Chapter 236 Board.

Chapter 236: 236 Board.

She took a ragged, shaky breath, letting it out in a long hiss that rattled through her rows of needle-like teeth.

"Okay. Fine. My name is Chamelea. And yeah, you caught me. I’m a shapeshifter. But look, that whole situation with Carter at the mall... it wasn’t personal. It was a contract."

"Could have fooled me," I said, keeping my hands resting perfectly still on the mahogany table.

The halo of magnetized steel blades remained hovering over my shoulders, all pointed directly at her throat. "Felt pretty personal when you tried to bait me into a trap so your boss could scramble my brain."

"You’re a professional, right?" she pleaded, rubbing her scaled temples with blue, webbed fingers. "You get a contract, you negotiate a rate, you do the job. I’m exactly the same way! Look, I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’m a saint. I’ve done illegal shit. I’ve stolen identities, committed corporate espionage, drained offshore accounts, swindled billionaires out of their stock options. But I was trying to go legit!"

"You?" I asked, leaning back against the leather of my chair. "A mimic with a rap sheet going legit?"

"Me! We all do crazy, desperate shit when we’re starting out on the streets. But eventually, you do the math. You realize working for the heavyweight leagues usually ends with you rotting in a federal black site or getting dumped in the harbor with your teeth pulled out.

"I’ve done jobs for the big families. I’ve even done dark-money black-bag ops for the government. It’s a meat grinder. I just wanted a clean slate. And Mister Invincible promised me full, ironclad federal immunity if I just did that one infiltration job for him."

"And you actually believed him?" I demanded, letting a heavy dose of skepticism bleed into my voice.

She threw her hands up in a helpless, frustrated gesture, her scales rippling from blue to a bruised, embarrassed violet. "He was Mister Invincible! He was the literal poster boy for global justice and the American way! He had the Mayor on speed dial! How was I supposed to know some psycho, gray-suited bureaucrat was driving his body like a rented sedan?"

I stared at her, letting the silence stretch out across the boardroom.

The logic tracked. Up until bout a few weeks ago, Mister Invincible was the undisputed, squeaky-clean moral compass of the free world.

I was just a freelance heel who wrecked public property for corporate paychecks. If the ultimate good guy walked up to a desperate street hustler and offered her a pardon in exchange for playing a decoy, it was an incredibly easy sell.

Plus, knowing Micheal Carter’s methods, he probably squeezed her mind telekinetically just enough to guarantee absolute compliance.

I glanced over at Psyren. The telepath was slouched in her chair, but her posture was entirely rigid.

Bright, neon-pink hearts of psionic energy were throbbing violently in her irises.

She had her mental claws buried deep inside the mimic’s brain, and not subtly either.

Chamelea winced, her eyes watering as a trickle of blood ran out of her left nostril from the pressure.

"She’s telling the truth," Psyren finally muttered, wiping a drop of sweat from her own forehead. She sounded thoroughly disappointed that she didn’t get to scramble the girl’s synapses. "I’m looking at the memory right now. Invincible approached her in an alley, handed her a federal dossier, and promised to wipe her record."

"Fine," I said, turning my attention back to the shivering mimic. "Let’s say I believe you were a pawn. That still doesn’t explain why you’re sitting in my house. If you want a clean slate, go dye your hair and get a job stocking shelves at a grocery store."

"Be realistic," Chamelea scoffed, a bitter edge cutting through her fear. "Nobody hires a mimic to bag groceries. The second my biometric scans, I’m arrested.

"They hire me because I can walk into a secure facility looking exactly like the CEO, bypass the scanners, and walk out with the server hard drives. I don’t mind the work. I’m good at it. But I can’t exactly be a hero, and my federal immunity deal evaporated the second Carter’s head exploded."

"So you came here."

"So I came here," she agreed, sitting up a little straighter. "I figured, why not work for you? You’re a professional. You pay your crew, you don’t pull world-domination suicide missions, and you actually give a damn about keeping your people out of prison.

"You operate like a business. I need a boss who isn’t going to get me killed or throw me under the bus the second a heist goes sideways."

Psyren gave me another tight, microscopic nod. No lies detected.

I tapped my fingers in a slow, rhythmic beat against the leather armrest.

I honestly couldn’t blame her for trying. Telepaths caught a massive amount of heat from the public, but shapeshifters had it drastically worse.

If you were born a mimic, you basically had two career paths. You either ended up locked in high-end, underground escort rings playing out twisted billionaire fantasies, or you worked as disposable, wet-work spies for alphabet agencies.

And the government always viewed mimics as massive, walking liabilities.

They couldn’t trust them, so they usually demanded lethal insurance to keep them loyal.

An explosive micro-chip planted at the base of your spine. A slow-acting, synthetic poison in your bloodstream that required a weekly antidote only the handler possessed.

Life as a shapeshifter was a paranoid, miserable existence.

And Chamelea was incredibly good at her job. I had to give her that.

If it hadn’t been for the heavy surgical steel piercings Psyren wore, I never would have spotted the fake until it was too late.

Chamelea had matched the telepath’s voice, her snarky attitude, and her exact posture perfectly.

That being said, she had still played a direct, active role in kidnapping my telepath.

But Micheal was dead, Mister Invincible was slicing pastrami at a roadside diner, and holding a grudge against a hired gun was just bad business.

In this industry, second chances were practically a requirement for survival. I knew plenty of hardened mercs who hopped syndicates the second they realized their current boss was steering the ship into an iceberg.

I wasn’t going to trust her blindly. The paranoia of having a mimic on the payroll was a logistical nightmare.

I’d have to establish daily passphrases and verbal authenticators with Rhea, Glacia, and Lilith just to make sure I was actually talking to my own crew.

But having a master infiltrator on the payroll? An operative who could walk into a bank vault disguised as the regional manager without firing a single shot?

That was a massive tactical asset. It was simply too big of a strategic call to make while the adrenaline was still pumping through my system.

"Alright," I said, finally dropping my hands flat on the table.

The halo of steel blades instantly fell out of the air, clattering harmlessly onto the mahogany wood. Chamelea flinched at the noise, her shoulders dropping three inches in sheer relief.

"I’ll think about it," I told her.

"Does... does that mean I’m hired?" Chamelea asked, her yellow eyes widening as her scales shifted to a bright, hopeful pink.

"No. It means I’m not turning your chest cavity into a pincushion today. You get to walk out of here breathing. I’ll review your file. If we decide we need a dedicated infiltrator, we’ll reach out. The cell number on your application is actually yours, right?"

Chamelea sprang to her feet, practically vibrating. "Yes! I mean, yes, it is. Thank you. Seriously, boss, thank you! I won’t let you down, I swear on my life. You won’t regret this."

"We’ll see," I said flatly, refusing to give her an inch of warmth. "Don’t call us. We’ll call you."

Still wearing a nervous, deeply relieved smile on her reptilian face,

Chamelea backed slowly out of the conference room, keeping her hands visible the entire time. She stepped into the hallway and quickly pulled the heavy oak doors shut behind her.

"You sure about her, bossman?" Psyren asked, dropping her heavy boots off the table and crossing her arms over her chest. "Because she might be desperate, but she’s still a lying, thieving mimic. They make their living stealing other people’s lives."

"I’m not sure about anyone in this business," I answered honestly. "But I know a useful asset when I see one. What’s your read? Are you good with keeping her on the board?"