Page 37 of Prey

I don’t answer, but my silence says everything.

“Well, fuck.” He shakes his head, but there’s amusement in his eyes. “Get that dick inside her then, if she’s begging for it. What’s stopping you?”

My jaw tightens. “She might be trying to manipulate her way out.”

“Yeah?” Darius tosses his towel into the hamper. “That occurred to you, huh? The girl spreading her legs and moaning your name might have an agenda? You mean maybe an agenda like the one you had when you took her?”

“Yes,” I admit through clenched teeth, setting down my water bottle harder than necessary. “At first. But the way sheresponds…” I trail off, remembering how wet she gets, how her body shakes when I touch her, the desperate sounds she makes. “Some things you can’t fake.”

“So she wants your cock and you want to give it to her. I’m still not seeing the problem.” Darius moves toward the door, then pauses. “Unless the problem is that you don’t just want to fuck her. You want to keep her.”

The words hang in the air between us. My hands clench into fists, and I can still smell her on me from earlier, that sweet musk that makes my cock throb.

“Look,” Darius says, his voice dropping to almost gentle. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it. This halfway shit? It’s making you sloppy. Either fuck her and get it out of your system, or release her. But stop torturing yourself.”

He heads for the door, then glances back. “Just be aware—if she is playing you, she’s doing a damn good job. Even got you telling her your real name.”

The door clicks shut behind Darius, leaving me alone with the weight of his words. He’s right. This halfway shit is making me weak, distracted.

I grab my phone and pull up the intel Marcus sent two hours ago. Dr.Elena Vasquez, one of the original architects of the psychological conditioning protocols. The woman who developed the empathy elimination techniques they used on us. After three years of false leads and dead ends, she’s here. In Chicago. In our fucking backyard.

My jaw clenches as I scroll through the surveillance photos. She’s older now, hair gone gray, but I’d recognize that cold, clinical face anywhere. I was twelve when she first assessed me, documenting my responses while they hunted me through controlled environments. Taking notes while I learned to think like prey.

The gym door opens again. Raphael enters, already dressed for tonight’s op.

“Ezra’s running final probability models,” he says without preamble. “Ninety-three percent chance she’ll be at the medical conference this afternoon. Private security, but nothing we can’t handle.”

I nod, forcing my mind to shift gears. Hunt mode. Target acquisition. This is what I’m good at, what I was made for.

“Team meeting in twenty,” Raphael continues, studying me with those calculating eyes. “You good?”

“Always.” The lie comes easy. I’ve been lying about being fine all my life.

He doesn’t look convinced, but he knows better than to push. “Damon’s working on entry points. Marcus has eyes on the venue. We’re looking at a four-man team, unless you want more.”

“Four’s enough.” I pocket my phone, already mapping the approach in my head. “Tell Ezra I want contingency routes for a ten-block radius. If she rabbits, I want to know every possible exit before she does.”

Raphael heads out, leaving me to shower and gear up. The cold water helps clear my head, washing away the scent of Jenna that clings to my skin. By the time I’m pulling on my tactical vest, I’ve almost convinced myself I can focus.

Dr.Vasquez. The woman who helped turn children into weapons, who documented our psychological destruction with the detachment of a scientist studying lab rats. She’s been hiding behind false identities and security systems for over a decade.

But she made one mistake. She came to Chicago.

13

JENNA

The hunger gnaws at my stomach like a living thing. I’ve been without food for—what? Twenty-four hours? Maybe more. Time blurs in this concrete box, but my body keeps its own clock through hunger.

I drift in and out of consciousness on the narrow cot. Every time I shift, I feel the dried evidence of his release between my thighs, a reminder of how he marked me without even being inside me.

The lock mechanism clicks.

I force my eyes open, expecting the usual—Nikolai with a tray, that bone-white mask hiding everything but those beautiful eyes.

The door swings open, and my breath catches.

He fills the doorway like a nightmare made flesh. Blood covers his tactical gear in arterial sprays and splatter patterns, the wet shine of it catching the industrial lighting. His gloved hands are stained red, too. The bone mask gives him a horror-esque appearance, sending goosebumps rising over every inch of my skin.