No Strings Attached

Chapter Twenty Five

What the fuck?

Clarke had never been to Asylum, and as far as the background check had mentioned, Sophie had never lived anywhere but Manchester. She hadn’t been abroad, and she didn’t hold a passport. There was no reason for Clarke to have ever seen her face, even in print.

“How do you mean, you’ve seen her picture? As in, you’ve seen it where?” Nate’s eyes were narrowed on the other man, who still hadn’t looked up from Sophie’s warm blue eyes staring back at them from the page.

“I’m not sure yet,” he murmured, but the shifty look in his eyes said otherwise, “Can I take these?”

“The files?” Jay nodded, “I’ll get you a copy sorted now. We need to work out the MO – you’re going in as client, which means we got you a fake ID and a backstory.”

Nate took a large manila envelope from one of the kitchen drawers, and threw it onto the table in front of him.

“And keys for a newly plated BMW X5 in there, it’s got GPS tracking, and a few added security details, so it’ll come in handy if you’re in a pickle,” Nate added, “Plus they can’t trace it. It’s at Caine’s Motors, just off the end of this street, just give the details to Matt, and he’ll see to the rest.”

Clarke just nodded, not picking up the envelope, barely glancing at it before his attention was back on the small picture. What the fuck was it with him and that photograph? Nate shot a quizzical glance at Jayden, whose jaw was tensed.

“Is there some sort of problem here?” Jay drawled, “You’re not even fucking listening.”

“You need my eyes to know you have my attention you little shit?” Clarke muttered quietly, looking up to Jay with a menacing glare from underneath his lashes.

“There’s a lot riding on this,” Jay grated back at him quietly, “Sophie won’t hold herself there – fuck, I don’t even know if Clara will. I want Sebastienne torn limb from fucking limb, but I need those girls out first. You fuck this up and you’re just another complication I don’t need.”

“I know what I’m looking for,” Clarke assured him, before quietly chuckling to himself at some private joke.

Nate clenched his own teeth at Clarke’s freaky behaviour – it felt like he was trying to hold something over Jay’s head. It was what Clarke did, every time – he wouldn’t appreciate the restrained authority that Jay radiated, wouldn’t realise it was just a knock back on Jay’s own fucked up background – Clarke would see it as nothing but some random guy pulling rank. And Jay no longer had rank, so Clarke was playing with his head.

Hopefully.

That didn’t help from their perspective though, because Jay was holding in on his anger with a silk thread – his demeanour might still be entirely casual; muscular arms crossed over his broad chest, long legs stretched out in front of him with his feet crossed at the ankles – but Nate could see the urge to leap over the table and tear Clarke’s teeth out was riding him.