Monster In Me (Cryptid Assassin Book 8) Read online

  "You're…taking this far better than I thought you would. I expected there to be at least a couple of threats regarding the inevitable fate of roasting my testicles over an open fire while they're still attached to me or something."

  "No, not at all, although if you want threats, I do have a couple of choice ones. I even have one that involves using ghost pepper to spice your balls while I roast them over burning coals."

  He shuddered at the thought. "I think I'll pass. But are you okay with this? Really?"

  Niki couldn't think of anything else to do but shrug. "I'm more interested in the fact that you considered my feelings to the point where you thought to tell me about this despite the lack of my noose around your neck."

  "More like a ring around either our fingers."

  "I know what you think."

  "That's not…entirely true." He took a sip from his coffee and looked around the desert. "But I think a lasso might be a little more appropriate. Around you instead of me, though."

  A very unattractive snort emerged before she could stop herself and she barely managed to not spill her coffee. "Okay, I'll be more careful with my flirting from this point forward."

  "Why?"

  "To keep my mind from being dragged off a cliff and into a gutter by that lasso of yours."

  He smirked. "Well, okay, but I hope it doesn't last too long. I look forward to joining you in a dive off that cliff."

  She took another deep swig of her coffee until she drained the dregs and put the empty cup onto the hood of the SUV. "You know I'll be there with you, right?"

  "Be where?"

  "At the fight. I'll stand right beside you."

  Taylor gaped at her and let her take his coffee without even a slight protest. "Okay. Why, though? Not many people would want to be close enough to the cage to hear fists connecting."

  Niki tilted her head and leaned closer to grasp him by the collar of his shirt. This time, she dragged him to her height and pressed her lips to his mouth, and her tongue danced with his. He tasted of sweat and coffee, and she loved it although she wasn't sure why. There was something hard about the taste like the rest of his body was.

  She pulled back, not caring that the rest of the crew were watching. Or maybe they weren't. It didn't matter.

  "Because, Taylor McFadden, I might as well have branded your taut ass with my name. It's mine, and that means I'll be there, close enough to be in the potential splash zone. And you can bet your ass that I'll shoot any fucker who tries to cheat his way to a win in that cage. And if you die, I will take necromancer lessons so I can raise your spectral ass to bitch at you for the rest of my miserable life. And speaking of asses, I don’t pay you to stare at mine all day, so why don't you fucking help me get into my suit?"

  "Honestly, the ass-watching is more of a perk of the business." He smiled in the way only he could as she walked to where Bobby was still unloading the crates from his truck.

  "Do you think we should do live ammo training?" the mechanic asked as his boss stepped up to help him.

  "Tomorrow," Taylor asserted.

  They weren't the kind of men she liked hanging out with. It wasn't even that her parents had told her to avoid guys like them for her entire life up to the moment when she moved out of their house. She'd followed their advice until she ran out of money on her way to Los Angeles and ended up in Vegas.

  Stephanie stopped giving a shit about what her parents thought of her life choices at the point when she had to pay her way through college and they didn't bother to attend when she graduated summa cum laude.

  Who the fuck didn't go to their daughter's graduation?

  She adjusted the blonde wig she chose to wear and her glasses while the two men continued their attack on the punching bags that had been set up in front of them. The whole area had been created by a professional, and both men had trainers who shouted instructions in their ears.

  Vegas was the place to find trainers like that. This was where all the fighters came when they wanted to make it big, and the same went for trainers.

  These guys weren't the types who would fight in the UFC or one of the hundred boxing organizations in the world. They were brawlers, men who had grown up fighting—and not simply play-fighting. These men had fought from a young age for their survival.

  And some dumbass by the name of Taylor McFadden had challenged them both.

  "Have you met Taylor McFadden?” she asked as one of them took a break to sip his water. "What do you know about him?"

  "He's a punk." The man spat, wiped the water that spilled from his lips, and returned to the punching bag. His powerful arms and shoulders rippled with every strike.

  The second man was a little larger but he seemed more subdued. "I never met the guy, but I've seen him. He's big and he knows how to throw down from the sound of it. And he has…what you call, sfere di ottone."

  She needed a few seconds to remember the Italian she'd learned during her semester abroad. "Brass balls?"

  "Something like this, yes? He killed men. Very powerful men in the famiglia, and what did Don Marino do? Hire him. It's not a man you fuck with lightly."

  Stephanie took note of the man's words. "Why…why are you fucking with him, then?"

  "Can you imagine what can be gained by the man who takes that reputation of his away?"

  She gaped and shook her head as the man returned to his training. They were doing this because they wanted the glory of it. The fact that they would fight him two on one didn't even register. It was both unbelievable and interesting to see.

  "Good talk," she whispered, snapped her notebook shut, and turned toward the door.

  "I need to have a word with this McFadden fucker."

  Chapter Seven

  The phone line was busy yet again.

  It wasn’t surprising at this time on a Saturday but still, there was no reason why there was no forwarding number available. The business they operated, in her reasoning, catered to people who had emergencies that couldn't wait for business hours.

  Stephanie pressed the end call button on her phone and dialed it again. Marino wanted the details on McFadden before Monday and she wouldn’t leave her boss empty-handed. She knew what he was. It wasn't like he tried to keep it a secret. Everyone in fucking town knew. And the more she found out about Taylor McFadden, the more she realized there was more to the man than met the eye.

  Someone had stolen millions of dollars of Mr. Marino’s money—Don Marino, she reminded herself—from an armored car and nothing had come of it. The heist had been perpetrated by men in full combat armor suits and McFadden happened to own a mechanic shop that fixed suits of combat armor.

  "Holy shit," she whispered. "He did the heist. On Marino's orders or his own?"

  "Excuse me?"

  Someone had picked up. Fuck.

  "Uh…hi, who am I speaking to?"

  A pause followed on the other side of the line. "How can I help you?"

  The woman's voice seemed weird but not for any reason Stephanie could put a finger on. It sounded normal in every way except…maybe the accent?

  "My name is Stephanie Cordray and I would like to speak to Taylor McFadden, please."

  "What might this be with regard to, Miss Cordray?"

  Again, the voice unsettled her somewhat. "Well, to be perfectly candid, it is regarding an athletic endeavor he will undertake in the next couple of weeks."

  The pause that followed was longer than the first. "Are you one of his exes? Because I happen to know that Taylor is looking into a very serious relationship and is not on the market for any more…flings."

  The guy's assistant knew about his personal life. Talk about involved.

  "No, nothing like that. He'll be in a cage match sponsored by Mr. Marino, and I would like to talk to him about that on Mr. Marino's behalf. Do you think he would have the time for that?"

  "I don't think he's available today, but depending on what data you require, I should be able to help you. I think you'll find there isn'
t much about Taylor McFadden that I don't know about."

  Stephanie narrowed her eyes. "Is that so?"

  "I think you'll find there isn't much in the world that I don't know about. Stephanie Cordray, age twenty-seven and a half, born in Denver, Colorado, to Joseph and Yasmin Cordray. He's a welder, she's a schoolteacher. Oh, recently divorced—that's sad to see."

  She knew what was happening. The assistant was trying to get under her skin. "How?"

  "If you think there's anything about your boss and the people who work for him that I don't know about, you're way too naïve to work for someone like Rod Marino. That man, thus far, has been too much of a threat to the people I care about for me to not be personally plugged into every aspect of his life."

  A little startled, she nodded and when she remembered the woman couldn’t see her, she added, "Fair enough."

  "With that said, what exactly does Rod Marino want to know about Taylor McFadden that he doesn't already?"

  Caught by surprise, she tried to work out how the conversation had suddenly shifted from veiled threats to compliance. After a few seconds, she finally looked at the notes she had been taking. "Um…oh, right. Do you know if Taylor has ever been in a fight before? I mean the professional kind of fight that there would be a highlight reel of?"

  "Well, given that McFadden joined the military a few weeks after his eighteenth birthday and didn't leave until less than a year ago, I can confidently say his fight history has mostly been off-camera and not with humans. At least, not professionally."

  Stephanie wrote it down. "So, no professional fighting history."

  "Not with humans."

  It took her a few seconds to realize what the woman was talking about. The man's record indicated that he’d spent much of his time in North Africa and these days, that meant he spent his time running into the Zoo. She vaguely recalled mention of some ZooTube site that posted videos and had become a fledgling Zoo-centered industry that rapidly gained popularity. In five years or so, they would make movies, tv series, write biographies, and have interviews with and about the crazy fucks who went into that place.

  Maybe having two guys fighting him wasn’t such a bad idea. Crazy went a long way when there weren't any rules in the fight.

  "Was there anything else you wanted to know?"

  Stephanie moved her pencil down the list of questions she wanted to ask. The next five wouldn't matter if he had no fighting history. "Do you know what kind of fighting style he uses? What his training is?"

  "What, are you scouting for the competition?"

  "The people making bets want to know more about him than simply how he keeps his beard looking so nice. Do you know what kind of training he's been through?"

  "The Army has a very particular kind of training and it isn’t one that goes by any name. Or, rather, it goes by so many names that it's tough to simply put it down on a tale of the tape. But if you want to, you can call it the MAC, also known as Modern Army Combatives."

  "Yeah, well, that's what they teach the grunts in boot camp. Much more goes into what they teach the guys after that."

  "If you don't know already, I don't know what to tell you. They teach men like Taylor to kill, which is similar to the training they use for the thugs Taylor will fight. It should make it interesting."

  She sighed. This would go much smoother if she could have this conversation face-to-face with McFadden.

  "Okay, let's go over the basics then. Do you have his height, weight, and arm reach?"

  "Height is six feet, six and a half inches. His weight fluctuates depending on how much water weight he carries. He's just gotten out of the hospital and physical therapy too, but his average should be between two hundred and fifty-five and two hundred and sixty pounds. Arm reach is a little over eighty-six inches. Do you want me to convert any of that into metric?"

  The details matched what Marino had on the man, more or less, although it did look like he had put on almost ten pounds since the physical he had taken when he left the army. Whether that was water weight, fat, or muscle remained to be seen.

  "No, thanks. I can convert it all easily enough for those that need it."

  "Do you need to know anything else?"

  "Not unless you can get Taylor to talk to me in person."

  "I'll try but I won't make any promises. Besides, you owe me a favor now."

  Everyone had their hands out these days. Stephanie didn't know what she could promise to this woman but if she could, she would make good on it. Having contacts outside of Marino's business interests was always a good thing.

  "How can I help you?"

  "Let me know the details you'll be sending to the other bettors too. The chances are that I'd like to put money down on the fight and I'd need to make an informed decision."

  "Are you sure you're not merely spying for your man Taylor?"

  "Well, look at the pot calling the kettle black. That aside, though, I have money to make on the fight too."

  She sighed. "Fine. How do I contact you when I have all the information?"

  "Call this number again and if you get someone other than me, ask for Desk."

  "Desk?"

  "It’s a nickname. You don't think I'll give you my real name, do you?"

  "I guess not.” She heaved another sigh and resigned herself to the fact that the woman wouldn’t be more forthcoming. “I’ll talk to you later, Desk."

  Something still felt off about the voice, but she chose not to spend too much time thinking about it. She had all the information she would need on McFadden, although a little more wouldn't go amiss if she could get it.

  "It'll be one hell of an interesting fight, whatever happens." She knew she wasn't talking to anyone except herself but at this point, most people thought she was another of Marino's bimbo secretaries and she preferred them to keep thinking that. She was safer this way.

  Stephanie pulled her blonde wig off and let her natural, black hair fall free for a couple of seconds before she drew in a long, deep breath.

  "Fucking mobsters, military fighters, and greedy hackers. Maybe I should go back to Denver."

  She had to give it to the fucking Serbian, he did know how to choose a location.

  Of course, the view probably wasn't what Matija had in mind when he purchased the facility. In fact, she doubted the man had set foot there or ever would, but Sofia felt it was important to see what was happening on-site with her own eyes.

  The island was a few miles off the coast of Algeria, and with that kind of exposure to the elements and the sheer power of the ocean, it was no wonder no one had tried to settle there until the Second World War. The waves had pounded against the rock until it was little more than a pillar protruding from the ocean with a nice little green area on the top.

  It looked small from afar but it was much larger once her helicopter landed.

  A handful of technicians and specialists were already waiting for her when she was escorted away from the spinning rotors of the helicopter.

  "Miss Chavez, we are honored that you would choose to visit us at this time," one of the leading specialists shouted over the sound of the helicopter powering down in the background. He sounded vaguely South African like her bodyguards, but she had a difficult time placing accents in English.

  "Thank you, Dr. Minnaar. I've wanted to see this for some time now." She looked around the top of the island and her gaze settled on the single, fortified building at the center. It was barely five thousand square meters if she were to hazard a guess, and it rose to three stories. "I have to say, it was far more impressive in the files you sent my office but at least the solar panels are up and running again."

  "Ah, yes…well, the building is what was left when the Americans decided to abandon this base, and it was meant to look unimpressive. You will understand when I say it is only a cover—a tip of the iceberg if you will. The structure will house our personnel and is also where we will operate the solar panels and the wave power plant at the bottom. We keep what energ
y we need and send the rest to the mainland. In addition, it is where the desalination plant will be operated once it is finished and operational."

  "Desalination?"

  "Yes, we need clean water and enough rises from the waves for us to filter and use both for survival and for the projects you would like to undertake. The soil has already begun to arrive, and we have started the greenhouse three levels down. It is the largest area of the complex with the most open space, once built to house intercontinental ballistic missiles. I think it interesting that life will take the place of what was once intended to house weapons of extinction."

  The man had a point. There was something irony-like in that concept.

  "Pardon me—and I do not wish to speak out of turn—but when will the object of our projects be delivered?” he continued. “Even with basic tools and simplified processes, I can tell you that my team and I are most anxious to begin our work here. In the right hands—which is to say yours—the very world will be subject to change."

  "I know," Sofia answered and her voice quieted as the engines in the background wound down enough for them to have a conversation at a normal volume. "And the Pita plant will be delivered shortly if all goes well with the contractors we hired for the job. Like you, they are the best available. Now, what say you we get the tour out of the way so I can tell my board of directors how fantastically well the work is going here?"

  "Of course, Miss Chavez. If you will follow me?"

  Chapter Eight

  "Oh, God, I'm such a fucking cliché."

  There was no one else around to hear her and the only people who would know how much of a cliché she was would be the housekeeping staff who constantly had to replace all the bath salts and bubbles she used every time she settled in for much-needed R and R.

  Taylor still pushed them at the same pace they’d been subjected to before, but she could already feel her body adjusting to it. She felt like she had been a tube of cookie dough when she started and now watched herself being carved out of wood. In a couple of weeks, she would be almost as used to running around in a suit as she was in her own skin, which was what he intended.