Cloak and Dagger (The IMA Book 1) by Nenia Campbell

green eyes were watching me, far too intently to be anything but real. My captor was wearing a fitted gray shirt and black sweatpants, sitting so his body was angled towards mine. My leg was almost touching his back. I pulled it away. He was holding a bowl of water and a damp cloth, which he set aside. “Are you conscious?”
    My memory of the events leading up to this moment were disconnected. I could recall running — him chasing me — the pine forest — the sedative. Each scene felt so surreal, like a half-forgotten nightmare. I tried to push myself up. The pain that followed changed my mind.
    “ What happened? What did you do to me?”
    “ You reacted violently to the sedative.”
    “ What do you mean violently ? What happened?”
    “ It almost killed you. You were out for three days.”
    The sedative. He must have used an opiate, like morphine or codeine. I was terribly allergic to opiates. “You didn't take me to a hospital?”
    “ No.”
    “ Why?”
    “ Why do you think?”
    I'd almost died. That explained the endless sea of sleep, the bizarre dreams. My feverish brain had been boiling in the stew of my thoughts. I wondered if he was telling the truth about how long I'd been out for, and why he'd bothered to move me. I could have crashed out in the basement and not known the difference until I woke up, encrusted in my own filth. “Where am I?”
    “ My room. I know a doctor. He suggested this might be more comfortable for you.” There was an edge in his voice that suggested he considered such actions on my behalf frivolous.
    I barely heard. I was studying my clothes. I had been wearing a plain white polo and jeans before but now I was wearing a long blue shirt several sizes too big — and nothing else. He wouldn't have … not while I was unconscious and dying of fever . Even he can't be so soulless .
    My throat dried.
    I was in his bedroom. Wearing his shirt.
    And nothing else
    He tried to make me drink some water. I balked at the feel of his hands on me. “Drink it,” he said. “You're dehydrated. You need fluids.”
    I spat the mouthful in his face. He responded by sloshing the rest of the water into mine and stalking out. I lay there with water dripping down my face and neck, soaking into his shirt collar.
    “ If I don't get what I want from them by midnight tomorrow, I'll take what I want from you . ”
    That had been two days ago.
    I couldn't look him in the eye when he brought more food and drink several hours later. My stomach flip-flopped at the smell and sight of cheap lunch meat. “Are you going to throw up?”
    Not if I didn't eat. I shook my head.
    “ Why aren't you eating?”
    “ I can't,” I whispered.
    “ Is your jaw broken?”
    “ Did you rape me?”
    He snorted. “That's what this is all about? Because you think I fucked you?”
    The contempt stung more than his crude word for the act. “Did you?”
    “ We waited until midnight. I waited until midnight. My man went home early. There were no phone calls. Nothing. Your parents never showed.”
    What was he saying? That he had every right to rape me? I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming at him. Because if that's what he honestly believed, he was far more callous than I had ever thought him capable of.
    “ If I hadn't gotten your clothes off and put you in that cold water, you would have died. You're lucky my contact makes house calls. And you're damn lucky that I'm bound by a contract to give a rat's ass whether you live or die: that I didn't just dump you in a river somewhere.”
    He leaned closer, and all but spat the words into my face. “No, I didn't rape you — and you owe me your goddamn life.” He left, and I cried myself into another fever-driven sleep.

Chapter Seven
    Killer
    Michael:
    The expense reports began to stack up. Keeping someone alive was a difficult task. I had a new-found respect for Lionel and those in his line of work. I had always considered my job challenging and yet death was