Undercover Wolf Page 14

  Caron looked like he was tempted to say something, but then appeared to think better of it and stepped past Long Hair. Harley applauded his common sense.

  She tried to stay relaxed as she and Misty moved forward through the line. Jestina’s makeup was top notch. There was nothing to worry about. That didn’t keep her heart from thudding extra fast when she finally stood in front of Long Hair. The scar on her chest from where the bastard had stabbed her started to tingle.

  When Long Hair scanned her invitation, she peeked over the edge of the iPad to see what was on the screen. Crap—not only did it show Abella’s photo, but where she was from, what schools she’d attended, even her blood type. It was the picture that worried Harley the most. At the bottom of the mountain, they’d simply crossed her assumed name off a list, but this was an entirely different situation. What if her makeup wasn’t good enough and this a-hole realized she wasn’t who she was supposed to be? They’d kill her and Misty for sure.

  Long Hair looked up from his iPad to study her closely while the guard ran the metal detector over her entire body. Harley tried to project an air of calm, entitled confidence as Long Hair scrolled through the info on the screen. Thank goodness she and her teammates hadn’t attempted to bring weapons up here. That would have gotten them in trouble regardless of how good their makeup was.

  “Ms. Herrera,” he said slowly, drawing out each syllable much more than necessary before glancing at Misty. “And your plus one.”

  His gaze snapped back to Harley, his expression verging on suspicious. The scar on her chest burned even more, and she tensed, knowing things were about to go to hell in a handbag in another minute. She tensed, ready to take the guy down before he could say a word—or disappear.

  “Have a nice evening,” he said suddenly, offering her the card, then holding on to it longer than necessary before letting go, his eyes still locked with hers.

  She resisted the urge to shudder.

  Creepy much?

  “Seamus,” a woman’s voice said from Harley’s right. “Stop torturing the potential buyers. Boc wants them inside so we can start the auction as soon as possible.”

  Harley turned to see a pretty woman in her late twenties or early thirties, with long, silky, dark hair, walking toward them with a smile, a man at her side who looked so much like her that he had to be her brother.

  “Oh, come on, Brielle,” Seamus said with a laugh, motioning Harley and Misty through. “Can’t a man have any fun?”

  “When it holds up the boss’s profits, then no. Nothing gets in the way of business. You should know that better than anyone.”

  Several other men arrived with iPads in hand, presumably to help Seamus check in the other guests. Harley quickly hurried past, Misty at her side. As they did, Harley glanced over her shoulder at the tall, slender woman. So, that was the woman who knew how to find supernaturals. Harley sniffed the air, trying to see if Brielle smelled supernatural. If she was, she didn’t have a distinct scent Harley could pick up. Maybe Brielle was human. Either that or Harley’s nose had decided to stop working again. It seemed the only thing she could consistently smell was Sawyer. Which, while very pleasant, wasn’t so helpful right now.

  Harley and Misty followed a red carpet toward the main building, bright lights illuminating the stacked-stone construction, terracotta roof tiles, and stone archways over the windows and door. But as breathtaking as the Holy Trinity Monastery was, it was the well-armed men positioned around the area that captured her attention. Most were facing outward, alert for exterior threats, but it was hard to miss the ones focused on the people arriving on the tram. If things suddenly went to crap, the men would probably fire at anything that moved, including the potential buyers.

  “We need to get our hands on one of those iPads if we can,” Misty whispered. “With all that information on there, it’s almost a certainty they’re connected to a central server of some kind. If I can get in there, I could get everything we need on these people.”

  Harley nodded. She’d watched Misty merge with a computer before and while it was amazing to see, it was also more than a little disconcerting.

  “Misty and I made it through another checkpoint up top,” Harley said softly into her radio, then quickly explained about Seamus and Brielle before telling them about Misty’s idea.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Jake replied. “But be careful. And stay away from Brielle. We have no reason to think she knows you’re both supernaturals, but let’s not give her a reason to suspect you.”

  “We’ll be searching for where the captives and the monks are being held,” Sawyer added. “I’ll also find a place to stash your weapons.”

  Harley didn’t respond to his comment about the weapons, mostly because she was too focused on how good it felt to hear his voice. A weight she hadn’t known was there lifted off her chest, making breathing a bit easier now.

  The large room she and Misty stepped into was the quintessential image of what Harley expected a medieval monastery to look like, right down to the beautiful wall murals, soaring ceilings, and rough flagstone floors. She supposed it was the main chapel, though it was difficult to tell for sure since there wasn’t any sign of all the usual religious items that’d almost certainly been there before Boc took over. All that remained now was a large rectangular space with a raised dais at one end along with several dozen tallboy cocktail tables draped in black fabric here and there. Longer banquet tables on either side of the room held a buffet of assorted food and beverages that smelled delicious. And expensive.

  The murmur of conversation grew louder in the room as more people began to fill the space. Harley glanced around to see Forrest and Erin casually chatting with Mr. Caron and several other well-dressed excuses for human beings. Everyone knew what was about to happen in here in a few minutes and no one seemed to care. They merely drank their expensive champagne and ate their dainty hors d’oeuvres.

  “I’m going to see if I can find one of those iPads,” Misty whispered, drifting away to disappear down a side corridor.

  Harley pasted a smile on her face as two middle-aged women dripping in jewelry came over to chat. Her Spanish accent wasn’t the best, so she had to be careful not to slip up. It was hard making nice with a group of people who got enjoyment from purchasing a supernatural creature. She couldn’t help wondering what they’d say if they knew she was a werewolf. Would they scream and run away or demand to be allowed to bid on her?

  “We found the captives and the monks,” Sawyer announced softly over the radio in her ear. “They’re being held in the dormitory area, but there are too many guards around for us to free them without starting a major firefight. We’re going to have to stick with the plan and try to rescue them as they’re being moved off the mountain.”

  Crap.

  “Adriana and I are topside now,” Elliot reported, interrupting whatever else Sawyer might have been about to say. “They’re calling for some of the guards to help move the captives, so I think the auction is about to start.”

  A few minutes later, Harley saw several guards, including Sawyer, slip into the room and take up positions along the outer perimeter of the space. A tremor of concern slid down her back at the sight of all the tactical gear they wore and their expressionless demeanor. While the buyers in the room obviously assumed the men were here for their protection, something told her, once the shooting started, the guards would gladly shoot every rich snob in the place to stop her and her teammates.

  She casually glanced at Sawyer, noticing he kept to the farthest, darkest corner of the room. To anyone else, it would seem like he was completely focused on the area he was guarding, but Harley knew he was taking everything in—marking the location of each threat, the number of windows and doors, and the complete lack of cover the room provided if this turned into a firefight. Which it almost certainly would at some point.

  “Weapons are in the bottom of
an empty trash can in the storage room near the restrooms,” Sawyer murmured over the radio.

  He was good. She didn’t even see his lips move.

  Harley wandered over to the buffet to help herself to some hors d’oeuvres. Tiny plate in hand, she nibbled on a canapé as she strolled around the room admiring the murals on the wall. When she reached the corridor near where Sawyer stood guard, she casually set the empty plate on a nearby serving tray, then headed down the hall toward the restrooms. Slipping into the storage closet, she quickly grabbed her small-frame Glock and backup magazine, tucking them into the holsters attached to the waistband at the back of her tailored pantsuit. Unlike at the club in Paris, she and Misty—along with Erin—had opted for slacks on this rescue mission, instead of dresses and high heels. When things got crazy tonight, they wanted to able to move quickly.

  Peeking out the door to make sure no one had seen her, Harley walked back into the main room, taking a glass of champagne from the tray a nearby server offered as Erin passed by and walked down the same hallway to get her weapon. A few moments later, Forrest did the same. Harley would feel a lot better after all of them were armed.

  The black velvet drapes at the back of the dais rustled, catching her attention, and Harley watched as a big man wheeled a large, cloth-covered box out from behind it. She frowned when she heard something sloshing around and realized it was full of some kind of liquid. To say she was curious was an understatement.

  She was a little surprised one man was strong enough to handle the box. Then again, that guy was at least seven feet tall and muscular as hell. Harley did a double take. The guy’s skin might not be green right now, but she was sure he was the scaly shifter they’d fought in Morocco.

  Harley was relaying that information over the radio when Seamus stepped out from behind the curtain with someone else she recognized, this time from Paris—the guy she’d shot as he tried to escape with Adriana. She’d recognize that beat-up leather jacket anywhere.

  “The guy in the leather jacket I shot in Paris is here, too,” she added softly into her mic.

  The guests fell silent as the large crate was finally positioned in the middle of the dais and the big man who’d been pushing it moved aside. It was like they all knew they were about to see something no one else had probably ever seen and were holding their breath in anticipation.

  Stepping up to the box, Seamus pulled the satin cloth covering it away with a dramatic flourish. All around the room, gasps of surprise filled the air.

  Harley blinked. What she’d assumed was a box turned out to be a glass tank filled to the very top with seawater and inside floated a girl who couldn’t be any more than sixteen or seventeen at most, long, pale hair as fine as corn silk swirling around her. Naked from the waist up, she tried to find purchase on the inside of the slippery tank with one arm while attempting to hide her breasts with the other. Her pale green eyes were filled with so much fear and anguish, Harley wanted to cry.

  Dragging her gaze away from the girl’s, she saw the girl’s lower body was covered in blue and green iridescent scales like a fish, ending in a webbed tail twice as wide as her shoulders.

  Crap. The girl was a mermaid.

  “I don’t think I need to tell anyone what you’re looking at,” a deeply accented voice said.

  Harley turned her attention away from the poor creature in the tank to see a man stepping onto the dais. In his midforties, with curly, brown hair and a beard, he had gray eyes the color of steel.

  There was a sharp intake of breath over the radio, but Harley ignored it as the man stopped beside the mermaid’s tank. The young girl darted to the opposite side, like she’d do anything to put space between her and the man.

  While the man didn’t introduce himself, Harley instinctively knew he had to be Boc. One look at him convinced her the guy was soulless. You had to be to kidnap a mermaid from her ocean home and sell her like a piece of meat.

  “The tank will be made available to the winning bidder,” Boc continued, reaching over to rap his knuckles loudly on the glass and smiling when the mermaid winced in pain. “If you’d rather not transport it, however, we’ll gladly drag her out. Her human legs will reform as soon as she dries off. Though I feel obliged to tell you now, the transformation is extremely painful for her. The screams she lets out during the process are unlike anything you’ve ever heard in your lives.” He chuckled. “Which, in my opinion, are well worth the purchase price alone.”

  It took everything Harley had not to pull her gun and shoot Boc then and there, even as everyone around her beamed. These people were sick.

  “Since this is our first item tonight, let’s start the bidding on the low side just for the sake of fun,” Boc continued. “Say…five hundred thousand euros?”

  Harley only got more disgusted as the people around her eagerly began to outbid each other. If she hadn’t already been willing to risk her life to save the captives, one look at these sickos would have changed her mind.

  Movement out the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she turned her head to see that Sawyer had stepped out of the shadows. He seemed visibly stunned as he stared at the dais, his face paler than she’d ever seen it.

  She weaved through the crowd toward the buffet, feigning disinterest in the bidding as it quickly climbed over eight million euros and pretending to focus on the plates of fancy food and glasses of champagne. The move took her closer to Sawyer and allowed her to talk to him without anyone noticing.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked quietly. “I know that what they’re doing to that poor mermaid is disgusting, but you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Almost.” He looked around as if scanning the room for threats, then whispered, “Boc is Yegor Shevchenko, the Ukrainian terrorist I put away four years ago. The one who’s supposed to be in a Turkish prison.”

  Chapter 11

  Sawyer’s head spun. How the hell could Yegor Shevchenko be standing here in a room full of morally bankrupt bastards auctioning off supernatural creatures? The man had been sentenced to twenty years in Diyarbakir, the worst hellhole of a prison on the planet. The thought of him surviving long enough to even attempt an escape was laughable. The fact that he’d obviously done it—without MI6 ever knowing—was terrifying.

  Or did his bosses at MI6 know and simply never bothered to tell him?

  A few feet away, Harley did a double take. “Are you sure?”

  “He’s right,” Erin’s voice came over the radio before he could say anything. “I’ve been standing here telling myself it couldn’t possibly be that son of a bitch, but Sawyer’s right. It’s Yegor.”

  Harley locked eyes with Sawyer’s, the look in them reminding him of their conversation the other night in the villa. The realization that she’d been right about the murders of his former teammates being tied to the traffickers was like another kick to the bollocks. Yegor was tracking down and killing everyone he blamed for his imprisonment and the death of his brother.

  Was kidnapping supernaturals and auctioning them off to the highest bidder a complex scheme to lure Sawyer and his team here, so Yegor could kill them all in one place? It seemed impossible to fathom, but how else could Sawyer explain nearly all of the remaining members of that original MI6 team being hand delivered to the man who wanted them dead?

  Shouts of excitement from the front of the room snapped Sawyer out of his musings. Damn, he must have zoned out for a while. The mermaid and her water-filled tank were gone from the dais to be replaced by a despondent young man in his twenties. Naked from the waist up, he had a pair of feathered wings hanging down his back all the way to the floor.

  Bloody frigging wings!

  The winged supernatural fetched even more than the mermaid and was quickly led away even as another captive took his place. This one was an older man who looked so completely ordinary in comparison to the previous supernaturals, it defied logic
to think he was one. Within seconds, ice began to form on the palms of the man’s hands, filling his palms. A minute later, the bidding on the old man was over, happening so fast it made Sawyer wonder how many other bids he’d missed while he’d been trying to figure out how the hell Yegor was free.

  “I have to get back and make it look like I’m interested in bidding,” Harley said softly.

  He gave her a nod, watching as she slipped into the crowd of people gathered around the dais.

  Sawyer stayed where he was, watching as one supernatural after another was auctioned off. He didn’t catch what most of their abilities were because he was listening to Jake and Caleb on the radio saying the supernaturals already purchased were being taken back to the dorms instead of to the tram. Jes chimed in, saying she and Rory were topside now as well, letting them know Rory had slipped away to check on the monks. At the same time, he heard Harley trying to get into contact with Misty, who hadn’t responded to a radio check since she’d walked out of the room fifteen minutes ago.

  Okay, that was serious reason for concern. Especially when Forrest said something about Misty getting lost in the networks when she melded with them. He wasn’t surprised when Jake and Forrest said they’d go find her. With Jake’s nose, it shouldn’t take too long.

  Sawyer looked at the dais, expecting them to drag out another supernatural for bidding, but instead servers appeared carrying trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres, moving through the crowd of guests. At the same time, several men walked around with iPads, providing money transfer confirmation to the buyers. This crap was so efficient it make him sick.

  On the dais, Yegor was talking to several of his goons, including the big guy Harley thought might be the scaly green shifter. Looking at the size of the guy, Sawyer couldn’t say she was wrong. As the conversation continued, he strained to hear what was being said, but between the distance, the murmuring of the crowd, and how quietly Yegor spoke, he could only make out about every fifth word or so. Something about changing the order of the auction and making sure everyone was in place for the surprise.