Forbidden Entanglement with Mafia Alpha

4: Never Forget

The New Government had only been in power for thirty-three years. The fairly new regime was led by military personnel under a commander, and the effectiveness of their laws depended on who was asked.

If regular humans were asked, most would probably answer that they felt safer now with the soldiers stationed at every major district in the Northern and Southern Regions of Dreadus State.

If werewolves were asked, they'd most likely respond that discrimination was just as bad as when their ancestors still roamed the premature land they knew now. Dreadus werewolves composed forty percent of the state's total population, and the majority of them were actively targeted by soldiers. The news reported incidents involving a werewolf crying out their innocence almost every other day, and this horribleness didn't seem to be slowing down.

It was made even worse because the military did not accept werewolves among their ranks.

If Faith was asked what she thought about the New Government, she'd answer that she didn't have a say in the things they made her do. Not if she wanted to stay alive, that is.

"You failed your mission."

The words shot an icy arrow at Faith's chest, sending a chill down her spine.

She had only ever heard that same sentence from her handler once before; after her first ever mission as an assassin for The New Government. The consequence of failure was severe, and the scar near her waist was still there as a daily reminder. Faith resisted the urge to run her fingers over the slightly raised bump under the fabric of her dry-fit shirt.

Special Agent in Charge Armando Fall sat behind his dark wooden desk, a bespoke suit on his tall, lithe frame. He had been Faith's handler ever since her first ever mission, meaning he had also been the agent who taught Faith just how brutal the New Government could be to their own people if those individuals failed to serve their purpose.

It was sheer control that kept Faith from showing any signs of fear.

Faith Harper had failed a mission. If anybody under the Special Missions Group of the New government was asked, that was not a common occurrence.

"You have eliminated six out of the ten werewolves on The New Order's Most Wanted List," SAIC Armando Fall pointed out, as if emphasizing how shocking it was that Faith had not killed her intended target last night.

Faith was given alphas on the Most Wanted List for a reason—and that reason was that she always succeeded in whatever she set her mind to.

SAC Armando Fall had a displeased look on his pale face. His pasty complexion indicated how seldom he left the four walls of his impersonal, windowless office, since his job was to handle paperwork and look over other agents (spies, assassins, honeypots, baits—whatever they needed Special Missions Group agents to be). Armando leaned back on his leather chair, sighing through his mouth and rubbing a hand on his forehead. "What happened with Magnus Lawson?"

Faith's back was ramrod straight on the sofa in front of her handler. She kept out any emotion from her voice. "The details of my mission are all included in my report, sir."

The agent pulled off his big, thick-framed glasses, exposing more of his blue eyes to Faith. He scowled as he told her, "Answer the damn question, agent."

Faith swallowed. She followed the order. "I altered my appearance according to the description of Magnus Lawson's past lovers included in his file. At the Taste of Redemption bar, I pretended to be drunk and enticed an even drunker stranger to follow me into Magnus Lawson's booth, knowing the stranger would attempt to take advantage of me in front of the Head Alpha. Magnus Lawson is known to be very strict against his men sexually harassing or assaulting women, and I inferred that if I was put in such a situation directly in front of him, it would make it easier to appear weak and in need of rescuing."

SAC Armando Fall rolled his eyes. "Get to the part where you were already in Magnus Lawson's bedroom, after–" Vague hand gestures. "–and yet you failed to kill him."

This was where the lies would start.

Faith had never lied in a mission debriefing or on her written reports before. Lies were hard to remember, and they kept piling on and piling on until one would inevitably topple over and descend into a mess of their making.

But Faith had to lie.

If she told the Special Agent in Charge that she had consciously chosen not to take out a dangerous mafia boss because there was a chance that she could be Magnus Lawson's mate, Armando Fall might not hesitate to kill her this time.

So, Faith told him the story she spent hours carefully threading together. "There were more men guarding Magnus' property than I had initially expected. Guards were right outside his bedroom doors, and his bedroom was, unexpectedly, on the third floor of his mansion. I saw no way to kill the Head Alpha before sneaking out of his property without raising alarms or drawing the attention of the guards." She closed her eyes for a brief second; a calculated sign of physical weakness. The small details were what made lies believable. "I went through every possible scenario, every possible route I could take. Yet, I would have been dead as soon as the guards outside Magnus Lawson's bedroom door decided to take a quick peek inside and saw their Head Alpha dead while his blood was all over my naked body."

There were two important things Faith had learned about SAC Armando Fall.

One, he was not a soldier. Nor was he ever an active field agent. The agents under the Special Missions Group might not be categorized under the same ranking as agents from other branches of the government, but Armando Fall knew nothing about what it legitimately took to pull off a successful espionage and assassination. Armando knew the mechanics, but he did not have experience in dealing with unforeseen issues the second they popped up.

Second, SAC Armando Fall's ideas were, more often than not, just orders given by the Commander of The New Government. Armando barely had a good grasp of tactics, but he was a blind follower, and that's all the New Government needed.

So when Armando simply told Faith, "We'll use this mess you've made to our advantage," Faith knew the decision to let her failure go with no consequence was not made by the Special Agent in Charge.

Schooling her expression, Faith asked, "What is it that Commander Venture wants me to do?"

Armando grimaced. He had never liked that Faith could easily point out whenever an order given to her was solely from Armando or from the Commander who passed it to the SAC.

But because it was the commander's order, Armando delivered. "You are expected to worm your way back into the Head Alpha's life without raising suspicion. I–" He pursed his lips, corrected himself, "–the commander believes you can be let off without repercussions if you are able to find more about Magnus Lawson's operation and the members of his Pack that haven't been documented in our files yet. Your first order of business will be to confirm who Magnus' cocaine supplier is, and where they stash their supply before his men deliver them all over the state."

Faith nodded, eager to make amends and to prove that she was still one of the greatest assassins under the New Government. "Understood, sir. I will need a few weeks of planning."

Armando stared at Faith for a moment longer than usual.

And Faith's first thought was, he knows.

But logic told Faith it was highly unlikely for the SAC to know that she was lying about the mission details. If she had actually succeeded in killing Magnus Lawson last night, she would have taken care of the actual number of guards and escaped into the night with no problem.

It was even more impossible for Armando to know that Faith's moment of weakness was caused by the thought of killing someone who she (a human) could be mates with.

Armando pulled something from his desk drawers. He opened the manila folder and began tossing out photos onto the table.

Faith leaned in closer, and swallowed.

The photos were included in Magnus Lawson's file. They were the crimes he and his men were highly suspected to have done (though the government had no solid proof that could tie the Red Flame Pack to any of the crime scenes).

The first photo showed five men—soldiers, still in uniform— lying on the ground with pools of blood all around them. The bullet holes in their bodies were too many from a shootout.

Next was a photo of poor quality; from a security camera up above, capturing ten women with varying injuries on their arms and legs and necks, all of them slumped against a wall, trying to hide behind dumpsters and boxes in an alleyway. These women also had the Red Flame Pack's tattoos—they were drug runners, and they were hiding because their base had been infiltrated at the time the photo was taken.

There was also a photograph of a building in shambles. A bomb had been detonated just outside the two-story building at the time, and the severely burnt, dead bodies were seen amongst the rubble. They had been agents under the New Government who were turned into unrecognizable corpses.

"Do not ever forget who your target really is, Faith Harper." Armando placed both palms against the surface of his desk, leaning closer towards Faith. "The safety of our people depends on you."

-----

Faith had been given a temporary living space as Faye Moore. It was in a condo just a few minutes outside the business district of Intershire City; a believable residential space for an interior designer, which was Faith's decided cover.

The condo had come with all the furniture, and Faith had spent government money on buying outfits that she, as Faye Moore, would need while on a mission to extract as much information from Magnus Lawson before killing the Head Alpha.

She had received an online copy of Magnus' file on her government-issued laptop. It was only accessible through a code.

She input the eight numbers and was met with Magnus Lawson's government photograph. It was recent, only his hair was a bit shorter. He didn't look angry in the photo per se, the Head Alpha just had an intense stare.

Scrolling down, Faith reread the information she'd already memorized.

Full Name: Magnus Lawson

Birth Date: January 5, xxxx

Last Known Address: Lot xx, Building xx, Intershire City, Dreadus State

Father: Unknown (No file)

Mother: Unknown (No file)

Criminal Record:

- Bombing

- Arson

- Homicide

- Attempted Homicide

- Large-Scale Drug Trafficking

- Illegal Weapons Distribution

- Damage/Destruction of Government Property

- Assault

- Money Laundering

- Larceny/Theft

- Burglary

- Robbery

- Fraud/Forgery

- Counterfeiting

Magnus Lawson's extensive criminal record (some confirmed, others highly suspected with information from trusted sources), was the reason why he was number one on the Most Wanted List.

There were more photographs of Magnus' crimes, plus stolen shots of him and his men exiting from buildings or in vehicles. There was one picture, very blurred and obviously taken by a drone flying over the desert, but a man who was obviously Magnus had a gun pointing at the head of someone with their arms bound behind their back and a sack over their head.

The fact that The New Government had no files on either of Magnus Lawson's parents meant that they were most likely illegal immigrants, with Magnus himself not originally born in Dreadus State.

Faith closed her laptop, leaning back on the grey sofa of her bare-bone living and dining room.

As she stared out of the city scenery her twenty-second floor condo unit offered, she couldn't help but remember Magnus Lawson's touches, his words, the genuineness behind his eyes when he kept telling Faith how her scent drove her crazy and that he'd never felt that way about someone else's scent before.

Even just remembering made Faith feel a little wetter, her heartbeat skyrocketing.

Faith sighed, running a hand through her damp, fake platinum blonde hair and tugging at the bleached roots.

"Pull yourself together, Harper," she uttered.