©Merlin's Chosen Book 8 Programmed *published work*

Chapter 1 First Impressions

"Listen, honey, I don't know why they picked you and I don't care. You might be the best at what you do, I don't care. The most likely reason they changed plans is that your parents are already dead not because I interfered in your little operation. Get on with your life and go rob, someone else, I have work to do."

She stomped across the room and slammed her palms flat on the surface of his desk. "I do not have to take your crap, asshole. I am not some common criminal. They chose me because I am the best at what I do. I am one of the top agents in my field. I worked damn hard to get where I am."

He snorted. "I wasn't aware that thieves were referring to themselves as agents now."

"I work for the federal government, moron! I infiltrate terrorist cells, and gather information to bring them down! If you want to fling insults then fine but try and find out who you're flinging them at first!" she shouted.

He had no response to that. He'd expected some burglar, a good one, but still a common criminal. A federal agent? Nope, not what he expected. "Uh, sorry?"

She snorted. "Right, whatever. My parents aren't dead, I would know if they were."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Did you put a spell on them?"

"Excuse me? What are you talking about?"

He chuckled. "It's a simple question. Did you put a spell on them to track them?"

Her eyes narrowed on him. "What do you know about spells?"

"I know that I shouldn't have underestimated you and if I hadn't then you wouldn't have gotten me with that repulsion spell."

"You're a sorcerer? I thought you were a mortal, they never told me you were a sorcerer." She frowned. "I wonder if they even know."

"You took a job without asking for all the details about your target?" he asked her with a frown.

"I didn't exactly have much of a choice. Especially not after they informed me that they had my parents. Once they allowed me to speak to my dad I knew it was no joke."

"What did they tell you?" he asked as one finger tapped on the edge of his desk.

She threw her body down into one of the chairs set before his desk, slouched down, and placed her feet on the corner of the desk. "The guy who called didn't say much about anything. He told me he had my parents, let me talk to my dad briefly, then sent me an email with instructions and a blueprint of your house."

"They didn't give you much to work with. You did well considering that."

"That is why I'm the best at what I do."

He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "You're still going to insist on blaming this on me, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Fine, whatever. Okay, I'll help however I can but don't come crying to me in disappointment if I'm correct and they're already dead, I warned you." He dropped his hands from his eyes with a sigh and looked at the computer screen, tapped an icon to open a program, and clicked to start it up. "They haven't tried to boot the program yet, the second they do I'll know. Once they run the program I can track it and figure out where they are."

She swung her feet down from the desk and leaned forward. "How can you do that?"

"A lot of my programs are important and I'm not an idiot, regardless of what you believe." He tapped a finger on the secondary laptop he'd pulled out after she'd left earlier. "This is my real computer, the one I do my work on. This one over here, the one that was sitting on my desk that you stole the program from is a fake. All the programs on here are nothing but tracer files. They appear real on the surface but they don't do shit, except allow me to track where the program has been taken."