Sabrina squinted at the light as her pupils adjusted. After a moment she turned to look at him only to find him staring back at her. He removed one of the black leather gloves he wore, and reached for her face to swipe away the blood.
She jerked her head back and snapped. “Don’t touch me.”
“It wasn’t my intention to be so rough with you,” he said, sounding regretful over their fight.
“It never is,” she replied.
Sighing, he removed his other glove and shoved them into his pockets. “Sabrina. Still angry after all these years?”
“Still an asshole after all these years?”
He didn’t bother to respond.
Impatient with his silence, she finally asked. “You? They sent you?”
“Me.”
“I never knew the government had such a sick sense of humor.”
“Hmm,” he murmured as a nonanswer. “You really thought they would send someone else? You really thought I would let them? That disappoints me, Bri. You used to be smarter than that.”
“I just figured you were too old for this sort of thing.”
She’d wanted to insult him, but the truth was he was right. She should have known who Krueger would send. Quinlan had been chasing Kahsan for most of his career. He was obsessed with the man and had been since the time he nearly caught him that one time in Africa. Instead he’d ended up with a nasty-looking scar over his left eye.
If she had to convince anyone to buck the system to go after Kahsan, Quinlan might be the candidate. But that didn’t mean she had to like it.
“Would you be surprised if I told you that I’ve missed you?” He turned his head toward her, his lips twitching ever so slightly. Quinlan’s version of a smile.
She snorted. “Yes. Because missing someone would actually imply that you have some capacity for emotion. And we both know that’s not true. Don’t we?”
Rather than answer, he faced forward again, his smile gone. “Your problem has always been an excess of emotion. An unfortunate circumstance for someone with a brain like yours.”
“That’s me,” she said sarcastically. “All heart. If only I could be an ice monster like you.”
“If only.”
Sabrina ground her teeth together and struggled to hold on to the last of her patience. “I’m tired. I hurt. My wrists are bleeding. My lip is swollen. You’re dropping me off at my house, and then you are gone. If Krueger thinks I can work with you, he’s deluding himself. I want someone else.”
The protest against his involvement was a pretense. Part of the play that had been scripted by Krueger. Quinlan would be expecting her to try and buck him, so she did. But it didn’t change the fact that what she said was true.
“No.”
Figures. Quinlan didn’t buck easily.
Okay, she said to him silently. You want to play? Game on.
“Look, there’s something you don’t know. There’s another part to this that makes it…complicated. Which means I don’t need any more complications on top of it and you are the mother of all complications.”
“Another part. Really?”
“Yes,” she hedged. “I sort of had this idea.”
“Do tell.”
She glanced over at him. There was something in his tone that wasn’t right. As though he was holding back…rage. She thought about what might enrage him, aside from the attack on his manhood, and came up with only one answer.
“You know,” she stated.
“That you contacted Kahsan? Hell, yes, I know,” he spat, pushing his face into hers. “I have people all over the world whose mission it is to keep me informed about Kahsan’s every breath. The only thing no one can ever tell me is where the hell he is. You can imagine my shock when rumors started circulating about some female genius trying to make contact with him. Then I hear about Arnold’s death, and I get word from my superiors that I’m to collect you and take you to his computer. Suddenly, it all makes a disgusting sort of sense.”
“No,” she said, sensing his anger over the betrayal. “You’ve got it wrong.”
“How much, Sabrina? I want to know. How much did you sell your soul to the devil for?”
It hurt. Ten years was a lifetime ago. There was no reason to think that any bond they might have shared then would have survived all this time and everything that had happened. Still, his instant distrust hurt more than anything he’d done to her physically. She barked out a humorless laugh in defense against the pain.
“Now you know that’s not possible, Q. How could I have possibly sold my soul to Kahsan when I sold it to you years ago?”
Chapter 4
Fourteen years ago
“D o you know why you’re here?”
Sabrina said nothing. She had this idea that she would play the role of the stoic prisoner being interrogated by the enemy. After all, that’s what she felt like. The prison in question might be some fancy office in Washington, D.C., but it didn’t change the fact that she couldn’t leave.
And that she didn’t want to be here.
She was tired of being tested. Tired of being pushed in directions that she didn’t want to go. First her father, then Harvard, now this. But the man sitting across from her didn’t seem like the typical geeky Martin-Lewis-professor type she was used to dealing with.
He seemed like a badass. It was in the eyes. Gray and cold. And the fresh scar that ran over his left eye. She was tempted to ask him if it was real, or if it was just for effect.
“I believe I asked you a question,” he said quietly.
“I believe you can go shove it up your ass,” she retorted in defiance of the quiver of intimidation she was feeling being in this man’s presence. So much for the silent stoic routine. Then again, she’d never been quiet when she had something to say.
The man who had been introduced as Quinlan nodded casually at her response, then reached across the desk that separated them and, in a lightning fast move, snatched the nose hoop that dangled from one of her nostrils. Thankfully, the catch came undone or else he would have ripped completely through her soft tissue.
Even with that small mercy, the pain was intense. She screeched and covered her nose with her hand. Then watched as he slid the thin gold loop over his finger. “You sonofab—”
“Your father said you were a young lady. Young ladies don’t use that kind of language.”
He handed her a tissue that he pulled from a drawer. She covered her nose with it and then instantly checked to see how much blood there was. It wasn’t much. But that didn’t make it hurt any less.
Scowling at him she tossed the tissue away. “Yeah, well, my father doesn’t really know me. In fact, I think I’ve grown a couple inches since the last time he looked up from his computer to see if I was still around.”
Quinlan studied her slouching body. “What are you, five-seven?”
“Five-seven and one-quarter inch.”
“You’re tall for your age and no doubt still growing,” he muttered as he made a few notes on a file that sat open in front of him. “Tell me, is that where your bitterness stems from? The fact that Daddy doesn’t pay enough attention to you.”
“Actually