Wasted

by Jennifer Estep

  Gin didn’t think that I knew about that, though. Gin didn’t think that I knew about a lot of things. Killing was her specialty—ferreting out infor­ma­tion was mine.

  “Finn?” Xavier asked, won­der­ing at my silence.

  I sighed. “No more word games. Just lay it out for me, Xavier.”

  To my sur­prise, he did. For the next five min­utes, Xavier sat there and told me what was going on. Every word he said made my stom­ach twist a lit­tle more. Fuck. Gin was not going to like this—not one damn bit. I didn’t like it much either, but Gin—she was going to take it per­son­ally. She was going to blame her­self for what was hap­pen­ing at North­ern Aggression.

  “So do you think that Gin will help?” Xavier asked in a low voice after he fin­ished telling his story.

  “Help?” I barked out a cold laugh. “Hell, she’s going to feel respon­si­ble for the whole thing.”

  Xavier shook his head. “It’s not her fault. It’s nobody’s fault.”

  “You don’t know Gin. She won’t see it that way. She may be as cold as ice, but if you fuck with some­body that she cares about—hell, even a friend of a friend—you bet­ter watch out. Because she will bury you six feet under and not think twice about it.”

  I started brood­ing then. About Roslyn and Xavier, about Gin, about the whole fucked up sit­u­a­tion. I don’t know how long I might have sat there if Xavier hadn’t cleared his throat and pointed to the TV screen.

  “Uh, Finn, who is that? And why are all those men with her?”

  I looked over. On the TV screen, Clarissa Divine strode into the lobby. The vam­pire looked as gor­geous as ever, but for once, she wasn’t alone—six men wear­ing dark suits and car­ry­ing brief­cases flanked her.

  “Oh, them?” I said. “Don’t pay any atten­tion to them. They’re just here to rob the bank.”

  #

  Xavier frowned and looked at me. “Here to rob the bank? How the hell do you know that?”

  “Because I’m Finnegan fuck­ing Lane, and I know things.”

  Xavier kept star­ing at me. I sighed again. This time, I was the one who told the story about my very first meet­ing with Clarissa and all the times that she’d been back to the bank since then.

  “So I was imme­di­ately sus­pi­cious when Clarissa went for Stevens instead of me,” I said. “Since I’m obvi­ously the much bet­ter catch.”

  “Obvi­ously,” Xavier agreed.

  “Hey now, keep the sar­casm to a minimum.”

  A grin crooked up the cor­ner of the giant’s lips.

  “So I did some dig­ging. There is no Clarissa Divine in Ash­land or any­where else in the South that I could find. How­ever, there is a Clarissa Devane, who hap­pens to be an extremely high-priced hooker. And guess what her spe­cialty is?”

  “Rob­bing banks?”

  I put my fin­gers together and made a shoot­ing motion. “Bingo. First, she goes in and seduces the man­ager. When the poor fool is hope­lessly in love with her, she goes to the bank with her crew. They rob the place and pre­tend to take her hostage. Since the man­ager doesn’t want his lady love to get her brains blown out, he’s more than happy to give the thieves access to what­ever they want, includ­ing the vault. Once the vault is empty, the thieves take Clarissa with them, sup­pos­edly using her as a human shield. Of course, it’s all just part of her get­away. A cou­ple days later, the cops will get a tip about a decom­pos­ing body dressed in what­ever Clarissa was wear­ing while she was in the bank. Since she’s dead, the cops look for the thieves. After a few weeks, the police will find their bod­ies rot­ting some­where. Clarissa doesn’t like to share her loot, you see, so she offs her own crew after the job is fin­ished. With no one to chase after, the cops lose inter­est, the case is closed, and Clarissa is off to build a new crew and find a new sucker to fleece.”

  Xavier whis­tled. “That’s pretty slick.”

  I nod­ded. “Just watch the TV, and you’ll see.”

  Sure enough, it hap­pened just like I said that it would. One of the guys with Clarissa pulled a gun out of his brief­case, grabbed her, and pressed the weapon up to her tem­ple. There was lots of scream­ing then, so much so that I had to mute the sound on the TV.

  Even­tu­ally, after the tellers had emp­tied out all of the cash draw­ers, the thieves started threat­en­ing to kill Clarissa unless the man­ager stepped for­ward. A few sec­onds later, Andrew Stevens came out from behind the counter where he’d been stand­ing when the thieves had first come into the bank. There was so much sweat on his fore­head that I could see it on the TV screen. The thieves waved their guns around some more, and Stevens quickly caved. He headed toward the door that led to the lower floors—including the vault.

  “All right,” I said, get­ting to my feet. “I’m going to get Gin to help you and Roslyn with this prob­lem that you’re hav­ing at North­ern Aggression.”

  Xavier blinked. “Just like that?”

  I nod­ded. “Just like that. I owe Roslyn that much. But right now, I’d like you to help me. I don’t know about you, but after what you just told me about Roslyn, I really want to hurt some­body. Want to help me stop a rob­bery? Hell, the depart­ment might give you a com­men­da­tion for it. The higher-ups at the bank will cer­tainly be grateful.”

  Xavier cracked his knuck­les. His grin matched my own.

  #

  I hit some but­tons on my desk and grabbed some sup­plies out of it—namely, a cou­ple of guns. I offered one to Xavier, but he politely declined. Then again, he didn’t really need a gun. As a giant, he was strong enough to pull some­one apart with his bare hands.

  We turned off the lights in the office. Since it was late Fri­day, most every­one else had already gone home for the week­end. Besides Stevens, I’d been the only one still work­ing down here on the lower floors.

  We didn’t have long to wait. We’d left the office door open, and foot­steps clacked on the mar­ble floor and echoed down the hall­way to us.

  “Secure this floor and make sure all the offices are empty,” I heard one of the thieves say. “I don’t want any­one com­ing up behind us try­ing to play hero. The rest of us are going down to the vault. That’s where the real money will be.”

  “Got it,” another man said.

  Most of the foot­steps moved on and then faded away, as the thieves with Stevens and Clarissa in tow, went on down to the vault floor. But after a moment, more steps sounded, grow­ing louder and louder and headed in this direc­tion. I lis­tened. Two men, one to run point and the other for backup. Thanks to the TV screen, we knew that two of the thieves had stayed in the lobby to keep the tellers under con­trol. Since two were now headed this way, that meant that Clarissa had taken two more down to the vault with her, along with Stevens. I nod­ded at Xavier, who nod­ded back.

  The guys were thor­ough, I’d give them that. One by one, they peered into all the offices, turn­ing on the lights and mak­ing sure they were empty before clos­ing and lock­ing the doors behind them. Clarissa had put together a decent enough crew—it was just her bad luck that she’d picked my bank to rob. I might fuck over the IRS and occa­sion­ally my clients, but I always pro­tected what was mine—and this bank was mine. I was rather like Gin that way.

  Finally, the thieves got to my office. The first guy stepped inside and flipped on the light switch.

  “Clear—”

  That was all he got out before Xavier stepped for­ward and slammed his fist into the other man’s face. The guy dropped like a stone. I couldn’t tell if Xavier had bro­ken his neck with that blow or just knocked him out. I didn’t really care either way.

  But the guy’s buddy heard the crack of Xavier’s fist con­nect­ing because he sprinted for­ward into the office and raised his gun at the giant.

  “Who the hell are you—”

  That was all the sec­ond guy got out before I slid out from behind the door and jammed my gun into the side of his neck.

  “Wh
y, I was just going to ask you the same thing,” I drawled. “But I don’t really care who you are. I’m more inter­ested in your boss, the lovely Clarissa. Xavier, if you would do the hon­ors please.”

  Xavier pulled the roll of duct tape that I’d given him out of his pants pocket and went to work on the thieves. Two min­utes later, he had both of them trussed up like Thanks­giv­ing turkeys. We left them there in the office and headed down to the vault.

  The vault was located on the bot­tom floor of the bank, sev­eral thou­sand feet under­ground. Down here, the mar­ble floors and walls gave way to a mix­ture of steel and gran­ite rein­forced with sil­ver­stone, a spe­cial metal that absorbed all forms of magic.

  Clarissa had left one guy behind at the base of the stairs, but he was more inter­ested in peer­ing down the hall­way and into the vault than keep­ing watch like he was sup­posed to. One well-placed blow from Xavier, and he was down for the count. That left one more guy to take care of, along with Clarissa herself.

  Xavier dragged the uncon­scious thief back into the stair­well out of sight, while I peered around the cor­ner. Up ahead, the vault door stood wide open, reveal­ing row after row of safety deposit boxes. The key­holes on the metal gleamed like hun­dreds of silent eyes, all star­ing at me. I slipped back into the stair­well just as Xavier fin­ished duct-taping the thief.

  “You think you can han­dle the two guys still up in the lobby?” I asked him in a low voice.

  Xavier cracked his knuck­les again. “Happily.”

  I nod­ded. “All right. I’ll take care of the other guy down here and Clarissa too.”

  Xavier nod­ded back and started up the stairs. I slipped off my shoes so they wouldn’t clack on the floor and crept down the hall toward the vault.

  The clangs and bangs and curses grew louder and louder as I neared the open vault door. Sounded like some­one was using a crow­bar to pry the safety deposit boxes out of the walls. Crude, but effec­tive enough. The con­tents of just one of the boxes would make this whole oper­a­tion worth­while. I reached the door but instead of going inside, I crouched down on my knees. I pulled a mir­ror out of my pocket—one of the other items that I’d had stashed in my desk—and angled it so that I could see inside the vault.

  The last thief stood in front of one of the rows of safety deposit boxes, show­ing a crow­bar in between the creases in the metal and pop­ping them out like they were nuts that he was shelling. Easy enough for him to do, since he was a giant. Mean­while, Stevens and Clarissa stood off to one side. Stevens looked dumb­struck. Every once in a while, a few tears would trickle down Clarissa’s lovely face. The vamp was still play­ing her part to the very end of the game. I really admired her pro­fes­sion­al­ism and ded­i­ca­tion to her craft.

  Once I’d seen what I needed to, I put the mir­ror away, straight­ened, and stepped into the vault.

  “Hey,” I said. “Don’t you know that it’s not nice to steal from other people?”

  Star­tled, the giant whipped around. I shot him once through his right eye before putting another bul­let through his left one. His crow­bar hit the floor a sec­ond before his body top­pled on top of Stevens, dri­ving the bank man­ager to the ground. For his part, Stevens started blub­ber­ing about all the blood and brains drip­ping all over him, but the giant was so much heav­ier than he was, that Stevens couldn’t get out from under the dead man’s body. The bas­tard wasn’t so smug now. I grinned. Yeah, I got quite a bit of sat­is­fac­tion out of hear­ing Stevens squeal.

  Clarissa imme­di­ately crossed the vault and threw her­self into my arms. “Oh! Oh! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for sav­ing us!”

  She rained hot, pas­sion­ate, grate­ful kisses all over my face, even as her hands moved all over my body. Amused, I let her, then turned my head and caught my mouth with hers. I coaxed her lips open with my tongue. She tasted sweet and sour at the same time, just like I thought she would.

  Clarissa gasped in sur­prise, but then, she real­ized what an oppor­tu­nity I’d just given her. A sec­ond later, her tongue was duel­ing mine, even as one of her hands wound through my hair. I let the kiss go on for sev­eral seconds.

  Then, I gen­tly put my gun up against her heart and thumbed back the hammer.

  Vam­pires have enhanced senses, so Clarissa heard the click even above the sound of her own low, pas­sion­ate moans. She froze, her lips still on mine.

  “Oh, please,” I said. “Cut the rou­tine. I’ve seen bet­ter act­ing from the hook­ers over on the South­town streets. How much longer were you going to keep kiss­ing me before you stabbed me with that knife? Hmm? Where was it, by the way? I’m guess­ing tucked into your garter belt. Cer­tainly that skirt of yours is short enough to give you easy access to it.”

  Clarissa stepped back, a stiletto clenched in her right hand. It wasn’t unlike the knives that Gin used. The only dif­fer­ence was another few sec­onds, and that one would have been buried in my heart.

  “How did you know?” she hissed in a low voice.

  I grinned. “I’ve always known ever since that first day you came into the bank. You really should have gone for me instead of Stevens. I still would have fig­ured out your lit­tle game, but I guar­an­tee that you would have had a hell of a lot more fun with me than with him.”

  As if to prove my point, Stevens kept blub­ber­ing on the floor.

  Clarissa looked at him, then me. Her eyes widened, and she gave me a sweet smile. “I’m sure that we can come to some kind of arrangement …”

  “Finn,” I cheer­fully sup­plied her with my name. “But I’m afraid it’s too late for all that. You bruised my ego, you see, and there’s just not enough money in the world to soothe my ego when it gets bruised. Espe­cially not money stolen from my own bank. Sorry, Clarissa, your wiles might have worked on poor Stevens there, but I’m a bit smarter than he is.”

  Clarissa was just as much of a hard-ass as I was, and she knew that I meant every word. Since sex hadn’t worked on me, she went for the other old standby—violence.

  “And you should know exactly how good I am with this knife,” she said, flash­ing the blade at me. “I’ve killed more than one man with it over the years. I’ll kill you with it too.”

  “I doubt that, since I’m the one hold­ing the gun.”

  She eyed the weapon, which I’d low­ered to my side once she’d backed away from me. “You really think you can get a shot off before I slit your throat with my knife?”

  “I know that I can,” I said in a soft voice.

  We stood there star­ing at each other. I might not have enhanced senses like the vam­pire did, but I could see her hand tight­en­ing around the knife and see the slight move­ment of her body as she shifted her weight, get­ting ready to throw her­self at me—and not in the way that I wanted. I sighed. Clarissa had just made the wrong choice—the very last choice of her life.

  “Don’t do it,” I warned. “Crooked as you are, I’d hate to blow that pretty face of yours all to pieces.”

  Clarissa smiled and started to crouch down like she was going to put the knife on the floor. But there was no warmth in her eyes, no give, no sur­ren­der. Her hand tight­ened a lit­tle more around the knife, and she launched her­self at me, the stiletto blade slash­ing through the air—

  I snapped up my gun and shot her three times in the face.

  Clarissa’s head—what was left of it—whipped back, and the force of the bul­lets punch­ing through her skull threw her whole body against one of the walls. She hung there a moment, sus­pended in mid-air before her limbs crum­pled, and she slid to the floor.

  I waited a few sec­onds to make sure that Clarissa was dead, then walked over and crouched down next to her. Despite the blood and brain mat­ter splat­tered all around her, I could still smell her perfume—that sub­tle hon­ey­suckle scent, now hor­ri­bly, irrev­o­ca­bly tinged with copper.

  Even in death, despite the fact that part of her head was miss­ing, she w
as still one of the most beau­ti­ful crea­tures that I’d ever seen. Five feet four inches of soft, curvy per­fec­tion, grow­ing cold and stiff with every pass­ing second.

  “What a waste,” I mur­mured. “What a fuck­ing waste of a beau­ti­ful woman.”

  Then, I stepped over her body and headed out of the vault to call Sophia Dev­er­aux to come and clean up the mess.