Bait: A dark erotic thriller (Hunter & Prey Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

loss somewhat.
    “And after you’ve set yourself up as the queen of whores, what’s next?” Trust it to Agent Smith to bring the conversation back onto less loaded territory.
    “Then I make him come for me,” I replied.
    “Now why don’t I like the sound of that?” Adam ground out, glaring daggers at me from beyond his watchdog’s shoulder.
    “It’s the only way,” I explained. “He’s already unstable. With the right incentive, the right push, it can’t be too hard to make him slip up. The only reason why no one has ever managed to get anything on him is that he was meticulous in his methods. That’s going to change now.”
    “And you really think he’s going to fall for that?” Agent Smith asked.
    “Yes. You should have seen him tonight. Now that he has me right where he wants me, he’ll drop the girl, so one less concern for you,” I remarked. “And when it’s just him and me, you don’t really stand to lose anything, right? I mean, if worse comes to worst, you can convict him over my cold, dead body.”
    Adam winced, but his handler looked disturbingly calm about that option.
    “Your plan is half-assed at best. I want a status update as soon as you have finished setting everything up.”
    I was surprised that she gave in that easily and didn’t even insist on crowding her operation into my new home, but then I didn’t think for a moment that there wouldn’t be two surveillance cars parked right outside from now on. And maybe the fact that my core idea was the same as hers—make him slip up in whatever way possible—helped. That it might come with my untimely demise was maybe a bonus for her.
    “Will do,” I promised, raising two fingers in a mock oath. “Anything to save our country.”
    That got me the glare I likely deserved, but it also made her turn around and jerk her chin at her flunkies, signaling their retreat. Adam lingered for a moment, but he seemed to realize that my plan didn’t exactly include him—or else I would have talked to him already. His frustration was visible in every line of his body.
    “You’re going to stay with them?” I asked, hating how much like a traitor that made me feel. I’d presumed they’d hunker down in his old apartment, and maybe approbate mine next door, too.
    “Do I have a choice?” He paused, then exhaled slowly. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
    I nodded, if reluctantly.
    “I’ve had seven and a half months time to plan this.”
    He looked up sharply, but it only took a second for the pain in his eyes to subside, crushed by what he must have seen coming in the moments where he wasn’t deluding himself with hope.
    “You always planned to come back.” Not a question, and all the more accusation for it.
    Sighing, I looked away, my gaze snatching to the scars on my hand—and the white-gold band wedged below where the bones of my ring finger had fused together crookedly.
    “Not at first,” I said, happy that, in this, I didn’t have to lie. Looking back up, I found Adam’s gaze and held it. “And I didn’t come back for him. Not in the sense of wanting to be with him again. I’m here because we“—I jerked my head toward the agents at the back of the room—“are coming for him. That’s all.”
    “So you want revenge?” he asked. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a loaded question.
    “Of course. Why the hell wouldn’t I? With everything that he has done to me—“
    Adam’s ironic smile made me cut off.
    “There were security cameras in the ballroom, you know? The equipment in the van wasn’t good enough to hack them, but the rig in my tablet is. You should have seen your face when you saw him. Maybe then you’d stop lying to me.”
    There was nothing I could say to that—except that this shouldn’t have been news to him, not after the painful dance around each other that we’d been through since leaving the city—so I didn’t. “I’m sorry” really wouldn’t have cut it.
    A loud knock at