DANGEROUS OBSESSION

2

LAUREN MOSS

At this very moment, I’m in a terrifying interrogation room, with a few wires connected to me.

And now, I think reality has finally hit me!

They took that man who was sprawled out in front of me somewhere, dragged him out of there, confiscated my phone, and brought me here like a criminal.

I’m in this white room, sitting in front of a redheaded woman who, as beautiful as she is, scares me.

Being here scares me.

Where was my head when I got myself into this?

Lauren, for God’s sake!

You killed someone!

You’re being interrogated by the FBI, overnight.

Where was my head at?

The fear is real now, and completely palpable. I think the trance I fell into that day at the charity event, the fog that swallowed my judgment and consciousness is gone now.

My heart is beating far too fast, pounding hard against my chest.

Blake is here. He’s up there, in what seems to be an all-glass room, staring down at me as if I were a criminal.

He’s right there, and my memory didn’t do justice to how attractive he is. He’s with a woman and two more men I saw around that place.

“Under whose orders did you kill him?” the redhead woman asks, and instantly my eyes fill with tears as she watches me.

“I don’t know who he is, I didn’t kill him under anyone’s orders!” I answer, terrified. I see the reflection of a green light in her eyes as she looks at the machine those wires are connected to.

“Listen to me, I need you to tell me what happened, up until you got there,” she says. I take a deep breath and my mind travels back.

“I…” I try not to stutter. “I was recruited for the training at the base, I… don’t know why or exactly how,” I say, confused, and she simply doesn’t react at all. “I was leaving college when I was taken from there blindfolded, without knowing what it was about…” I explain.

“I was lost inside the base and ended up overhearing a conversation about that mission… and about that man, accidentally” I continue.

“So you went of your own free will?” she asks, and I swallow hard.

“Yes,” I answer, and I see the reflection of a red light taking over the entire room, making me even more nervous.

I didn’t lie…

Her amber eyes meet mine again.

“Any motivation? Maybe some blue-eyed agent?” she asks, curious and intrigued.

Almost unconsciously, my eyes drift to where Blake is, and I feel my face heat up.

And as if he felt my gaze, his blue eyes meet mine, leaving me petrified.

Heat floods my face, making me quickly look forward again, dying of embarrassment.

“No,” I answer, and to add to my disgrace, the red light flashes with a humiliating intensity.

I swallow hard.

Heavens, Lauren… this is peak humiliation.

I’m completely losing my dignity.

“Blake Wray?” the redhead asks, staring straight into my eyes, right into my pupils. I feel not just my face but my entire body heat up intensely.

“Yes…” I murmur, and an extremely green light floods the whole room and my heart stumbles.

“Where do you know Agent Blake from?” asks.

“I don’t know him, I only saw him once,” I say, and the green light turns on again.

The reflections of my accelerated heartbeat can be seen through the lenses of her glasses.

“How did you get to the crime scene?” she asks, without any expression on her face, and I’m trembling, remembering everything as my mind decides to bring me back to consciousness little by little.

What have I done?

“I took a motorcycle, followed the GPS with the location I overheard, and when I realized it, I was already there,” I say, confused by the memories in my head. I see her face turn pale as she lifts her gaze towards the room where they are.

“Without any weapon?” she asks.

“I acted impulsively. I didn’t take anything besides the motorcycle,” I answer, terrified of myself.

“You must have overheard that he was a criminal and an A-level one,” she states, and my heart speeds up. “And you went with no weapon, completely alone?” she presses, and I exhale.

“As I said, I arrived at the base completely lost, I acted impulsively…” I say, truly disoriented. “I ended up in that place on impulse, and when I realized it, I was hearing gunshots, a man ran, and I… I chased him. My mind blacked out. All I know is that, trying not to die, I fought him… and

I ended up firing at him with his own weapon. That’s when you showed up,” I say all at once, with gaps in my memories.

“I didn’t bring any weapon, especially since I don’t have any experience with guns” I say, frightened about what might happen to me, and she nods, smiling while staring deeply into my eyes.

“Lauren Moss?” she asks, and I nod slowly.

“Lauren Moss” I confirm.

She nods again and then looks toward the glass room for a few moments, but I refuse to look after this interrogation.

I don’t know how I’m here, or how I did any of those things…

What happened to me?

BLAKE WRAY

Lauren Moss.

Daughter of Jacob Moss, the man who has been in mine and in the FBI sight for years.

“She killed one of our assassins without training and without any weapon… That’s what people say, natural talent,” says Samuel, one of the agents of the secret base and my friend, watching her through the glass room while she’s interrogated by Sasha.

“No, that was nothing but stupidity and pure luck” Hailey counters, jealous, I can see it in her eyes.

The truth is, what she did is actually impressive. If it was just luck, then she is the luckiest person alive.

And that will be great.

She will be very useful for Jacob Moss’s capture.

LAUREN MOSS

Some agents or guards, whatever they are, who were inside the room disconnect the wires from the machine, and I exhale…

Thinking a million things at once. What’s going to happen to me now?

Someone tell me—where was my head?

I really killed someone… He was a criminal, but still a person.

Am I going to be arrested?

I don’t have a license to shoot.

I’ve never done anything like this, and I’m not a genius. Even though I managed to get them to bring me into the FBI… I don’t even know how I did that.

I can’t help with computers or decrypting things like in the movies, I don’t know how to fight, I’ve never fought in my life, and I barely exercise, I don’t think going to the gym counts.

If the mess I made reaches my parents’ ears, they’ll send me to Antarctica—they were already waiting for a reason to send me far away from them.

What the hell have I done?

Miriam!

Why didn’t she at least slap me twice? Or punch me properly to see if I’d wake up to reality?

Am I going to spend the rest of my life imprisoned by the FBI?

I stand up, watching Sasha—the woman who interrogated me—carefully organizing

everything she touched in here.

“What’s going to happen to me?” I ask, fearful, not knowing whether I should panic or cry, and she lifts her eyes to mine.

“Don’t be afraid. Come with me,” she says, and I sigh, following her, limping.

“You’re hurt,” she comments when the metallic doors of the room open, and we step out into a corridor straight out of a movie.

I’m so, so scared.

“Yeah,” I confirm. “I was thrown to the ground a couple of times, trying to save myself from the situation I got into and not die” I say, and she smiles.

“We’ll treat your injuries later” she says, scanning her eye in some machine here, and the metallic doors of another room open, leaving me paralyzed.

A few hours ago, I was leaving college, and out of nowhere it feels like I’m inside a science-fiction movie, or maybe a nightmare I have no idea how I entered, and even less how I’m going to get out of.

My face heats up when my eyes meet Blake’s inside the unconventional room, and a cold wave settles in my stomach. My heart threatens to leap out of my chest.

Maybe I understand a little how I became someone else, without consciousness or judgment, entering that absurd trance.

He is unreal—unrealistically attractive, tall, virile, and with that tailored outfit it’s clear how lean and sculpted he is. He’s handsome, his face is handsome, with symmetrically masculine features; his aura exudes power, it fills the entire space and almost takes my breath away. And his

blue eyes are authoritative, intense, penetrating, and brutally striking.

His gaze has something, it’s one of those looks that brings anyone to their knees without him needing to say a word. His eyes seem to have the power to completely change the course of the life of anyone who crosses paths with them.

I really wish that were an exaggeration…

I spent my entire life being pushed by my parents toward men, some extremely ugly, others somewhat attractive—and, well, in the end, all of them were always irrelevant to me, idiots, to be precise.

But him…

He seems forbidden to even look at or be near because of how perfect he is. He looks like a man created in a laboratory.

My face burns intensely.

“Are you just going to stand there? Come in!” a beautiful woman with green eyes, blonde hair, and tall stature, who was there in that place, says rudely to me, and I sigh.

I feel Sasha place her hand on my back, guiding me into the most technologically advanced room I have ever seen.

I sit down, my face blazing red.

“Lauren Moss” his voice pierces my ears, and the heat in my body spikes drastically.

His voice…

I swallow hard.

He heard everything that was said in that interrogation room.

His gaze penetrates mine, and I am awkward, scared.

“I… I apologize,” I say. “I won’t interfere in anything ever again!” I speak, panicking.

“Certainly not,” he says, not breaking eye contact. “You will not enter any mission without training and without being assigned to it first” he adds, and I frown, with my heart skipping multiple beats, utterly confused.

“What do you mean, without being assigned to a mission first?” I ask, staring at them, confused. “I… I don’t even know how I got recruited for this training. I have no skills that would ever allow me to be an agent. I never wanted to be an agent…” I don’t even know how

I’m alive right now.

“Obviously, you have no skills. Your average grades say it all” the blonde woman next to Blake says, her anger towards me immediately is making me feel anger towards her as well.

“That happens when you are forced to attend a course you don’t want. I only need to pass, not impress anyone with my cognitive abilities” I reply, indignant.

“Besides being stupid and reckless, you’re dumb and big-mouthed,” she says with disdain.

“Watch your tone when speaking to me” adds, with a very unfriendly look, and I swallow hard, scared, despite being irritated.

Why is she talking to me like this?

An agent enters.

“Mr. Blake” the man says, and Blake, understanding immediately, nods and leaves shortly after.

My breathing eases slightly.

“Don’t pay attention to Hailey” the blonde man with blue eyes says, making me look at him.

“You were recruited for a reason” he adds, and I am even more confused.

They really want me? Is that it?

I look at Sasha, extremely confused.

“Lauren,” Sasha says, “know that we don’t recruit randomly. Although this incident, which we hope will never happen again, was unexpected, the IQ sector believes you are very useful” she says.

Is this a sign?

“You were recruited for the FBI special agent training, in Blake Wray’s class” she continues, and my heart races while my eyes widen.

Special agent?

Trained by Blake?

So, the supposedly mysterious millionaire, or even billionaire, at the event isn’t just an heir or a pretty face, but an FBI secret special agent? And if he trains, he is definitely not just any agent.

The place I’m in proves they aren’t ordinary people.

Well, that’s remarkable; he definitely isn’t part of the common agents or sector, and I’m losing my mind.

“Well, I…” I stammer, my attention drawn as I see Blake enter again. “I’m in college, and one day I’m out of the house, my parents…” I finish, hesitant, and Blake looks at me.

“This training and any internal information are confidential, Moss,” he says, and I swallow hard. “No one, especially your parents, must know that you were recruited by the FBI,” he adds, and I nod unconsciously.

“You will go with Samuel to your house to get your belongings,” he says, and I frown.

“I’ll have to stay here?” I ask, confused.

“What did you think? That with the amount of security guards you have, you would come and go as you pleased? This isn’t a joke,” Hailey, the blonde with multicolored eyes, says, apparently

with an intense urge to kill me.

“We need you to be discreet,” Sasha says, and I nod, ignoring the previous comment. Well, I’m getting out of that house.

Is there anything better than that?

No!

What exactly am I getting myself into? I don’t know, but at this moment, I’m also not very interested.

I have nothing to lose.

The only problem is: what excuse am I going to give them? Because I’ve tried leaving the house before, but they didn’t allow it, and if I go back there…

“All right,” I say, and I see the look of disdain on Hailey’s face.

“Shall we?” Samuel asks, smiling, and I look at Sasha, hesitant. I don’t know—she emits an energy that makes me feel calmer.

“I’ll take her to the infirmary first,” Sasha says, and I stand up.

“Let’s go!” she says, and I follow her.

BLAKE WRAY

“We don’t need her to arrest Moss,” Hailey says as soon as Jacob Moss’s daughter leaves the room with Sasha.

“Is that jealousy, Hailey?” I ask, because I’ve never seen her speak so harshly. “If we didn’t need her, she wouldn’t be here, and Moss would already be in custody.”

“It was a brilliant move getting her infiltrated into the FBI,” James says, and I nod. I’ve been investigating this girl for a long time, and she will be extremely useful to us, especially to me.

“Let’s be honest, she’ll be very useful. She took down that thug!” Samuel exclaims, impressed.

Honestly, for someone untrained, what she did was surprising.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Hailey says, irritated. “That girl is going to be a problem.”

“I would have taken that bastard down myself if she hadn’t interfered in that mission,” she says, and I exchange looks with James and Samuel; they have the same reaction I do.

She’s jealous.

Why?

Nobody knows.

“And of course she managed to kill that criminal; she’s the daughter of one, has her family genes. She will betray us; she’s not trustworthy!” she insists, agitated.

“Blake!” exclaims, and it irritates me.

“I don’t have time for this,” I say, with no patience to deal with her now, and simply walk out.

LAUREN MOSS

We walk into the infirmary. It looks like something out of a movie. I’m breathless in every room of this place, barely able to think about what happened and what is happening.

By now, the nurse has already treated the wounds on my knees and elbows, and I changed back into my clothes—clothes that had been dirty, which I hadn’t even noticed.

They were washed and dried incredibly fast.

“Thank you!” I say to the nurse. She nods, and I follow Sasha outside.

“What do I tell my parents?” I ask Sasha, lost.

“Samuel will handle everything once you get there. Just agree with whatever he says,” she replies, and I nod.

We step into the elevator, and panic churns inside my chest. When the doors open, we walk into a parking lot filled with luxury cars.

“Here’s your phone,” she says, handing it to me as we approach the car I assume belongs to Samuel.

“Thanks!” I say, noticing Samuel now dressed in completely casual but elegant clothes.

“Get in, Lauren!” Samuel says, opening the door for me, and I get into the car.

I’m officially getting myself into deep s**t.

I already am—but I’m strangely enjoying it.

The adrenaline.