CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Z
I GAPE AT my outfit in the gilded full-length mirror—if a fishnet chemise, red leather G-string and matching choker with the word slave bedazzled across the front in black crystals could be described as an outfit.
“Oh no. No. No. No. Not a chance in hell.” My vigorous head shake doesn’t budge a single strand of thick hair from my lacquered topknot. “I can’t step out of this room. Look at me! I’m practically naked.”
It’s not as if I’m a prude, either. On the rare occasion that I’m granted R & R, I’m more than happy to rock a skimpy bikini. But the French Riviera isn’t waiting outside these walls. Feather and I are in downtown London, and I can’t appear in public without proper knickers. I might be undercover...but I deserve proper underwear.
“But, love, that’s the whole idea, innit?” Feather, an avant-garde designer on the payroll of the British Intelligence Agency, smooths her asymmetric skirt while fluttering an impressive set of false eyelashes. “It’s the perfect cover. One look at your jubblies and no one in the Lion’s Den will imagine you’re a kick-ass secret agent. They’ll be too busy wanting to reach for a paddle. You look well fit.”
“Oh, joy.” My gaze connects with hers in the mirror and my whiskey-brown eyes narrow in mock ferocity. Feather’s bright blue lipstick matches her eyes as she winks.
I don’t return her saucy smile because lighthearted tone or not, Feather isn’t joking. And while ridiculous, this situation isn’t remotely funny. The Lion’s Den is London’s most notorious kink club, and in less than an hour I’ll be walking through its depraved black doors, all my goods on full display.
This is what I’ve wanted. Plotted for. Dreamed of.
But in these dreams, I was always fully dressed.
“Come on.” Feather clicks her tongue like a scolding schoolteacher. “Don’t be a brat.”
I exhale a frustrated breath, but damn it, she is right. I have to suck up my reservations for the good of the mission—and in this case that means going undercover to help British Intelligence as a BDSM aficionado. It’s a far cry from last week, when I sported a chic Chanel suit and nude Louboutin heels while running the Hong Kong office for the Order, a top-secret international agency whose mission is simple: protect the world from itself. Order agents are carefully curated and come from all nations and walks of life to prevent wars, dispose despots and foil terrorist attacks. Sometimes we help out partners such as the CIA, Mossad or, in this case, my home country of jolly old England.
No one in mainstream society knows the Order exists, and it’s better for everyone that way.
I’m a trained assassin, fluent in seven languages, an expert in poisons and knife play. I’ve worked my currently bare arse off to become a powerful, take-no-shit woman. Not someone who enjoys wearing a collar and parading about like an overprimped lapdog.
“I was instructed to pass along the final mission briefing after you were dressed.” Feather hands over a sealed manila envelope. It’s marked with a black marker slash—Z. That’s how I’m known in the Order. All agents are assigned a random one-or two-letter name, our true identities protected even from those we work with. The name I was born with, Lora Summers, only daughter of a Cornwall couple whose boat sank off the coast of Calais, doesn’t exist anymore. My records were purged right down to my birth certificate.
I’m a ghost. I’ve been one for years.
To work in the Order means to sacrifice the individual for the good of the group. Husband. Children. Simple Sunday mornings doing crosswords and eating leisurely breakfasts. Lives civilians take for granted, little acts of normalcy, have been denied me for the better part of two decades. But as I enter my early forties I can’t help reconsidering my place in the world.
Maybe it’s a midlife crisis, but the thought niggles like an itch that I can’t scratch.
What if I want a new life?
“I’ll fetch you a glass of cab sav,” Feather mutters, the pucker between her plucked brows revealing a twinge of annoyance at my recalcitrance. “I know it’s your favorite, and you need to loosen up before the Dom arrives.”
My heart skips its next beat as the room’s temperature seems to rise ten degrees.
The Dom. The Dominant. The man who is supposed to play the role of my master.
I try to snort and roll my eyes. As if.
Feather snickers and I know I’ve played the part she expects. Agent Z is a wordly badass.
Little does she know.
As Feather clicks out the hotel room door in her high-heeled boots, I rip open the envelope with shaking hands. The mission brief is printed in a pale green ink, sourced from the Nightshadow plant found only on the southern coast of an islet off Sumatra. The Nightshadow ink will fade in a few more minutes...leaving the paper utterly blank and these words undectable.
Mission: Lion’s Den
Posing as “King” and “Princess,” you and your assigned partner will infiltrate the Lion’s Den and attempt to connect with club owner Dante Price. When not presiding as the ruler of Britain’s kink underworld, Price allegedly smuggles arms to terrorist cells throughout Central Asia in return for heroin. We need concrete proof to get an arrest warrant. This means gaining his trust and being believable in your respective roles. Please note that sex acts (real, not simulated) and BDSM role-play are to be expected and embraced for authenticity. Both you and your fellow agent have been cleared for sexually transmitted diseases as per Order policy, and your hormonal birth-control shot is up-to-date.
It’s not until I finish reading the mission that I taste the metallic flavor of blood. I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek so hard that I broke the flesh.
The sight of Dante Price’s name will do that to a person.
Me more than most...
Dante Price is the baddest of bad guys. He makes a business out of chaos, profiting from human misery. Now he is mine for the taking. Not that this is a surprise.
I’ve waited to get him for years. It’s finally time, and I’m ready. But that doesn’t mean
