Shadow of Temptation (Asylums for Magical Threats #2.5) by Jessie Donovan

seconds to react if things went south.
    He placed his hand on the doorknob and slowly twisted it open. He gave her one more look before he inched the door open. Before he could say anything, a woman with accented English said, “Jorge Salazar, it’s bad form to keep a lady waiting on the doorstep. Now, my dear, open this door and invite me in. Despite your ungrateful behavior—of course who could blame you? I’d be cross too if someone interrupted my sexy times—I still might share my bag of pastries with you and Sabrina.”
    Sabrina blinked. She wondered who the hell was the woman on the other side of the door and how she know her name.
     
     
     
    Jorge had no idea who the woman on the other side of the door was, but her words about “sexy times” made him think that, despite all of his precautions, someone had stashed a camera somewhere in the room. The idea of someone else seeing Sabrina’s naked breasts didn’t sit well with him.
    Right now, however, he needed to try to think of the best way to play this since he couldn’t use his shadow-shifting abilities again until tomorrow.
    Asking the woman for her identity would be useless. They might have to use the hidden escape door behind the wardrobe—that had been the entire reason he’d chosen this location out of his handful of places to lay low. Even when he’d worked for the Fed League, he had wanted backup escape routes in case something went wrong.
    He caught Sabrina’s eye and put up a hand with all five fingers. He nodded his head to the wardrobe and back. Sabrina understood that he had a plan—even if she didn’t know what it was—and nodded back. He lowered one finger and then another before the woman on the other side of the door spoke again. “If you try to escape through the secret passage behind the wardrobe, I most definitely will not share my pastries with you.”
    He stopped the countdown. Even if there was a camera in the room, and the woman outside had seen him nod toward the wardrobe, no one knew about his secret passageway. With that comment, he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Who are you?”
    “I’m surprised Aislinn didn’t mention me. Hmph. I’ll have to talk to her about that.” The woman waved a few fingers through the door. “Hello, my name is Neena Chatterjee. I help run DEFEND, and I highly advise you to let me inside unless you want me to start drawing attention from people down on the street.”
    Aislinn was the woman who had organized the rescue for his sister last week. Still, this Neena hadn’t given him specific enough information for him to believe her yet. He needed to know more. “Prove that you work with Aislinn—tell me where they found my sister.”
    Neena removed her fingers and her voice was serious when she answered, “Tied-up naked in a freezer, on a sprawling estate about an hour from Merida, off the main road to Celestún.”
    Her answer was correct. He still wanted to question her further, but he wanted to do it away from possible prying eyes. “Okay, I’ll open the door, but I want you to have your hands raised when I let you in to make sure you don’t have any weapons.”
    Neena answered, “I don’t usually take orders, but just this once, I’ll agree.”
    Before the woman started talking again, he unchained the door and slowly opened it until he had a short woman with wild, curly black hair and golden tan skin standing in front of him. Her hands were up, and she had a clear plastic bag of Mexican pastries in her left hand.
    He only hoped the pastries didn’t hide something much worse inside of them.
    He waved her inside. “Hurry up.”
    She walked in, and since he knew Sabrina would watch his back, he locked the door before turning around to find Neena giving Sabrina the once-over.
    Despite the fact Sabrina had to be as confused as hell as to what was going on, she was alert and had her gun trained on Neena. Sabrina’s trust in him chipped away even more at his belief she’d