brutal

Chapter 27

VERENA

We arrived at Paris a few hours the day before the gala for Seth to intercept the place and tech he needed to hack into, and for Yuna and Roman to keep a personal eye on Jacobi and every move he made.

Upon my more-than-reluctant asking of what I was tasked to do to my unit leader on the plane, he'd simply looked up from his laptop, stared at me, then murmured, "Later, princess," before continuing his work.

Later was twelve hours ago, and everyone was out doing whatever while I lounged in my hotel room doing absolutely nothing. The most I'd done was pace around and plan on how the hell I was supposed to overcome the whole Professor situation, but what only became of it was a great increase of my worries.

I knew, however, that Kai was just in the room across from mine, but what was I supposed to say? Truthfully, I wanted to keep my distance from him after everything that happened— the whole kitchen situation, his sudden desire for a murder confession, his and Zira's supposed engagement.

Everything pretty much bothered me, especially the last, but I did spend most of the flight here ruminating on the second. About me killing someone. It still was beyond me as to how he managed to dig up something related to that, let alone gain the balls to ask me something like it.

I would've contacted Reid about it. I should've, but a part of me didn't like the image of me always running to him or to my father for help. They would've insisted, but I knew I had to deal with it myself.

I was a grown woman. I was Brutal, for fuck's sake. Surely, I could handle a pest like Kai Deimos and keep him in check on my own whilst plotting his demise.

I would have stewed in my anger all day, probably crossed to the other room to take it all out on the man himself, had the piercing ring tone of my phone not interrupted the silence. I rolled over the duvet of my bed to grab it from my nightstand and answered it after checking caller ID.

The second I answered and placed the phone to my ear, I scoffed. "It's about time you called."

Irene laughed lightly on the other end. "Yeah, well, cell reception was shit at our hideout in Moscow our first week here. Jas had to drive out to the city an hour out just to update Reid on our progress."

"Was it that shitty cottage we stayed in three years ago in the middle of nowhere?"

"The only," she said and I bristled at the memory. When my father sent us out to Russia for a mission to assassinate a member from the Bratva, we had to stay in a hideout that had no electricity. The three of us returned with more than frostbitten flesh then.

"But we're fine now. We're tracking some senator five hotel rooms over." Irene's footsteps and a few sounds of shuffling filled the silence before I heard a distant moan, followed by an audible thwack with a curse. "He's fucking his third mistress as we speak."

"Jasper put a microphone in his room?"
"Worse. He put a camera."
"Hey! I only did it because you said he might expose himself."

Irene and Jasper bickered for a moment before sounds of struggling was all I heard. The phone fell, I surmised from the sudden drop, then picked up a second later. "Sorry 'bout that. How are you, Ver?"

I snickered at Irene's distant cursing, but I replied back to Jasper, "I'm managing." I sat up from my bed and stood, pacing the room with the need to move. "Have you... gotten what I asked?"