of deal...”

Without taking his cold gaze from Fiona, Kurson replied, “What you do is leave this room. You called us in. We’ll take it from here.”

Mr. Moore turned around and began to hurry out.

Fiona called after him, “Leave now, and it’s still conspi—”

Kurson kicked her in the ribs. “Shut up.”

The door slammed, leaving her alone with the three men.

Shift now and take my chances? Fiona wondered. Or wait it out?

They obviously weren’t going to kill her just yet—not without interrogating her to find out who she was and why she’d been spying on Mr. Moore. If she could play out the interrogation long enough, she’d miss her daily check-in with Protection, Inc., and her team would realize she was in trouble.

A cold finger of anxiety traced down her spine at the thought of exactly how they might interrogate her. Even an hour or so might feel like a very, very long time.

Biting her lip, she thought, I’ll wait. At least long enough for them to decide there’s nothing I can do to them while I’m tied up, and stop aiming their guns right at my head.

Kurson snapped his fingers. “Let’s take her now.”

Fiona kept her face expressionless, but inwardly she readied herself. If they were going to transport her somewhere to question more easily, she should have a better chance to jump them along the way. All else aside, one of them would have to drive. If she was really lucky, they’d stick her in the trunk. She imagined them telling their boss that the trunk had suddenly burst open en route, leaving them with no captive and no explanation other than that maybe she’d been carried off by the huge white leopard they’d seen running away, and had to suppress a smile.

One of the hit men stepped forward and knelt beside her. She had a split second to see the needle in his hand before he stuck it in her shoulder.

This is just not my day, she thought as everything went black.