Hyper Lynx (The Lynx Series Book 6) by Fiona Quinn (ebook reader for pc and android TXT) 📗

I would let it run its course. Stand back and observe. And just like that, in my mind, I was back to being seventeen:

“Spyder?” I asked after meditation one morning.

“Yes, Lexicon?”

“I’ve been researching the laws of the Almajid.”

“And what did you find?”

“They don’t allow alcohol, and they don’t allow homosexuality. As a matter of fact, an act of homosexuality is punishable with the death penalty.” I smiled.

“And you have tapes of Hanasal hiring multiple men engaging with him sexually. Do you wish for him to be put to death for homosexual acts? Would this align with your morality?”

I dropped my head. “No, of course, it doesn’t align with my morality. But his being put to death would align with my sense of justice.”

“The means to an end are an important part of your ethics as an intelligence officer.”

“They aren’t my laws. Those are Almajid’s laws.”

“But by handing this particular information over to their king, it would be you who is assigning him to death for this specific reason. Does that align with your sense of ethics? Yes or no?”

“No.” I was ashamed. But I was also left without much to work with. “You knew I was taping his recreational activities with the prostitutes in the bar, and some of them happen to be men. Hey, how the heck can you do that? How is it you’re following me?”

“That is not what this lesson is about.”

“Okay, then answer this. Why is it that you’re just watching? Why aren’t you helping me?”

“Have you needed my help?”

“I don’t know… Maybe?”

“When you need my assistance, you will ask for it. In the meantime, ‘That which is yours will not pass you by.’” He smiled gently at me, his eyes warm with fatherly love. “Are you going out again tonight?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The videos of heads bobbing in the back seat are not a fruitful direction.” He stood and left.

Clanging in the kitchen dragged me back to the present, here in the crapola garage apartment. Yeah, meditation wasn’t going to happen today. I’d try again tomorrow.

I wandered into the kitchen to see what Destiny was up to. I needed to build my bond with her.

Destiny had come home with a stock pot yesterday with no explanation.

She double folded wash cloths and had lifted the pot from the stove, carrying it to the sink. I peeked over the rim. It looked Destiny was boiling socks and underwear. Clever.

She tripped over a loose flap of the linoleum, the pot tipped, sloshing the hot water on me.

I shrieked and jumped back.

In reality, the water was overly hot but nowhere near boiling, I discovered. Destiny must have brought the water to a boil and let things cool while getting ready for her day.

But the reality part of my brain was a step behind the survival part of my brain.

My flinch reaction assumed the water was scalding and would burn me. I’d whipped my shirt over my head and threw it toward the sink.

I stood there in my bra and jeans.

Destiny put the pot on the counter and grabbed a towel in one fluid move. “Are you burned? I am so sorry!” Her face turned red as her eyes brimmed with tears.

“I’m fine, Destiny,” I said. “It’s fine. I was just startled and frightened, that’s all.”

She patted over my arm with the washcloths, drying me off. Her focus was on my chest and abdomen, where fine scar lines created lace patterns over my skin.

The Motus Operandi of Serial Killer Wilson was to hold a chloroform-sodden rag over the victim’s nose and mouth, tie her up, sliced her skin with a razor, then Wilson woke her by pouring vinegar or salt on her wounds.

On my wounds.

The plastic surgeon had spent hours in the OR gluing me back together.

Now, Destiny’s finger traced down the scar that ran from ribs to hip, a hundred and fifty stitches, the scar that Striker had painted over with the word “voluptuous,” covering where Wilson had tried to skin me alive the second time he found me.

I let her look. Process. Conclude.

Tugging the washcloth from her hand, I held it over my chest. “I’m fine. I wasn’t hurt. I just…” I exhaled loudly. “I’ve had a rough past, and it makes me jumpy.”

Destiny panted some unpronounced emotion.

“It’s a habit now that I’m trying to unlearn because that was a ridiculous thing for me to do just now. The water was hot but not burning. I found that my abusers wanted me to experience pain. If I tried to be brave or stoic, the punishment got worse. If the moment they touched me, I screamed in pain and sobbed for relief, the abuse was less. They just wanted the power of the reaction. Now I react—overreact—as a habit.”

As I said that, I wondered how much of that was true. All these memories around my dad’s death and the sensation of my parents hovering and warning me to pay attention…

Was that all just my brain pulling a con job, trying to give me a manufactured story to explain away my angst?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Night and day from my undercover job, I was now fluffed, buffed, and dressed in a cute little black dress.

I walked onto the patio with a view of the Potomac, where I was meeting up with Christen and the other bridesmaids. I thought about Steve Finley. He was, for the most part, a desk jockey at the FBI. It’s not where he wanted to be. He had always enjoyed working undercover.

More power to him, I thought ruefully.

He had been working a case where, I guess he’d been under cover too long, his handlers weren’t paying attention…something.

It had all gotten out of hand.

He fell in love with his asset. Like “Let’s get