halls she felt sexy and alluring, not like the old Kalina at all.
Knocking on the door, she waited to be admitted, then casually took a seat across from the agent.
“It’s a pleasure seeing you again,” he said.
Kalina smiled at the man she’d only met one other time. He was an attractive African American with close- cropped hair and a thin mustache. His eyes, which she always looked to now to tell her about a person, were completely guarded.
“Same here,” she said not feeling nervous at all. She had no idea what he was going to say to her or what she was going to say in response, but realized it didn’t matter. As Rome had stated before, she was who she was and she wasn’t going to apologize for it. Neither was she going to sell out the species that she now belonged to.
“I’ll cut to the chase, Kalina. We have a lot of questions,” he said placing his elbows on the desk.
“So do I.”
He nodded. “What did you find on Roman Reynolds?”
“Nothing,” she answered immediately, confidently. “There was nothing in his records that supported the charge of facilitating a drug cartel.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“I’m positive that I found nothing to prove that allegation.”
“What about Ferrell?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing. I found it odd the amount of pressure he put on me to speed the case up. That’s why I was calling you—to find out what his deal was.”
“Ferrell was dirty.”
Why didn’t that surprise her?
“He’d been working with some of the lower-level dealers for years.”
“Then why did you put him on the case with me?”
“We were hoping his employers would take an interest in your investigation, maybe slip up somewhere along the line.”
“Wait a minute, you sent me to investigate Roman in an effort to reveal another drug lord and to expose a dirty cop?”
Wilson shook his head. “We wanted to know what Reynolds was doing, and we wanted Ferrell and his employers.”
Sonofabitch, she thought to herself. They’d used her and lied to her. The very people she’d wanted so desperately to work for hadn’t even had the decency to tell her what the real assignment was. Maybe being a cop wasn’t her destiny. Maybe she’d had it all wrong. It certainly felt like she did.
“Did you get what you were after?” she asked finally.
“Not everything. Ferrell’s in jail crying like a baby, but not really giving us much.”
“That’s strange. I figured a punk like him would be singing names and addresses right about now.”
“He’s giving names, but none that we know. He’s also talking strange stuff.”
Kalina felt a ruffle against her neck and sat up straighter. “Strange like what?”
“Like big cats killing and selling drugs in the city. You know anything about that?”
Kalina smiled, slow and full. “Why would I know about something so preposterous? I’m just a city cop trying to get a paycheck,” she said. “Are we finished?”
“If that’s your full report?”
“It is.”
Wilson hesitated a second. “Then we’re finished.”
Kalina stood, going to the door before turning back to him. “And just in case you were thinking of offering, I decline the opportunity to work for the Drug Enforcement Agency. I like to face the lying and deceitful criminals head-on instead of working alongside them.”
Wilson didn’t say a word as she closed the door behind her and walked out of the building.
“Sabar’s leading them, and now he’s pissed that Rome has Kalina,” X said, rubbing his knuckles as he sat at Rome’s conference room table.
Elder Alamar nodded solemnly. “He was a problem years ago. We thought he was gone, that he had moved on to other things.”
“Apparently he was simply laying low,” Nick said. “He’s making his comeback.”
“Now he’s hiding,” Rome surmised, still not at all pleased that Sabar had been the one stalking Kalina all this time. The fact that Sabar thought she was his mate just made Rome hate the Rogue more.
The cheetah they had in custody had finally decided to talk, right about the time he realized that Sabar wasn’t planning any daring rescue for him, and that one of his cohorts was already dead: Chi, the jaguar Kalina had killed, the one who’d killed Rome’s parents years ago. Rome figured now that the hit had probably been ordered by Sabar, giving him yet another reason to hate the SOB.
Rubbing a hand over his chin, he tried valiantly to let the bitter feelings he still harbored inside go. He’d wanted his parents’ killer and Kalina had gotten him. And now he had Kalina. All should be well in his world. The operative word being should. “It won’t last,” he surmised.
“You are correct,” Alamar agreed. “He will return. It is power that drives him, and he will not stop until he attains it.”
“Or until we dispatch him,” X added.
“Kalina had some interesting information to share after her visit with the DEA,” Rome offered. His mate had come home earlier today eyes burning with fury, and only after much coaxing did Rome manage to get the story from her.
“Melanie was the other shifter in the room that night, the other one Kalina shot.”
“Melanie from work?” Nick questioned. “We’ve got to do better screening our employees, Rome.”
Nick had been in an even testier mood since that night in the city. He’d stayed behind to help Ezra and Eli burn the house, and Rome suspected that the act had brought back memories for his friend.
“Ezra figured out Melanie was a shifter after he’d picked Kalina up from her house,” Rome said.
“And nobody thought it was imperative to inform me?” Nick questioned, feeling like an ass since Melanie had come into his office acting strange and asking all kinds of questions about Kalina. Had he known what she was, he would have killed the bitch then. “Okay, so she was a shifter. We’ve already talked about having some sort of registry for the stateside shifters. When did she go Rogue? And why didn’t we pick up her scent?”
“There are ways to mask a scent,” Alamar offered.
Rome nodded. “All the more reason we need to implement that registry Nick just mentioned. Melanie’s mated to Peter Keys, a low-level jaguar who mainly keeps to himself. But she was also sleeping with one of our good friends—Ralph Kensington.”
“That’s why Kensington stank of shifter back in LA,” X added.
“Exactly. So by sleeping with a human and a shifter, the change in her scent wouldn’t have been noticeable. We would never have known she’d gone Rogue.”
“Dammit! So she was working with Sabar, too. And they knew about Kalina even before we did.” Nick wasn’t liking what he was hearing.
“It seems that way,” Rome admitted.
“What about the threat from their government?” Alamar asked, bringing more silence to the room.
X spoke up first. “They don’t have any positive proof, just some reports from people who think they’ve seen things. If we go under the radar, it may die down.” He looked pointedly at Rome. “But they are the government. They lie and cheat for a living. My guess is they’re going to keep investigating until they find something tangible.”
Rome had a sick feeling in his gut. “You mean until they actually find one of us.”
X only nodded.
“One of our biggest fears is becoming a reality,” Alamar said solemnly.
Baxter slipped into the room at that moment, coming to stand by the Elder, handing him a piece of paper.
The older shifter’s usually restrained features changed, his lips drawing into a tight line.
