Taken by Fire by Sydney Croft Read Free Book Online Page A

could often be found in his office as early as five A.M . and, no matter what, would pick up the phone. Which he did now, on the first ring.
    “Is she dead?”
    “Not exactly.”
Not that I wouldn’t like her to be, despite the fact that I got a raging hard-on from lying on top of her … not that ice-woman’s playing me like a fiddle. Christ
. “I managed to get some intel from her that I thought would make her valuable. If she’s not lying, one of Itor’s bases might be in Australia.”
    “She just handed us a huge advantage if that’s true.”
    “Which is why I’m skeptical, but it can’t hurt to check into the possibility.” He glanced at the bathroom door. Still closed. “There’s more. I hit pay dirt—fire-and-ice woman is Alek’s daughter.”
    He heard a sharp inhale from across the line. It took a hell of a lot to surprise Dev, but it seemed like forever before his boss spoke again. “Don’t kill her.”
    “Yeah, I figured you’d say that. We ran into some trouble with a rogue group—I’m going to need TAG’s help getting us to the safe house.”
    “Consider it done. What else have you found out?”
    “I’m dealing with Melanie here. She’s scared as shit and she doesn’t know much else, or so she claims. We’re heading back to her apartment and then to the safe house. She says Phoebe will emerge soon if we don’t get some Itor special medicine, and I know that bitch will be far less compliant than Melanie.”
    “Agreed. TAG will contact you. Call me when you get to the safe house.” Dev’s tones were clipped and left no room for discussion. As if to ensure that, his boss disconnected the line, and Stryker slowly closed his own phone and listened to the running water on the other side of the bathroom door.
    Now all he had to do was wait for TAG to take care of the rogues. But if TAG didn’t hurry, Stryker would find himself face-to-face with Phoebe, and he sure as shit didn’t need the suntan.
    The bathroom door opened slowly and Mel emerged. It was obvious she’d been crying—no amount of cold water could mask that.
    Right now he didn’t want to deal with feeling bad for her. She was enemy personified. “Help is on the way—we’ll get to your place with protection.”
    “Good, that’s good.” She wrung her hands together. “I know it kills you, to have to spend time with me.”
    “This isn’t personal—this is a job.”
    “How can you say it’s not personal—my sister killed your friend.”
    “Your sister killed an agent, that’s why I was ordered to find her,” he said through clenched teeth. “This isn’t about personal revenge.”
    “Bullshit.”
    He didn’t answer, didn’t want to admit to himself that she might be right on the money—that this was way more than a job from ACRO. That he would’ve gone out without Devlin’s approval to hunt down fire-bitch.
    “Look, I get it,” she said. “I’m either feared or hated—usually both—for who my father and sister are.” She shrugged but her eyes were red-rimmed.
    And no, he couldn’t begin to imagine the childhood—hell, the lifetime—of pain she’d endured. Still, the nagging thought that Mel could’ve been complicit in what happened to Akbar …
    She was staring, but not at his face. No, her gaze had droppedto his now clenched fists, which shook, as if he was trying his best not to reach out and punch someone.
    She looked as though she was waiting to be hit and that alone was enough to make him open his hands. He didn’t hit women. He fought operatives, and Melanie did not fit that profile.
    When she finally let her eyes meet his, she looked weary—and resigned. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m already punished. Every single day of my life.”
    “It doesn’t.”
    She nodded and then suddenly she tensed, her face pale. “No, not now—it’s too soon,” she rasped, more to herself than to him.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Phoebe’s stirring—we’ll have to go now.”
    He