“I’m happy for you,” Riley said, and to his ears, it sounded like she meant it. “I really am. But I didn’t have that. Mom was always gone, so I had to fend for myself. Typical, textbook definition of a latchkey kid, really. And when she died, I didn’t have anyone. I lived on the streets until Brandon picked me up. And through all of that, through the absolute hell I lived in, Damon never showed up to claim me. He’s not my father. He’s just my boss who also happens to be my sperm donor.”
Zachariah cringed at her words. “Damn, Riley, that’s harsh,” he commented, though his words were neutral, nonjudgmental. “Though I don’t really blame you for feeling that way. You were handed a shit sandwich, and that’s not your fault.” He tapped the steering wheel impatiently as he came up on a car driving ten miles under the speed limit in the fast lane. “I wish I’d known you existed when I was younger. I always wanted a sibling. Turns out I had one the whole damn time and just never knew.”
He chanced a glance at Riley and saw that she was smiling at him. “That would have been way cool,” she agreed. “I hear big brothers are the thing to have.”
“Yeah, I hear that, too,” he agreed, returning her smile. He reached across the center console and took her hand, giving it a squeeze. “I think I’m okay to drive a while longer. Why don’t you get more sleep?”
Riley wrinkled her nose like she wanted to object, but fortunately, she didn’t. Instead, she slouched down in her seat, folded her arms around herself like she was cold, and rested her head against the seat. “Don’t worry, Z,” she murmured. “If he’s still alive, I’m not going to punch out Daddy Dearest’s lights for leaving me. I’ll just pick a more opportune time to yell at him.”
Zachariah chuckled at that and turned his attention back fully onto the road ahead.
The other two slept soundly for the rest of the ride, leaving Zachariah alone with only his thoughts for company. That was how the dawn and Tennessee found him, pondering the roadway and all the different ways he could flip everything around to save Ashton from the bad spot he’d been dragged into. Riley and Scott both stirred awake as he steered the SUV through the Memphis streets leading to the hotel Angelique had directed them to. None of them spoke as he pulled into the parking garage attached to a Holiday Inn Express. Once he’d parked and turned off the car’s engine, he slumped in his seat with a heavy sigh and scrubbed at his face with both hands.
“You should have woken me up,” Scott said from the backseat. “I could have driven for a while and let you get some rest.”
“No, I needed to drive,” he replied. “I needed to—” He broke off and shook his head, not sure how he wanted to finish his sentence.
“You needed to do something,” Scott said, a note of understanding in his voice.
Zachariah cleared his throat. “Yeah, something like that.” Abruptly, he shoved open the driver’s door and climbed out. “Let’s go,” he said. “We’ve got to meet up with Angelique.”
The sound of a door slamming yanked Ashton from a less-than-restful sleep, and he blinked awake, pushing himself halfway into a sitting position. His entire body, stiff from lying still for so long, as if he’d been prepared for an attack even in his sleep, protested the movement, but he persevered, twisting so his good eye faced the door. One of Ahm and Brandon’s thugs had flung the door open, and Ashton tensed, fully expecting a beating or something equally terrible. Not that anyone had set a precedent for that yet; no one had laid an aggressive hand on him, not in New Orleans, not on the plane, and not in this rather opulent house near Washington, D.C., either.
It appeared that the trend was going to continue. The thug didn’t set foot in the room, just shoved a young woman inside and shut the door behind her, locking it from the outside. She threw herself against the door, scrabbling at the knob, beating on it with her fists.
“Let me out of here, damn it!” she yelled. “Let me go!”
“I don’t think that’s going to help any,” Ashton spoke up.
The woman—borderline a girl, really—whipped around at the sound of his voice, sliding into a defensive position like she was about to be attacked.
Ashton put up a hand to reassure her. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I’m not with them. At least, I’m not with them voluntarily.” He watched her relax slightly, and he added, “And something tells me you aren’t exactly here willingly, either.”
“I’m…I’m not,” she agreed.
“Good. At least we’re on the same page.” He pushed himself further up and slowly swung his feet off the side of the bed, grimacing as pain shot through his bad leg. “My name is Ashton.”
“Katie,” she said. She wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her hands over her forearms. “Katie Hunter.”
Ashton’s heart felt like it tripped over itself. “Hunter? I know someone with that last name.” He did his best to maintain some level of casualness. At the same time, though, he couldn’t help but think, Damn it, Brandon, what did you do? “Are you from around here? The guy I know is, so maybe you know him, too. His name is Scott.”
Okay, so it was an extremely ridiculous, exceptionally clumsy way to explore his suspicion, but it seemed to work, because Katie’s eyes widened, and her previous stiff stance relaxed noticeably.
“Uncle Scott?” She took a step toward him. “You know my uncle Scott?”
Well, that confirmed that.
“I work with him,” Ashton said, carefully avoiding mention of exactly what work he and Scott did. He didn’t know what Scott had told his family, and the last thing he wanted to do was jeopardize his relationship with them. Though if this was Scott’s niece, having her get kidnapped because of him would probably fall squarely in the “relationship jeopardized” category. “You’re his niece, I take it?”
Katie nodded. “I don’t understand what’s happening. I was leaving work, and these guys grabbed me in the parking lot on the way to my car. They stuffed me in the trunk.”
She looked like she was about to start crying, so Ashton patted the mattress beside him. “You need to sit,” he said. “You look like you’re about to fall apart, and that’s never a good idea when you’re standing.” After a moment’s hesitation, she sat down beside him, keeping an arm’s length between them.
“Did they kidnap you, too?” Katie asked.
“Basically,” he said. “I came with them willingly but under duress.”
“What do they want with us?”
Ashton shook his head. “I have no idea,” he admitted. “I wish I could tell you, but they didn’t make an effort to enlighten me, either.” He pushed to his feet, wincing and biting back a groan as a stab of pain rocketed through his hip and down his leg, nearly buckling the limb underneath him. He massaged it, trying to get his leg muscles to loosen up, then began slowly pacing the room to work the kinks out of his joints. “Regardless of the reasons, no matter what happens, I’ll look out for you, okay? I promise.”
She looked at him doubtfully, but Ashton got the sense that it was uncertainty over his abilities rather than his trustworthiness.
“I promise I’m tougher than I look,” he added, a slight smile quirking at the corner of his mouth.
“I didn’t think that,” Katie said. “I mean, you already look pretty tough—”
That was probably the first time in a long time that anyone had ever described his appearance as “tough.”
“—but I just…I don’t know how much I can trust you.”
“I understand,” Ashton said. “The promise still stands, though.”
“Thanks.”
“You should get some rest,” Ashton told her. “I know that seems impossible right now, but you need to try. You’ve got to keep your strength up.”
Katie looked like she wanted to object, but in the end, she did as he suggested, curling up on her side with her back to the wall. Ashton could see Katie starting to relax, despite her obvious reluctance to do so. It was probably sheer exhaustion that had her struggling to ke
ep her eyes open, but he was glad to see it when her eyes slipped closed, because it meant she wouldn’t have to deal with the trauma of being kidnapped. For a little while, at least.
Ashton continued to pace the room, still trying to get his leg muscles warmed up, and once he was confident that his hip was as loosened as it was going to get and that Katie was deeply enough asleep that he didn’t have to worry about waking her up, he went to the door and knocked.
It took entirely too long for someone to answer the door. When it unbolted and opened, he saw that it was the same thug that had shoved Katie into the room. He glared at Ashton and growled out, “What do you want?”
“I need to see Ahm,” Ashton said.
“You are hardly in the position to be making demands,” the man replied.
“I need to see Ahm,” he repeated, more emphatically this time.
The man threw the door open the rest of the way and stalked inside. Ignoring Katie’s form on the bed, he grabbed Ashton around the throat and steered him backwards, slamming him against the wall opposite the door hard enough to knock the wind out of his lungs, crack the sheetrock, and wake Katie up in one fell swoop. The hand around his throat tightened, and Ashton grasped the man’s wrist instinctively, trying to dislodge it from his throat. “You don’t make demands,” the man snapped, tightening his hold on Ashton’s throat.
Ashton’s vision started to swim.
Just when he thought he was about to lose consciousness, Katie jumped into the fray—literally. She leaped onto the man’s back, wrapping her legs around his waist so she couldn’t be easily dislodged, then started slamming her elbow into the side of the man’s neck, over and over. The man let out a pained grunt and released Ashton’s throat; Ashton slid down the wall, slumping to the floor, wheezing as he tried to get his breath so he could help Katie.
The man dislodged Katie from his back and flung her across the room; she toppled to the floor with a thud, groaning as she impacted with the hardwood. The man grimaced, an expression full of malice and ill intent, and started toward her. Ashton pushed awkwardly to his hands and knees and crawled to the fallen girl to help her. He’d only made it a couple of breathless feet when a new voice arose, bringing with it utter stillness and silence to the room—save for Ashton’s labored breathing.
“What is going on in here?”
It was Ahm; her voice snapped across the room like a whip, and her black eyes were full of more fury than Ashton had ever seen in one person. Her fists were clenched at her sides, and she looked fully capable of tearing them apart.
“He was making demands,” the man said. “And she attacked me.”
“And you think that’s a valid reason to disobey my orders,” Ahm replied. She took a step closer to him. “I told you—I told all of you—to not lay a hand on either of them.” She pushed past the man and knelt in front of Ashton, taking his chin in an oddly gentle hand and tilting his face up so she could examine him. Her fingers brushed against his already sore throat, her sharp claws lightly scratching his skin, and her face grew hard.
“You hurt him,” Ahm said. Her voice became as hard as her expression. She slowly rose from her crouch and faced the man who had assaulted him. “You bruised him after I told you not to touch him.”
“I—I—” the man stammered.
Ahm raised a hand, slowly, stretching her fingers to their fullest extent. Her black claws shined dully in the lamplight. “You grabbed him by the throat,” she said, her tone suddenly, deceptively mild. “I suppose it’s only fair that I return the gesture. My master’s father, after all, always taught us to take an eye for an eye.”
Her hand darted out like a striking snake, her claws embedding into the man’s throat. Bright red blood welled up, and the man grasped at her arm, his eyes widening in alarm. Ahm dug her fingers in deeper, like she was searching for something, and then she grinned with manic satisfaction.
Katie let out a horrified whimper, and Ashton crawled to her, grabbing her hand and trying to use his body to shield her from the sight. Just in time, too, because Ahm yanked her arm back, and something ripped free from the man’s neck with a wet, meaty sound. The man grabbed at the gaping wound where his throat used to be then collapsed to the floor, twitching and gurgling as he suffocated and bled out rapidly.
“And that is what happens when you disobey the one rule I’ve given you,” Ahm said, letting go of the bloody hunk of meat. It plopped onto the dead man’s back. She turned to Ashton and Katie; Katie whimpered and cowered behind him. “Oh, young one, don’t be frightened,” she said. “I have no intention of hurting either of you. So long as your uncle cooperates, you will be allowed to leave and return to your family, safe and sound.”
“I suppose that offer to leave isn’t extended to me,” Ashton commented.
“You suppose correctly,” she replied. “You’re too special, and I can’t simply allow you to walk away.”
“You haven’t told me why you keep saying that,” he said.
“You’ll learn in time.”
Ashton thought back to the woman—angel?—that had appeared to him in New Orleans. Sera. He remembered what she’d told him and glanced at his watch. Not much longer, he saw. He’d be lucky if he found out the reason for all of this before he died.
“Why Katie, then?” he prompted. “What does she have to do with any of this?”
“Nothing,” Ahm said, “save for having the unfortunate luck to be related to Scott Hunter. She’s extra incentive for him and the rest of your friends to show up to the meeting we’ve arranged.”
A meeting? This was the first he’d heard about a meeting. His brain automatically kicked into high gear, trying to figure out a way to use the meeting to his and Katie’s advantage—maybe craft an escape—but it was impossible when he had no idea where the meeting was to take place.
He cleared his throat then looked her straight in the eyes and said, “I want you to promise me something.”
It was a risky proposition, attempting to extract a promise from someone like Ahm, but in this case, Ashton was willing to put his ass on the line. He, after all, wouldn’t be dying yet. “Go on,” she prompted.
“I want you to promise that, no matter what happens, Katie will remain unharmed,” he said. “Whatever happens, she gets to go home.”
“Why do you ask for this?” she asked.
“Because unlike me and my friends, she’s an innocent,” Ashton said. “She’s an innocent in all of this, and she doesn’t deserve to get hurt because of us.”
Ahm stared at him for a long moment, examining him critically. He refused to squirm under her scrutiny, just stared right back at her, waiting for her answer. The only sound that broke the silence between them was the soft tap of blood dripping from her hand to the floor.
Finally, Ahm nodded. “Fine. So long as she behaves herself, I will guarantee her safe release.” She glanced down at the dead body on the floor. “I’ll have someone come in and clean this mess up. Anything else?”
Ashton shook his head.
“Good.” She gave him one more assessing look then added, “You should be careful. Don’t let them get so close next time. You’re better than that.” Then she turned on her heel and strode out of the room, leaving Katie hunched behind Ashton, shivering in terror, and Ashton wondering what the hell had just happened.
Their arrival at the hotel room door behind which Angelique resided was uneventful, but that didn’t stop Riley’s stomach from feeling like she’d drunk curdled milk. She hung back, letting Zachariah and Scott stand between her and the door, and as Zachariah knocked, she fought the overwhelming urge to turn tail and run.
Don’t be ridiculous, she admonished herself as the sound of the deadbolt being unfastened met her ears. You can’t run. This is your fight now. You can’t escape it.
The door opened, and she shifted her eyes to the gap that created. A statuesque black woman in a pair of dark-colored jeans and a white tank top stood there, gun in hand though not pointed dir
ectly at them, the small creases around her eyes suggesting she’d had more than one sleepless night lately. Her brown hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, which emphasized her dark brown eyes.
“It’s about time you got here,” Angelique said. Her voice was accented, French if Riley wasn’t mistaken. She swung the door open wider and stepped aside so they could enter. Zachariah led the way inside, pausing beside Angelique long enough to squeeze her shoulder with obvious affection. The look on her face as Riley and Scott passed her was nakedly curious.
Riley had to admit she was curious, too. Zachariah had given her and Scott a quick rundown of who Angelique was, and she was intrigued by what she’d heard. Angelique had, by Zachariah’s account, never passed through the Agency’s rosters. She’d been hired straight into The Unnaturals. There’d been extenuating circumstances, apparently, ones that Zachariah had been unwilling to talk about. That had only served to heighten Riley’s curiosity.
Riley’s train of thought derailed the moment she stepped into the hotel’s bedroom and saw her father sitting on the end of the bed, buttoning a black shirt with the tags still on it. His shoes were off, lined up side by side underneath the window nearby, and he wore blue jeans, of all things. His hair was a mess, and he looked exhausted, like he hadn’t slept well in days. He looked up as they entered, his eyes flickering straight to Riley’s face, an expression of relief mixed with hope in his eyes.
Zachariah strode forward, blocking her view of Damon, and threw his arms around the man in a tight hug. “Jesus, I thought you were dead,” he said.
Damon looked both surprised and uncomfortable by the sudden contact with Zachariah, and he stiffened before wrapping his arms around him and patting his back awkwardly. “Greatly exaggerated, etcetera, etcetera,” he said once Zachariah let go of him. “Brandon had my house dropped on me. It was…not fun.”
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