by I. T. Lucas
“I love it when you’re all hot and bothered from reading smutty books and attack me.”
She pushed him off her with a shove of her butt and flipped around. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.” He kissed her. “We might be having guests for dinner. I invited Turner and Bridget.”
“Oh, good. I’m dying to get to know him. I’ve seen him a couple of times, but we never talked. He looks so serious all of the time.”
“He is a smart dude. I like him.”
“I know. That’s why I want to meet him.”
He nuzzled her cheek. “I’ve been thinking.”
“About what?”
“Your mom. I hate the thought of her all alone in her house. Would you mind if she moved in with us?”
Sylvia’s eyes widened. “You would do that for me?”
“Not only for you. For Ruth. And for myself. She is an awesome cook.”
“You’re incredible, you know that?”
“Duh.” He kissed her lips.
“I don’t think she would want to, though.”
“Why not? She looks so sad every night when she leaves.”
“Nick. If things warm up between them, she might want to have him move in with her.”
Roni rolled over to his side and propped his head on his hand. “I hope so, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. They are like two ships in the ocean, sailing parallel to each other.”
“They are both shy. But there is a spark. With the right encouragement, it might lead to something good.”
Roni chuckled. “Those two would have done well in the days of arranged marriages. A matchmaker would have arranged the deal, and that would have been it.”
“There is something to be said for old traditions. They were not all totally stupid, just most of them. I’d rather marry for love.”
“Would you?”
“Are you asking?”
“You know I am.”
“Yes. One day.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
28
Turner
“Dinner at Roni’s. I would’ve never expected it.” Exiting the car, Bridget tossed her hair back and smoothed her skirt down.
“You look beautiful.”
“Thank you. I still feel a bit uncomfortable about Roni inviting us over and having Ruth cook for us. If it were Sylvia, it would have been okay, but her mother? She is not their maid.”
Turner took her hand. “From what I understand, Sylvia can’t cook, and Ruth is more than happy to do it for them.”
Bridget shook her head. “Poor woman.”
“Why would you say that?” Turner held the elevator door open for Bridget, hitting the button for Roni’s floor when she was safely inside.
“She cooks for them as an excuse to be close to Sylvia. She doesn’t have anyone else in her life.”
“Isn’t that true for most clan members?”
“Unlike the other clan members, Ruth doesn’t socialize. She doesn’t hang out with anyone or go out to clubs. Until getting the job at Jackson’s café, she never worked outside the house. It was fine to be a stay at home mom when Sylvia was growing up. Ruth dedicated all of her energy to raising her daughter, which was admirable. But now she is an empty-nester and has nothing to fill the void with.”
Sounded a lot like the flip side of his life until he’d met Bridget. He’d had a fulfilling job but no family and no friends. Ruth had a family, but no calling other than motherhood, and no friends either.
“I can sympathize.” He knocked on the door.
Roni opened the way. “Hey, guys. I hope you’re hungry. Ruth prepared a feast fit for a king.”
Turner handed him the wine bottle he’d bought on the way. “I hope it goes with whatever Ruth made.”
“I’m sure it will be all gone before we are done loading our plates.” Roni took the bottle. “But no worries, I got more.”
“Hi, you guys.” Sylvia hugged Bridget and offered her hand to Turner. “Let me introduce you to my mom.”
Even though Turner should’ve expected it, he was still taken aback by the mother looking no older than the daughter. She was slimmer and shorter than Sylvia, but the coloring was identical. The same wavy brown hair, and same eyes. But where Sylvia’s were full of confidence, Ruth’s darted nervously around.
She offered him her hand. “It’s nice to meet you. Roni talks about you all of the time.”
Doing his best to put her at ease, Turner smiled and shook her hand gently. “He talks a lot about you too, raving about what a great cook you are.”
A faint blush crept up her cheeks. “I like feeding Roni. He has a good appetite.”
Roni clapped Turner’s back. “I’m hungry. Let’s eat.” He motioned for them to follow him to the table.
Sylvia chuckled. “Since his transition, Roni is always hungry. He is lucky my mom feeds him. He would’ve either starved on my cooking or subsisted on sandwiches from the vending machines in the café.”
Turner pulled out a chair for Bridget. “My lady?”
“Thank you.”
Roni copied the move and pulled out a chair for Sylvia, but she shook her head. “I’m going to help my mom serve dinner.”
“Do you need help?” Bridget asked.
“No, we got it. Sit back and enjoy.”
“I can do that.”
Roni scratched his spiky blond hair. “I should help too.”
Sylvia put a hand on his shoulder. “Stay and enjoy your guests. Mom and I got it.”
“Should I open the wine?” He glanced at Turner.
Funny. It seemed the kid was expecting Victor to teach him how to be a host. He wasn’t going to get any help there. Turner was just as inept at it as Roni.
“Go ahead,” Bridget said. “I would love a glass of wine.”
“Me too,” Sylvia said as she placed a platter of roast beef on the table.
Ruth came out of the kitchen with another platter, loaded with assorted steamed vegetables. That would get her the seal of approval from Bridget.
“Dig in, people,” Sylvia said. “I’ll just get the salad.”
When everyone had loaded their plates, Bridget lifted her glass. “To family and friends.”
“Amen,” Roni said.
During dinner, Sylvia and Bridget kept the conversation going, with Roni making occasional comments about this and that. Ruth seemed satisfied to sit back and listen, her contribution limited to a few nods and smiles, which was more than Turner had done. The roast was delicious, and he’d taken seconds despite Bridget’s disapproving glances. Talking could wait until he was done eating. Besides, no one had asked him anything, so he was good.
“How are things at the café?” Bridget asked Ruth in an attempt to draw her into the conversation.
“I’m learning a lot from Jackson. He wants me to take over so he can open the new place in the village.”
“Do you think you can handle it?”
Ruth nodded. “It’s not that hard, and I’m hiring help. Human help, that is.” She cast a nervous glance at Turner. “I don’t mind working with humans. It really doesn’t make a difference to me. In fact, it’s easier. I can take a peek into their minds and see what they think of me.”
“Isn’t it against the rules?” Turner asked. The idea of immortals rampaging through his head was disturbing.
Ruth blushed. “It’s allowed only in emergencies. But to me, almost everything feels like an emergency.”
“Oh, Mom.” Sylvia leaned and kissed Ruth’s cheek. “You’ll be fine. You worry too much.”
“That too.”
The woman was obviously uncomfortable with everyone’s attention on her.
To help her out, Turner searched his mind for a new topic of conversation that would shift the focus away from Ruth.
Bridget had told him a lot about Roni, so there was no shortage of those, but the one piece of information that had caught his interest was about Roni’s grandmother. “Tell me, Roni. Did anyone investigate the mysterious circumstan
ces of your grandmother’s supposed drowning?”
“I did. But it was a dead end. She must’ve become very good at faking her own death because the two other driving licenses belonged to dead women too.”
Turner leaned back in his chair. “Or, she might have used the names of recently deceased women to pull her new licenses.”
“They were issued before the women died, not after.”
“The recorded date of death could have been falsified.”
“Could be, but that doesn’t help me. Those are still dead ends.”
“Did you question your mother?”
“I haven’t talked to my parents since my escape. Not even before that. The less they know, the less they can reveal. Besides, what good would have it done? My mother doesn't know anything. She was a kid when my grandma drowned.”
Turner crossed his arms over his chest. “She might remember some things. Perhaps your grandmother talked about a favorite place, somewhere she would’ve liked to visit or to live. Or maybe she had an interesting hobby, like painting or photography. You never know where small details like that can lead you.”
“Well, it’s water under the bridge. I can’t contact them.”
“Maybe I can,” Sylvia said. “I can go in as a Tupperware saleswoman, ask my questions and then thrall them to forget they ever saw me.”
“No, baby. That’s too dangerous. Barty knows what you look like. If they have my parents’ house under surveillance, which they most likely do, they can follow you here.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I hadn’t thought about that.”
“I can take a look and see what I can find,” Turner offered. “But first, you’ll have to give me all the information you have on her.”
Roni leveled his gaze at him. “What can you possibly do in less than two weeks?”
“You’d be surprised.”
29
Anandur
Anandur’s gut churned with excitement. It had been ages since he’d seen some action. Not that tonight promised anything remotely challenging.
What could be difficult about raiding a small brothel?
Turner’s guy had done some basic reconnaissance work in preparation for tonight’s test run, counting four armed guards. Which was a lot considering the operation was run in a private house in the boonies. It was one of those old neighborhoods where people still grew their own vegetables, including weed, raised horses and chickens, and some ran brothels or porn studios or both.
The question was, why did an operation that small require four armed men?
Men. What a joke.
Cockroaches, bottom feeders, leeches, those were more appropriate terms. Calling those pimps men was offensive to the entire male gender.
Three immortals and one well-trained human should be enough to overpower four pimps with guns, even though their team was going in unarmed. Except, Anandur would have preferred for Turner to stay behind. But since the guy had insisted on joining their first test mission, it was up to the three immortals to keep him alive.
As he was the operation strategist, it made sense for Turner to tag along. Nothing could replace field experience. But Turner was a liability. If the guy got hurt, he could die, and then the rest of them would have to move back to Scotland to escape Bridget’s wrath.
Glancing at the rearview mirror, Anandur checked to see that the van Kri was driving was still behind him. She’d been in a pissy mood since Onegus had refused to let her join the attack team, making her the driver for the rescued girls.
Stubborn woman. It wasn’t as if she could get into a brothel pretending to be a customer, or conversely, a service provider. She was too pretty to impersonate a male and too big and intimidating to play the part of a hooker.
It had nothing to do with her skills as a Guardian. Hell, Anandur would’ve preferred to have Kri by his side than a fragile human, no matter how well-trained that human was.
He cast a sidelong glance at Turner. “Can I convince you to reconsider coming in with us? You can hear everything through your earpiece.”
“I’m wearing a bulletproof vest.”
“Yeah, but your shiny head is not bulletproof, and to me, it looks a lot like a target. All that’s missing is the red dot in the middle.”
“I’m not a rookie. I know what I’m doing.”
“No offense, but you’re a human. You’re breakable.
“The three of you are going to thrall our way in. At what point do you see me in danger?”
“Shit can happen, and it usually does. I don’t want to be the one delivering the news to Bridget. She knows how to kill an immortal.”
In the back seat, Onegus chuckled. “The doctor is fearsome. I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of her fury.”
“I’m a former Special Op who’s infiltrated strongholds in enemy territory. Do you really think I can't handle a little stint like this? The only reason I’m wearing the bloody vest is that Bridget insisted.”
Anandur shook his head. “Your military background is not an advantage here, dude. With that stiff posture of yours, you look like a soldier, and you’re going to stick out like a sore thumb. The reason Onegus chose me and Arwel for the mission is that we don’t look like cops. We are supposed to be customers.”
Turner smiled, but it was a sarcastic little smirk, not an amused one. “You haven’t seen me in action. I’m a very convincing actor.”
“I’ve seen you in action, Turner. You can dance, I’ll give you that. And you have good legs for a short human. The ladies were impressed. But you didn’t smile even once. What kind of an entertainer are you?”
“He can be the one asking to play with whips and chains,” Onegus suggested. “With that bulldog puss of his, he fits the role.”
Anandur glanced back at Arwel who was staying out of the conversation. The guy had his headphones on and was blasting loud music to block their voices, both the spoken and the inner ones.
He'd told Anandur that other than getting drunk, it was the only way he could keep his sanity. Drinking on duty was a big no-no. The mission would be especially hard on him, since his job was to tune into the girls’ thoughts and make sure all were accounted for.
They needed him, though.
It wasn’t unusual for places like that to have one or two women locked in a basement, either as punishment for non-cooperation or chained for the use of clients with kinky needs. Except, houses in Los Angeles didn’t have basements. Maybe they used attics for their deviant activities instead.
Damn, he shouldn’t think of it as deviant, not with his own brother owning half of a kink club as well as being a practicing member. But there was a huge difference between kinky games played by two consenting adults, and the same games forced upon unwilling, and often underage girls.
These days, though, his brother played with no one other than Callie.
Anandur shook his head. That line of thought had to stop right away before his imagination went into forbidden territory. Even though she wasn’t his type physically, it was so damn hard to think of Callie as a sister, especially when she turned flirtatious without meaning to.
Moving out had been a smart move.
Checking the GPS, Anandur turned into an unpaved dirt road. Before tonight, he hadn’t known any still existed in the city. But they were on the outskirts, or the boonies, one of Los Angeles’s last remaining pockets of rural land.
In the rearview mirror, he checked that Kri had stopped and parked the van some distance down the road.
From the intel Turner’s guy had collected, they knew that the house sat on a large plot of land, was one story high and sprawling. Some of the activity went on in the main house, and some in the two converted stables.
One stable was divided into individual cubicles, while the other was used for auctions. For the right price, a sick fuck could buy himself a virgin for the night—an unwilling, coerced, or drugged girl who was also most likely underage.
One such auction was going on tonight,
and judging by the number of cars parked on the dirt lot, it had drawn a lot of bidders.
On the one hand, it was the perfect opportunity to blend in. On the other hand, they would have to disperse the crowd. Hopefully, Arwel would be able to handle that.
Yamanu would have been better, but his looks were too distinctive for blending in. Besides, the guy had made it obvious that he didn’t want the job. He was fine blanket-thralling from a distance, but not from inside a brothel.
Strange dude.
There was some history there, but Yamanu never talked about it.
No one knew what had happened to him, but Anandur had his suspicions. A celibate immortal was an anomaly. Something major must’ve caused Yamanu to choose abstinence.
30
Turner
Sometimes, the best-planned missions had to be redone on the fly.
Like now.
Turner looked at the rowdy crowd waiting for the auction to begin. When they’d arrived, he’d counted thirty-two men inside the stable, but more had arrived since, and the place was packed with standing room only. There were too many witnesses for a takeover and extraction operation.
With all due respect to Arwel, Turner couldn’t see the guy thralling so many people at once, and by the Guardian’s deep frown, neither did he.
Motioning for Anandur to follow, he started pushing his way out.
“Change of plans,” he said as they stepped into the cool night air, a welcome reprieve after the stifling heat and body odors inside. “Tonight, we are buyers.”
“Your guy messed up,” Onegus said. “According to him, there were supposed to be only twenty or so bidders.”
“Evidently, auction night is not a good time for the type of operation we had in mind. The turnout is unpredictable.”
Anandur scratched at his beard. “Right. What’s the new game plan?”
Turner motioned for the men to huddle closer. “By the looks of it, the bidding shouldn’t go up too high. Most of the men seem to be riffraff. I don’t expect any of them to bid more than a few hundred. I’d be surprised if anyone goes as high as a thousand. We could buy out the entire stock.”