I watched as Santos placed his hands on the desktop, his weight resting on knuckles that quickly grew white and creaked ominously from the pressure.
“You are in protective custody, Ms. Cray. That means you do not leave this office or your hotel room without an escort. You do not shift in public or disappear into the woods,” he stated, the icy calm of his voice at odds with the blistering heat in his eyes. Somehow his composed voice was far more unsettling than if he had been ranting and raving, and my cheeks warmed at his reference to my little escapade at the Knotty Pine. “And you do not send my staff on a goose chase across the city.”
“A goose chase?” I parroted.
Has everyone around here lost their minds?
“Sir, if I may interject?” Holbrook asked as he stepped forward, angling his body in front of me as though he was shielding me from his boss’s glare.
Santos didn’t answer, his eyes still cold and full of anger when they settled on the younger agent, narrowing slightly. After a moment he nodded, giving Holbrook permission to speak.
“I think there may be some confusion here. What do you know about what happened?”
“Johnson informed me that Ms. Cray slipped her security detail and her whereabouts were unknown.”
“That’s not—”
“That lying sack of ogre shit!” I interrupted, ignoring the way my ribs sang with agony when I waved my arms in the air.
Rather than saying anything, Santos raised dark brows at me while Holbrook just sighed and shook his head. Chagrined, I flashed them a weak smile and shrugged my shoulders, wincing a moment later at the motion.
“Perhaps you’d like to tell me what happened?”
“That pus-filled asshole is lying. He kidnapped me then tried to kill me.”
They both frowned at my colorful language, but I didn’t give two shits about their delicate sensibilities.
Damn pussies.
“That’s a very serious accusation,” Santos said, going still. His expression held an intensity I hadn’t seen before and something in the way his eyes narrowed sent a chill down my spine. “I advise you to tread with caution.”
“It’s true, Sir,” Holbrook added, looking as though the admission cost him a great deal.
“Did you see it?”
“Well, no. But—”
“So what proof do you have?” Santos asked, keeping his scrutinizing gaze on me.
“You mean beside my broken ribs?” I snarled, prickling at the disbelieving look on his face.
“This is a serious allegation. You need solid proof. Evidence. A witness. Something.”
“Get Coffin Whore…I mean Chrismer... on the phone. She was there.”
“And she saw this happen?” Santos asked with a skeptical tilt of his brow.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I was too busy getting stuffed into his trunk at the time,” I snapped.
I was quickly growing frustrated and irritated, my drug addled mind struggling to keep up with his questions. Why didn’t he trust me? Weren’t the bruises on my face and broken ribs proof enough that Johnson had tried to save Samson the trouble of taking me out?
“Christ, Cray. I can’t just take your word on this. Not when you’re talking about one of my agents,” Santos said, his voice warming with renewed anger.
“You want proof?” I demanded, using my anger and frustration to keep the pain at bay. “Well, there’s evidence all over his damned basement. There’s a bloody were pelt nailed to his wall, and I’m pretty damn sure his dead wife is stuffed in the freezer! And if you don’t believe that, I’m sure I got a couple good licks in myself before I stabbed him with a fucking screwdriver, so why don’t you just check him for evidence!” I ranted, my breaths coming faster and faster until the room started to spin around me.
“Take it easy, Riley,” Holbrook warned, his face hazy and surrounded by a golden nimbus in the corner of my vision.
Damn, he really is one of the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen, I thought, my hand beginning to rise to touch his cheek.
The slight narrowing of his eyes stopped the motion, and letting my hand fall back down to my side, I blinked in an effort to clear my eyes. Looking up into his face I saw that the shimmering halo was gone, though he continued to glow with an inner light. I was still struck by his beauty, the forest green depths of his eyes threatening to swallow me up. Shaking my head, the action making the room swim again, I ignored the pull of his gaze.
“I’m okay,” I ground out, waving off his hands lingering just shy of touching me.
The deadly calm of Santos’s voice burnt through my irritation, leaving me breathless. “Are you saying that you assaulted an FBI agent?”
Was he seriously accusing me of attacking Johnson, as if the dirty fuck sock hadn’t deserved it? And what about the fact I had just let him know that one of his beloved agents was guilty of at least two murders?