Dungeon Games (Masters and Mercenaries #6.5)(4)

Derek’s stomach took a nose dive.

“Who?” There was only one reason for him to touch that folder like he didn’t want to release it, like there was something sacred in it and the information would change things.

“He killed again, early this morning. It’s why we brought you in so suddenly,” Joe explained.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He stared at the folder like it was a snake that would bite him if he moved even an inch. Very slowly, as though time had turned into a mud pit he had to slog through, Joe slid that folder his way.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this way, Brighton. The latest victim is someone you know,” Hill explained, his deep voice grim. “It’s someone you all know. Apparently she was a regular at that club your brother owns, Sean. Sanctum?”

Sean had gone a little white, his eyes on the folder, too. “Yes.”

“Oh, my god.” Eve reached for her husband, tears already in her eyes.

“Fuck me,” O’Donnell said, running a hand through his hair. “It’s not Jill or Ashley. I just left them.”

All around him they were chattering, but it seemed to come from a distance because his hand was on that folder and his stomach was somewhere in his throat. He was a cop who’d seen the absolute worst things humanity could do both in war and in the civilian sector. He could handle just about anything, but he was going to make a fool of himself if he turned that folder over and saw her in a photograph, her gorgeous blue eyes dead and that skin of hers cold.

Not Karina. Not Karina. Not Karina.

He suddenly wondered who it would be okay to see in that picture and he realized a brutal and nasty truth. Anyone but her. He could handle it being anyone except her. He was friends with the subs at Sanctum. He’d slept with some of them, and he suddenly knew he would toss them all to the wolves if it meant Karina was still breathing. It was perverse because he wasn’t even friends with her. He was never going to be close to her, but he couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing her again.

Not Karina. Not Karina. Not Karina.

He turned over the folder and a golden-haired blonde with blue eyes was staring up at him. He’d seen those blue eyes before, but now there was nothing lighting them. They were flat and empty in death.

“Holy shite,” O’Donnell breathed as he looked over Derek’s shoulder. “I didn’t like the girl, but damn me if I want that to happen to anyone.”

Amanda. Guilt swamped in and yet he couldn’t help but feel a massive wave of relief. Not Karina. Amanda. She’d been a junior officer, a first-class bitch, and he’d had a hand in ousting her from Sanctum. Now she was dead, a victim. She was a cop and all he could think about was Karina. He was a pathetic waste. He should feel more for a woman he’d worked with. He’d topped Amanda on many occasions, but deep down it had just been an exchange of need. There hadn’t been a single emotion for her beyond anger when she’d threatened to bring down the club.

Shouldn’t it mean more?

“Officer King was found dead in an alley behind a club in Deep Ellum early this morning,” Joe said in a monotone that let Derek know he was in full-on cop mode. Nothing would touch him until he’d gotten the job done.

That cold professionalism was nothing less than what he owed to his fallen officer.

Derek adopted the same and tried his damnedest to not feel the relief in his gut that Karina was still walking the earth in her atrocious shoes.

Because it didn’t matter. She wasn’t his type and she was kind of a righteous bitch who had it in for him, which was why he wished she would stop looking at him with her doe eyes and stop walking around the club with her big, gorgeous tits hanging out, and wished she would disappear so he could f*cking sleep with someone else because he damn straight wasn’t going to sleep with her.

No way. No f*cking how.

Professional. He had to stay cool and calm because there was a killer working and he’d come straight into Derek’s world.

“Amanda was no longer a member of Sanctum. We have very strict rules on how submissives enter and leave the club. She would never have been allowed to walk to her vehicle alone. She would have been walked to her car and she would have been asked to call another member of the club when she got safely home. If she hadn’t made the call, someone would have gone looking for her,” Alex McKay explained as Derek ran through the details that made up the end of Amanda’s life.

Strangled with jute rope. He stared at the pictures, recognizing the tortoise-shaped pattern of ropes that crossed her naked flesh. A rope dress. The bastard had used an intricate pattern to truss her up.

“Yes, we think she was in one of the larger clubs, a not so private one. There are two we’ve identified in the DFW area and that’s where we need your help,” Hill explained.

“You want us to go undercover,” Sean surmised.

“Eve isn’t going anywhere,” McKay said immediately. “She can profile the f*cker for you, but if he’s killing subs, you can’t expect me to send her in.”

Watts stepped up. “Look, we don’t need a sub. We’ve got a good line on a sub to send in. I haven’t talked to her myself, but we’ve identified her as a potential victim. We found her name on a grain of rice the unsub left on Officer King.”

“We?” Harris said, his eyes wide.

Clayton pointed a finger Harris’s way. “Just explain the findings. We don’t need a ton of attitude.”