Agent (CENTURIES series: Book #3)

16

• The wonderful Bob cover is made by the lovely The_Creative_Fire - when she sent me this, I confess I fell out of my chair from laughter. It was absolutely brilliant. Dear Bob. Give her some love, guys, •

Sitting on my couch with Vince on the floor in front of me, I was stitching up his shoulder where a bullet had went through and through. Why exactly, I was unsure. My orders were to clearly kill him, but I couldn't just yet. With him dead, I'd never know what he had done with Zac.

I pulled on the suture and made Vince hiss when I dragged the needle through his skin. He had refused any painkillers, had only wanted a sip of my gin. I had said no. He didn't deserve it. Coming here asking for my help after nearly ruining my career? I was this close to just letting him bleed out, if it wasn't because I needed to know about Zac. "What did you do to him?"

"To who?" Vince asked, grimacing when I pulled a little harder on the suture than necessary.

"To Zac," I spat. "Our tech guy, he's missing. He's the only one who could help you get that tracker out of the USB."

"But I don't have the USB anymore, dolcezza."

I huffed and cut the last suture, then taped a large medical bandaid over his fresh stitches before getting up. "You're a goddamn asshole. I hope know how lucky you are. The bullet missed everything important, so you'll be fine in a few weeks. Sadly."

Vince slowly got up as well, wincing as he did. His whole body was battered black and blue, looking as if he had been pushed through a meat grinder. "Thank you."

"For calling you an asshole? I got so many more vulgarisms where that came from."

"For patching me up. Thank you for that."

"I don't know why I did that," I muttered to myself, going into my kitchen to wash off the blood on my hands.

I heard Vince take a seat on my couch again, grunting painfully as he did. "Because you like me. It would make it easier on yourself if you just admit to it."

I scoffed. "Besides from the sex, give me one good reason as to why I should like you. You stole from my country, murdered good agents, abducted me, broke into my apartment, made my fish your accomplice, then proceeded to abduct our best tech guy."

"Bob was willing and I didn't take your guy," Vince replied. "I wouldn't need to, we have our own guy."

"No one is better than Zac."

"Didn't say he was better, just said we had our own guy."

"So why are you here?" I finally said, drying my hands off and walking into my living room again, crossing my arms. He looked pathetic sitting half-upright in my couch, completely battered. "Surely you didn't just come here because you needed stitching."

"We need to talk."

"Great. You can start off by telling me who did that to you."

"The Russians."

"The ones who found your envelope?"