Challenges

by Natalie Grey

  The gang’s rise to power must have been recent, Gabrielle thought. In neighborhoods riddled by violence the people in the streets had a wary look. Most of the men carried weapons, and there were always signs of strife: missing doors, broken windows, chips of paint where bullets had hit houses.

  This place, however, looked like it was simply a slightly poorer-than-average neighborhood. The streets were clean, there were curtains in the windows, and the children didn’t look scared. Even when the gang had shown up, their parents had had to haul them inside.

  If the gang hadn’t gotten a toehold yet, it was going to be easier to boot them out.

  Gabrielle shook her head at her own foolishness. She didn’t know any of these people, and there were bigger fish to fry than one minor gang in one neighborhood in one city. She knew from experience that you couldn’t fight every battle.

  But when she saw places like this, places that reminded her of the kindly old bakers’ wives slipping her pastries and the down-on-their-luck artists she had known over the years, she wanted to save them.

  And although she knew she couldn’t save Tabitha from her own choices, she wanted to save her, too.

  Tabitha kept her mind resolutely blank as they walked.

  The truth was, she wanted to cry her eyes out at Joaquin’s choice. When she had left home, it had been a long string of one bastard after another trying to back her into corners, telling her how grateful she should be for a roof over her head.

  Joaquin had sheltered her, worried when she didn’t come home for a few days, always tried to make sure she ate enough.

  Why did it have to be him who had sold her out? Emmi she could have dealt with just fine—she’d never liked that bitch. But Joaquin?

  Tabitha’s mother had always told her that God made sure the wicked received their punishment. Tabitha had been of the opinion that the punishments never seemed to come quickly enough.

  And it didn’t help to think that Joaquin might pay for what he’d done someday. It didn’t take away the fact that he’d done it, and it would never take away Tabitha’s pain.

  Maybe that was why she hadn’t wanted Gabrielle to let loose on these guys.

  What would have been the point? No matter what Gabrielle had done, Tabitha was still going to be the girl who trusted the wrong people. Who had to be bailed out. That wasn’t ever going to stop.

  They stopped in the shadow of an apartment building and one of the men rapped on the door. It opened from the inside, and he motioned to the two women to enter. “We’re here. Don’t get any funny ideas. We were told to bring you in alive…if we could.”

  It was an obvious bluff, but Gabrielle wasn’t planning to call him on it just yet. She swept ahead of him into the darkness—

  And had to fight every instinct not to lash out as hands grabbed her and ran over her body searching for weapons. She was shoved down a dark hallway, a tactic more effective for disorienting humans than vampires, and watched as the same search was performed on Tabitha. Tabitha’s messenger bag was ripped off her shoulder and given a cursory search, and Gabrielle caught sight of notebooks.

  Oh, shit. Had Tabitha brought the notebooks? The information in those was far too important to be floating around.

  “Tabitha.” The voice that spoke out of the darkness was genial.

  A light clicked on, briefly blinding her, and Tabitha squinted at the man who had greeted her. She knew that voice...

  “Santino.”

  Shit. She wasn’t sure who she’d expected, but it hadn’t been him.

  Santino was the very definition of a jumped-up thief. The man had grown up in one of the worst neighborhoods and had stolen for the gangs since he was a small child. He was the sort of person who’d never have amounted to anything if his sister hadn’t been sleeping with the gang leader.

  But because she had, Santino had been family. And that meant he got put in charge of things. He got to oversee jobs and take a higher cut. He got to wear suits like the one he was wearing now, with expensive cufflinks. He got booze and women whenever he wanted.

  You’re just a guy who stole cigarettes, Tabitha thought as she stared him down.

  But she was screwed, and she knew it.

  Because she didn’t know Santino from her time in Anton’s group. No, she knew Santino from her home neighborhood, Abasto. Santino’s gang was pulling jobs in the worse neighborhoods by then—and sometimes the rich ones—but a lot of them were from Abasto so Tabitha had known their families.

  And they knew hers.

  “It’s been such a long time,” Santino said, embracing her. “Little Tabitha. No one thought you’d grow up to be a hacker, and you were one of the best, weren’t you?”

  “Not really.” She didn’t want him to keep talking about this. It was, in fact, the last thing she wanted. I’m nobody. Nobody important, and I can’t do anything for you.

  “Oh, don’t be so modest.” Santino looped his arm around Tabitha’s shoulders and drew her away, after one last lascivious glance at Gabrielle. “You were a star in our world, you know.”

  Tabitha said nothing. The hallway sloped down toward the basement, and she found that she was fighting the urge to scream.

  They wanted her to, though.

  So she wouldn’t. She told herself that if they wanted her to be scared, she would refuse to be. If they wanted her to feel trapped, she would remember that she was—

  God, she was the same person she’d always been. Despite her resolve, she wanted to cry. She wanted to scream at them with every expletive she’d ever learned—her months with Bethany Anne’s team had been very enlightening on that front—and tell them to go to hell and leave her alone. But she knew what she was. She was one of the people who didn’t call the shots.

  She had promised Gabrielle that she would try to change, but she didn’t see how that would help.

  The hallway led to a double door that opened into a massive room. Water pipes ran along the ceiling and the grimy floor the group walked over held puddles.

  There were people everywhere. Women in tiny dresses turned to watch, their eyes skipping over Tabitha and going straight to Gabrielle. The men, some in jeans and some in suits, mostly did the same, although a few had the good sense to wonder why their boss seemed so invested in a tiny chick with piercings and dyed hair.

  Tabitha, trying to ignore the stares, looked toward the end of the room, where Santino was leading her.

  When she stopped in her tracks she heard Santino’s low laugh.

  “You remember Thiago, my dear.”

  Thiago. The man sat behind a large desk as if he were Anton himself and not just another jumped-up criminal. His blond hair was parted neatly, and his suit had been expertly tailored. He rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and stared at Tabitha over his steepled fingers.

  “I don’t remember Thiago,” Gabrielle said innocently. “Who’s he?”

  Tabitha gave her a panicked look, but Santino only smiled.

  “I have no doubt that you’ll become very well acquainted with Thiago,” he told Gabrielle. “He held this little group together after Anton disappeared.”

  Gabrielle looked at Thiago with renewed interest. She would not have picked him out as Anton’s ally—for one thing, he was human—but Tabitha’s fear made it plain that he had in fact been involved in the organization somehow.

  “Tabitha,” Thiago called to her with a smile. “How lovely to see you. You look just like I remember. And what have you brought me?” He looked over as an underling handed him Tabitha’s bag, and slid the notebooks out of it with a reverent look. “Your research?”

  At his shoulder, Emmi gave a smug smile. “I told you she wouldn’t have destroyed them. Little Tabitha was always so proud of everything she knew.”

  Tabitha swallowed.

  “I see you’re thinking of leaving.” Thiago’s voice sounded regretful. “And I really can’t allow that.” He raised his voice. “Matteo, Santino. See to…securing Tabitha’s family. The rest
of you are dismissed. And you, Tabitha… You can come here. You really must introduce me to your charming friend.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “So,” Thiago said, as Tabitha and Gabrielle were brought forward by the guards. “Who is this charming woman?”

  Tabitha looked away. She had learned how to be quiet while the people around her played this game—everyone pretending that they weren’t posturing and threatening—but she had never learned to play it herself. She hated saying words that were the opposite of what she meant.

  “Oh, come now. I am an eminently reasonable man.” Thiago smiled.

  The smile made the hair on the back of Tabitha’s neck stand up, and from the look on Gabrielle’s face she wasn’t impressed, either.

  “I just want you to do one little thing for me,” Thiago explained. “Very easy, really—for you, anyway. I need you to hack into the Central Bank and get me a little something.”

  Gabrielle watched him, trying to make sure her face showed no expression.

  Tabitha had to decide what happened next. She had spent years being exploited under Anton’s thumb. True, she had been young and naïve, and she was vulnerable to people of Anton’s persuasion. The question was whether now, when she had a crew to back her up and the ability to free herself, would she be the same.

  She knew the importance of freeing oneself from one’s problems. The story she had told Tabitha had been as much a reminder to herself as it was to the younger woman.

  —

  It had been Stephen who had found Gabrielle in the burnt-out wreck of the rebellion’s safe house all those years ago. She’d been sitting in the corner, arms wrapped around her knees, staring at Henri’s charred body.

  I sent you a message weeks ago, Gabrielle told him.

  I know. Stephen stared down at the body. How did he die?

  I killed him, if you must know.

  Oh? Why? Stephen’s handsome face had held a small smile. He knew, but he wanted her to say it.

  She could have said anything. She could have mentioned the look on his face when he killed, or the way he pressed the younger women to find their way into government officials’ beds to get information, even when the young women didn’t want to. She could have said that Henri had gone crazy, and he didn’t care about anyone else as long as he got to feel important.

  All she said was, He had to die, and I had to be the one who killed him.

  Stephen had stared at her for a long moment. And that’s why I didn’t come when you sent the first message, he said finally. You had to free yourself. You’re more now than you were before, Gabrielle. It’s easy to get caught up with the wrong people when you’re trying to do the right thing—we all know that. Michael has seen atrocities committed in the name of causes he fought for, and so have I. So have all of us, but we’re not helpless. We take care of those people. Now that you’re one of us, you have to do the same.

  There had been more—quiet murmurs shared over a pitcher of wine in some terrible bar until Stephen’s latest mistress had shown up and tried to stab him over his alleged misdeeds with the latest ingénue at the opera—but it was that moment Gabrielle remembered: staring at Henri’s body and hearing Stephen tell her that she had to be the master of her own fate.

  —

  Thiago had tipped Tabitha’s face up, two fingers below her chin.

  “Come on, now, sweetheart,” he cajoled. “It would be so easy for you. No one is as good as you are.”

  Emmi, who was standing behind his chair, crossed her arms, annoyed by the attention being paid to another woman—even threats.

  Tabitha made her eyes as wide as she could. “I’m just scared. They’re getting better and better at finding people, and what if they find out it was me? They might hurt my family.”

  Gabrielle tried to refrain from sighing. Tabitha was playing up her innocence and youth. Hopefully it was the start of some con, but at this point Gabrielle didn’t have much faith in that.

  “I’ll keep your family safe,” Thiago assured her. “I promise. My men are looking after them right now, aren’t they?”

  Tabitha looked down at the floor. If she did this job for him maybe she could find a way to set him up, and given that time she could figure out a way to rescue her family and—

  And that was exactly how she’d gotten into this mess in the first place.

  She looked at Gabrielle. “Okay, do it.”

  Gabrielle’s face split into a huge grin. “Really?”

  “Yeah.” Tabitha could feel fury beating in her suddenly. “You know what? Fuck this. Fuck all of this.”

  “I agree,” Gabrielle said delightedly. She smiled at Thiago. “You really are a total idiot, you know. A little two-bit criminal. You think you’re Anton’s successor? I can pretty much guarantee you he would have used you as cannon fodder without hesitation if he needed some. Anyone who meant anything to him got taken out with him by my people.”

  Thiago opened his mouth to tell the guards to shoot, but…

  He never got the chance.

  Gabrielle turned smoothly to slam her fist into the head of the nearest guard. He was wearing a helmet, but that did next to nothing to protect him at the speed she was moving. His head snapped sideways and he went down. He never saw the red eyes, the claws, or the teeth for one simple reason: he was dead before he hit the ground.

  Thiago yanked Tabitha toward him and pulled an old ornamental pistol out from under his coat.

  “You brought a narc?” His face was white with fury. “You thought you’d bring a narc in here? You’re going to pay for that, little bitch.”

  But Thiago had always been better at posturing than acting. Tabitha’s fist connected squarely with his nose and his shot went wild, taking one of the guards in the shoulder.

  The man’s scream and the roar of the pistol distracted the other guards, which only made Gabrielle’s job easier. She laughed, taking advantage of the changed timbre of her voice. A vampire’s voice in hunting form tended to terrify unwary humans.

  “You lot are no fun.”

  She knocked two of the guards’ heads together and dropped the bodies to the floor after quickly slashing their throats with her claws.

  Tabitha looked down at Thiago, who was now lying on the floor with his hands over his face. His nose was fountaining blood all over his expensive suit, but all she could do was laugh. She had always known on some level that Thiago pretended to be more dangerous and important than he was, but it had never been quite so obvious to her before.

  He was pathetic.

  “You think you’re going to stand there and laugh at me, bitch?” He pushed himself up off the floor, and there was murder in his eyes. “I’ll end you right here, right now.”

  He rushed her, and Tabitha did something she’d watched the Bitches do in training once or twice: she popped her leg up, planted her foot right in the center of his chest, and pushed.

  She wasn’t quite expecting the impact so she gave a little cry, but it turned out there was a good reason for using that technique—it worked wonders. Thiago went flying back against the desk with a shout.

  “FINISH IT!” Gabrielle yelled. “Don’t pause, just finish it!”

  “I don’t know how!” Tabitha yelled back.

  “Find a way!”

  Tabitha muttered, “Oh, right, that helps.”

  But as Thiago gathered his strength to rush her again, she felt herself react. She couldn’t turn and run, and she couldn’t duck and wait for him to focus on someone else. She had to act, here and now. She had to do something for herself.

  She punched him again and this time she punched slightly lower, putting every ounce of her fury into her tiny fist.

  Thiago’s scream was cut off abruptly and he sank to his knees with a wheeze, clutching his crushed throat. His face was incredulous as the light died in his eyes.

  Tabitha stared at his body for a moment, then turned around and threw up on the floor.

  Gabrielle decided there would be t
ime to comfort the woman later. Right now there was the small issue of four more armed guards. One of them took aim at something near the wall and shot, and there was another scream as Emmi—running for her life to escape the carnage—slid to the floor, leaving a smear of blood on the wall.

  “All right.” Gabrielle wrenched the gun out of his hand and dragged him close to her by the throat. “I’m not going to say I liked her very much, but that was pretty fucking low of you. And since you like this gun so much, why don’t you keep it?”

  She embedded it in the front of his skull and let his body drop to the floor.

  “So which one of you stupid bastards wants to be next?”

  None of the men answered. Instead, all three turned and ran.

  She loved it when they ran. Gabrielle took two steps and launched herself into the air, coming down on the middle one’s back while his comrades left him to die.

  “How does that feel?” she asked him when he realized they weren’t coming to his aid. “Are you thinking maybe you should have made better friends? Because you should have.”

  “Please don’t hurt me. I’m just—”

  “Someone who hurts whoever he’s told to?” She snapped his neck without waiting for an answer. “God, I hate cowards. If you don’t have the strength to own your actions you shouldn’t carry weapons. You two, stop right there.”

  The two last guards heard her, but neither one of them stopped.

  They both died by their comrade’s gun, and Gabrielle grimaced as she dropped it to the floor. She was used to a higher quality of weapon these days.

  The door burst open and Santino stood in the entry, gun drawn and face pale as he saw what remained of the room. He tried to leave again, but Gabrielle grabbed him and dragged him back into the room.

  “Tell me all about the guys watching Tabitha’s family and I’ll let you go.”

  “I’ll tell you everything!” He held his hands up pleadingly. “Everything!”

  “Okay. You can start anytime.”

  Tabitha snorted.

  “There are five guys on the block and two guys on the opposite side of the street on the roof.” Santino was shaking. “I’ll call them off if you want! I’ll do anything! Just let me live!”