Chapter One

I"VE BEEN WORKING INcorporate since I was eighteen. I"m twenty-three now, so that makes five years, although most times, it seems like my noob days were five decades ago. As a fresh graduate, it took me about thirty-plus interviews before I could nail my first (underpaid) job in accounting. My real-life skills were that bad.

Thankfully, a lot has changed since then. These days, I"m what you"d probably call an old hand when it comes to job interviews, having spent significant time on both sides of the desks, for companies both big and small.

As an applicant, you"re sometimes asked to proceed to Meeting Room A. Other times, you"re asked to go to Conference Room 2. If you"re lucky, these places live up to their names. But if you"re not, then you usually end up in a place that should"ve only fit one person and a desk but has since been forcibly repurposed for interviewing twenty-plus fresh graduates...all at the same time.

I really thought I"ve seen everything there is to see in recruitment...but apparently not. They say hindsight is always 20/20, and it"s true. When I think about it now, there were all those little red flags that I should"ve seen miles away-—

Not being asked for my CV, no sign-in required at reception, and then being led to a secret room that had a secret key-operated lift that opened to a secret floor...

By the time the elevator doors opened, I was alone and trying desperately to keep my wits together. I searched madly for a button to get me back to reception, but without a key to operate the elevator, I was stuck.

What the heck have I gotten myself into?

I forced myself to step out of the elevator, and my internal alarm bells went off when its doors immediately slid shut behind me.

Shit.

The carpeted hallway was dimly lit and eerily silent. It led straight down to a single unmarked door at the very end, and my heart threatened to gallop out of my chest.

Keagan had insisted I take a day off from work to apply for this. She had even described it as "the dream job I never even dared to dream of having."

At that time, I had thought to myself, What"s there to lose?

Now, however, I"m thinking, You stupid, stupid fool!

I had a good life. Not exciting - at all - but it was a good life nonetheless, and alive-but-bored was a whole lot better than something-dangerous-killed me, always.

Oh, Keagan, you better be telling the truth about this.

My knees threatened to buckle as I forced myself to get moving. Since the key-operated lift was obviously out of the question, the door was my only way out...of just this place hopefully, and not of the world.

I tested the knob with trembling fingers, and I didn"t know whether to feel dread or hope when it turned right away, and the door slowly swung open.

Oh.

A monstrosity of a room yawned before me, so huge that it didn"t even feel right to simply call it a room. It was downright colossal, with brick walls that went all the way up to thirty-foot-tall ceilings with exposed wooden beams overhead.

The sheer size and height of the space was daunting, and I couldn"t help feeling jumpy and jittery as I took a step inside the room and heard the door swing shut behind me.

What the heck have I gotten myself into?

The question echoed endlessly in my mind as I tried to make sense of my surroundings. While the room wasn"t completely dark, the finer details of the place were swallowed up by the shadows, and I could only take in the larger-than-life elements.

First thing that caught my eye was the massive bronze chandelier suspended from the ceiling. It looked like it hadn"t been used for centuries, but it still looked beautiful...in an austere, deadly sort of way. It made me imagine medieval death traps, like when an English lord would use a secret lever to have the chandelier come crashing down on his hateful wife"s head, and he"d finally be free to marry his one true love—-

I quickly shoved the thought to the back burner.

Now was definitely not the time to let my imagination get carried away.

Keep your head together, T.G.!

I let myself look around, but the more I saw, the more it felt like I had time-traveled back into the Middle Ages. Heraldic banners and battle-scene tapestries hanging on the walls. Torches lit by real, honest-to-goodness fire. And at the center of it all was a gigantic slab of stone that could very well be the world"s most imposing desk. Or maybe it was the stone altar right out of Narnia. Who knew?

At this point, I was ready to believe (and fear) anything, and I could only dig my nails into my palms as I forced my gaze to wander past the stone table—-

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

My eyes had finally adjusted to the room"s low-level visibility, and I was gradually able to make out five figures whose features were hidden in the shadows.

"Please take a seat."

Darkness gave the voice a seemingly disembodied quality, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. The person"s voice - Voice #1 - sounded gentle enough, but so what? Most serial killers had nice voices—-

Stop thinking gruesome thoughts, T.G.!

I forced my legs to work even as fear crawled down my body and left a trail of goosebumps on my skin. Keagan recommended this job, I reminded myself. If I couldn"t trust Keagan, then I might as well distrust everyone else.

There was only one vacant chair on my side of the stone table, and a voice once again addressed me as soon as I was seated.

"State your name please."

Something about the darkness made my sense of hearing keener, and I realized right away that I was talking to a different person altogether.

"T.G. Baskerville," I answered Voice #2, whose tone sounded so cultured, his words so precisely spoken, that I couldn"t help wondering if he had spent most of his formative years in an English boarding school.

"And it"s short for what?" It was still Voice #2 asking.

"Tahoma." I usually felt dread whenever I heard myself state my first name out loud, but this time I was too nervous and distracted to even feel self-conscious.

A short pause had followed my answer, and then I heard another voice murmur rather skeptically, "Like the font?"

"Yes." My nails dug deeper into my palms. Voice #3 sounded American and casual, almost too casual, and my nerves went taut with fear. Something about this man...

A cough from Voice #1 interrupted my thoughts. "Your name is Tahoma...and your last name is Baskerville?" The gentleness was less pronounced this time, and what was more noticeable was the note of suppressed mirth that underscored his words.

"Yes." My name got me bullied a lot when I was a kid, but today I found myself intensely grateful for it. If my name could make these guys feel less prone to kill me, well, wait until they knew...

"And the G?" This was Voice #4, made distinct by its gravelly rumble. "Is G your second name or..."

"My mother"s maiden name," I answered.

"Which stands for..." It was the American again, and he now sounded just as amused as Voice #1. Oh thank God.

After taking a quick, big gulp of breath, I gave up the last of my secrets in hopes that the sheer ridiculousness of it could save my life. "It"s Garamond. My whole name is Tahoma Garamond Baskerville."

There was a moment of silence.

And then another.

And finally...

The sound of masculine laughter, and while the way people tended to crack up at my name used to make me cry...well, it still made me want to cry now, but this time it would be tears of joy and relief.

Alive-but-embarrassed was a lot better than unridiculed-but-dead, always.

IT WAS VOICE #1 WHOdid most of the talking after that, and there was something about his questions - what he was asking and how he was asking it - that made me answer as truthfully as possible. It felt as if I was being tested, not just for a job, but...

"Have you heard of Strakh Incorporated, Ms. Baskerville?"

Hearing Voice #2"s question was the moment I realized nothing about these men were normal...and why Keagan described this as the dream job I"d never even let myself dream of having.

In the past five years, the world"s biggest and baddest criminals had been ruthlessly exposed and thrown behind bars, and the single common denominator behind their arrests?

Strakh Incorporated.

The most idealistic of their fans likened them to modern-day Robin Hoods of cyberspace. Their, um, more adult fans, however, preferred to fantasize about Strakh Inc. as a brotherhood of billionaires who were Batman, Christian Grey, and John Wick all rolled into one.

Either way, there were at least three things that all of their admirers agreed on.

Whoever it was behind Strakh Inc., they were likely to be exceptionally intelligent and skilled, mind-blowingly wealthy, and ridiculously ballsy, to go after evil guys that even the most powerful governments found elusive.

Personally, however, I hadn"t really given much thought to their identities. All I knew - and cared about - was that they got their hands dirty (and maybe even bloody) for the right cause, unlike...

Don"t think about him.

Just don"t.

But the moment he entered my head, I couldn"t help wondering nervously if—-

"It"s alright, Ms. Baskerville." It was the American once again, but unlike his casual tone earlier, he now sounded quite sober. "We know everything about your father—-"

I couldn"t help paling at the words, and I had this crazy urge to bolt and never look back. It was the same old feeling, every time someone would tell me they knew the truth about him. Most people would probably love hearing stories about their dads, but when yours was a conscienceless crook who...

"And we also know what you"ve chosen to sacrifice."

The words made me jerk in my seat.

They know about what I did, too?

My old best friend came flying back to say hello at the realization. I called it GPS...short for guilt, pain, and shame. And GPS...it always had me glaring down at my lap. Glaring as hard as I could without blinking—-

One.

Two.

Three.

Personal record, I thought numbly. It usually took me ten seconds before the urge to bawl my eyes out would recede, but the fact that I was trapped in a secret underground base with five of the world"s most infamous and dangerous vigilantes probably had a lot to do with my new record.

Voice #2 had gone on to enumerate my job duties when I was finally able to regain my composure and lift my gaze back to them. What they expected me to do was reasonable and probably wouldn"t always be legitimate, but it didn"t matter. Like them, I was also willing to get my hands dirty for the right cause.

Voice #4 asked if I had any questions, and I shook my head. All of this was a mere formality as far as I was concerned. I had always wished that there was something I could do to make up for my father"s sins, but I had never really thought it was possible...until now.

Afterwards, the group asked me to sign a contract that had more pages than the Bible, but I didn"t give a damn. I affixed my signature on each page without hesitation, and it was only when I put the pen down that I heard the American drawl, "Before we end..."

I straightened in my seat, feeling that I was about to be asked something crucial—-

"Will do you us a favor by picking a number between one and five?"

I blinked. "Excuse me?" Was this a trick question?

"We"ve assigned ourselves a number each," Voice #1 explained, "and you"ll be working directly under the person whose number you"ve chosen."

Voice #1 didn"t seem to be the type to lie about things, but...what if this really was a trick question? What if the number I chose would indicate how many people I"d have to kill or kidnap or whatever as some sort of initiation rite?

It was possible...right?

Unable to get the thought out of my mind, I decided to play it safe and heard myself say, "One—-"

And almost right after, I heard a new voice mutter, "Fuck."

I barely kept my jaw from dropping.

Another moment passed, and then the same voice said yet again: "Fuck."