3. A Mission She Can't Refuse

The contents were unbelievable.

The SIA wanted Olivia to make herself even more vulnerable than she was in the vampire den. At least in that place she was allowed to be armed. In the corporate world, they wouldn’t take kindly to her wearing guns or knives.

"Ian Novak," Olivia groaned as she tossed the folder containing the briefing of her latest target. "CEO of RK Nielsen. His appearance makes my skin crawl and he's got to be at least fifteen years older than me."

Beeps coming from a heart monitor were making it hard to think straight. The wires and tubes all over Olivia were making her feel itchy, but it wouldn't be right to throw a tantrum like a child.

As she turned her head towards her present company, Olivia felt like the entire world was shaking. Blood loss wasn't something to mess around with, it turned out.

For her entire twenties, she had worked so hard to become someone the agency trusted with hard missions, but for the very first time, she failed. They had overlooked a detail out of her control and she lost Q, her partner from the moment she finished basic training and was shipped out to the agency in China ten years prior.

Failing her mission wasn’t only that. She failed someone so dear to her. She made an irreversible mistake and was haunted by it every moment she had been awake since leaving that vampire den.

She was certain she would have been turned into a vampire if she had been there a moment longer. That would be a fate worse than death, in her opinion. At least Q didn't face such a fate. She could find comfort in that much because he hated the bloodsuckers as much as she did.

The loss of her partner hadn't fully struck her quite yet. She hadn’t been able to have a good, earth-shattering cry while she reflected on the loss that was eating away at what was left of her heart.

Olivia pushed away the tray of food she had been slowly eating. After reading the information regarding the next target, she became restless and her appetite was gone.

Having Mission Director, Nova Harrington, in the room didn’t help her restlessness. She felt on guard at the mere sight of the woman.

The silence was uncomfortable as Nova stood at Olivia's window and stared at the Taipei skyline outside. She seemed preoccupied which made Olivia wonder why she bothered coming in the first place. It wasn't as if she could do anything about the sudden mission assignment.

"Why does it have to be me?" Olivia kept pressing.

Nova turned from the window and strode towards Olivia's bedside, though she didn't sit down. Her leather high heels clicked on the linoleum floor until she stopped.

Breaking the bounds of Mission Director and one of her agents, she pushed Olivia's hair over her shoulder.

"It has to be you because you're pretty and he's that sort of man," Nova said. "And, while your skills are sharp, Ian is not going to care about keeping you around because of that. You'll have to keep his interest somehow."

Olivia didn't like the way they were going about that mission. Normally their agency operated along the lines of sending agents in only after they had a full profile and each detail down to a t. His lack of readable background or profile was unsettling. For once, she was the agent and the information gatherer. This entire situation was a slow burn she didn't like to feel outside of books.

Lack of planning was also why she was fresh from a failure. They should have planned more and taken every detail into account. She shouldn’t have pushed.

Since Nova had knocked down all her arguments so far, Olivia decided to use her final excuse.

"I'm not fit for an office setting," Olivia reminded the director. She held her forehead after speaking. It was getting harder to ignore the dizziness. She had another blood transfusion being brought to the room. It couldn't come soon enough.

"I'll get fired on the first day. If not fired, the cover will be blown quickly," Olivia continued. "How will anyone believe I studied to become someone's office slave? I'm not a submissive woman."

Nova sized up Olivia for a few moments. While it was true the agent had a fit build and domineering personality, there were excuses for everything. It wasn't as if she was the first woman with a desk job who also happened to have a muscular physique.

"You're going to have to develop an active hobby," Nova reasoned. "Keep in mind that you won't be sent to London without proper training. You're a sharp tool. Learning how to schedule meetings for executives won't be rocket science."

"I would rather try to learn how to build rockets than something like this," Olivia admitted.

Nova was just about done with their conversation and she had done her due diligence in making sure her agent was awake and responsive. Considering it was late in the evening, she decided to subtly excuse herself first.

"You won't fail a mission again," the director responded, her tone determined. "You wanted to prove yourself as a solo agent and repair anyone's doubts in you after this last loss. It's time to step up to the plate. You're getting sent a pitch, what you do with it is up to you."

Olivia extended her hand when she realized Nova was walking towards the door. If she wasn't attached to so many things, she might try to do something extreme like chase after her.

"Please rest and heal quickly," Nova said just before escaping the room.

"Nova, wait!" Olivia called. In a last-ditch effort, she called, "Mom!"

She didn't want to be alone. Even though her mother hardly treated her like a daughter, she was better than the loneliness of healing all by herself.

Every time there wasn't a nurse or doctor in there checking on her, she would start to think about Q again. She didn't know how to handle it.

Olivia had been trained to push past emotions and act like nothing hurt her, but it hurt her deep inside. She didn't know how to cry to release the feeling.

The professional facade was gone. It was late anyway and Olivia dropped the act. She needed her mother to talk to her as her daughter and not her director for a moment, but Nova was quick to escape–a common theme that certainly scarred Olivia throughout her childhood.

Some women were too cold to have children. Nova was one of those women.

Not everyone in the agency knew of their relationship especially because Nova insisted on not giving her daughter special treatment. If anything, Nova gave her daughter even worse treatment than the others because she saw a lot of herself in the younger woman.

For a moment when Nova first arrived, Olivia was disillusioned enough to believe Nova was there to check up on her. When she saw the folder in her hands, the illusion was shattered.

As resistant as she was to the mission set out before her, Olivia found herself reaching for the manila folder containing all the information they had so far.

Ian was a handsome bastard, she had to give that much to him. His luscious blonde hair would make someone think he was angelic if it weren't for his demonic, shapeshifting red eyes. Even through the picture provided on the top of the paperclipped stack, his gaze was piercing, as if he could see her scrutinizing him.

It was unfortunate he likely used his abilities to get into such a prestigious position as CEO for one of the biggest conglomerates in Europe or, rather, the world.

He needed to be neutralized somehow.