“How am I supposed to properly protect your mother if I can’t accurately pinpoint the crazies?” Deidra went on and lifted her glass of water to her lips.
“You’re doing a lovely job,” Elise assured her kindly from across the coffee table.
There wasn’t a single person on earth Cora knew who would hire an assassin as a bodyguard, except her father. Her mother’s safety—in Giovanni’s eyes—required no less than two people at all times, one man, one woman, so Elise was never unprotected. Kevin would have probably been there on girls’ night with them if Cora hadn’t put her foot down. But she liked Deidra. Despite her eerie calm, and ability to pin a fly at fifty paces with a blade, she was almost like an aunt to Cora. A really scary aunt.
Cora set down her martini glass down, realizing she was the only one actually doing any drinking. Deidra never did when she was on duty, and her mother had been nursing the same flute of champagne for the last hour and a half.
“Why am I drinking alone?”
“You’re not, sweetie?” Elise held up her barely touched drink.
Cora wasn’t buying it.
“Why aren’t you drinking?”
Elise’s mouth opened when a familiar buzzing broke into their conversation. Its insistent ringing had her scrambling for her clutch.
“Is that a phone I hear during girls’ night?” Deidra gasped in feigned horror.
“Says the woman scouting for serial killers,” Elise shot back, grinning.
Deidra lunged at the phone Elise pulled from her Gucci clutch. The older woman nimbly dodged the grasping fingers and brought the device to her ear.
“Hello darling,” she said in her fluid, accented purr. “Just sharing a few drinks with the girls.”
“Few.” Cora snorted into the martini glass she lifted once more to her lips. “I’ve had a few. She’s barely had one.”
Her mother shot her a contrived glower of exasperation before returning to her call.
Deidra reclined her willowy frame back against the settee. Her long legs folded, one over the other, lifting the hem of her trouser so the Betty Boop tattoo on her right ankle nearly poked out.
She wore her usual two piece suit in emasculate white. With her caramel complexion and sheet of ebony hair falling in perfect, straight lines around her slender shoulders, Deidra looked more like an Egyptian queen. Not a woman with a license to killer.
But that was the thing about Deidra, she never looked the way people expected. Men saw her as a toy. Women saw her as a threat. Only the latter was actually true.
“Put it away, woman!” The command was followed by the rattle of ice in Deidra’s empty water glass. The clattering sound came out fairly muted under the slow jazz, but it prompted immediate response from their waiter, who materialized as if from thin air and replaced it with a fresh tumbler and vanished. Deidra carried on as if that was completely normal. “You know the rules.”
Elise held up a single finger painted a glossy scarlet to match her sleeveless Versace dress. The fat diamond on her ring finger caught the low overhead lights and sparked.
“Of course. I’ll have Deidra drive me straight over. Yes. I will. Love you as well.” The call was disconnected and the phone was returned to the clutch. The top was snapped shut with authority. “I’m sorry, ladies, but I must cut our evening short.”
“No!” Cora protested, setting her drink down quickly on the iron and glass table. “It’s Friday. It’s the one night of the whole week I can convince Uncle Sal to take over the bar for me.”
Elise pursed her lips in genuine guilt. “I know, darling. I’m sorry. But duty calls.”
That was all that was needed to be said. Any argument Cora may have attempted to make immediately vaporized on her tongue. Even Deidra closed her lips. The corners twisted downwards as she pushed to her feet.
Cora rose when her mother did and circled the coffee table to her side. “Be safe.”
Elise opened her arms and Cora stepped into them. The subtle fragrance of Paris drifted off her and filled Cora’s senses in a familiar embrace of its own.
“I’ll call you,” Elise murmured quietly for her ears only. Then, in a louder voice while drawing back, she added, “I’ll make it up to both of you next weekend. I promise.”
“Too right you will,” Deidra chimed in. “Dinner at Le Verne.”
Elise chuckled. “I look forward to it.” She pressed a kiss to Cora’s cheek before stepping back. “Enjoy the rest of your evening and call me when you get home. I mean it.” She glanced at Deidra. “Give me five minutes to take care of our tab, then we’ll head out.”
With a loving squeeze of Cora’s shoulders, Elise stepped back. She gathered her coat and clutch and stalked in the direction of the bar, her movement fluid and inhumanly graceful. The lights danced over her dark mane, making each coil shimmer with every bounce around her delicate shoulders. Heads—men and women alike—turned to follow her with varying degrees of envy, interest, and even lust. But Elise spared no one a glance. Chin high, eyes focused, she was the only person in the room.
Her mother had been a big time model out of England back in the day. She’d graced magazines, billboards, and had even done a few commercials. Her star had been big and bold, and seemingly unstoppable before she met Cora’s father at a party. Their romance had been a five year long wildfire that led to marriage and then Cora. Thirty years later, they were still in their honeymoon phase with a love that only seemed to grow stronger with every passing year.
Cora could only hope for a relationship that strong.
Elise waved the bartender over and motioned to the table where Cora still occupied. The bartender peered over her shoulder, nodded once and accepted the folded bill she handed him.
Cora regained her seat and lifted her glass. She didn’t normally mix her drinks, but she had a powerful urge to order something stronger. The martini family was no longer enough to pacify the anxious knot that had formed in the pit of her stomach.
“It’ll be fine,” Deidra assured her gently, snatching her coat off the back of her chair. “Elise knows what she’s doing, and I’ll keep her safe.”
There weren’t many people who knew the true nature of Cora’s family business. There definitely weren’t many who understood.
But Deidra came from the life.
She understood.
She accepted and embraced the abnormality that was Cora’s family because her family came from a long line of killers, too.
“I know she does, and I know you will.” Cora took a sip of her sweetened drink. “I just dislike her doing it.”
Deidra lifted a single brow over intense, green eyes, and Cora knew exactly what was coming.
“No.”
“It would ease your mind.”
Cora shook her head. “I’ve worked really hard to keep out of all that.”
Deidra laughed, a short, brittle sound. “Darling, no one keeps out of the family business. You know that. I know that. You’re simply prolonging the inevitable.”
Perhaps.
But she wasn’t made for the crime life, despite having been born into it.
Despite her training, she didn’t have the stomach for the violence and the hard necessities that came with being on top.
She couldn’t sit where her father sat and decide the fate of another person’s next breath.
She couldn’t walk into another person’s home, sit at their table, and tell them their husband had been killed in the line of duty, a task that fell on her mother’s shoulders frequently.
It just wasn’t in her.
Deidra had never had conflicting emotions when it came to duty. She came from an elite legacy of hackers and assassins, each one holding a permanent slot on every government’s most wanted list across the globe. They were the best of the best. The kind of people who could rule the world if they truly set their minds to it.
Deidra was no exception.
She’d hacked into her first bank at the age of twelve, killed her f
irst mark at sixteen. She was fearless, bold, and lethal in a way that both terrified and fascinated Cora.
“Yeah, well,” Cora scowled at her martini glass. “I’m going to prolong it for as long as I can.”
The other woman merely shook her head, knowing that arguing was pointless. Cora hadn’t budged once in twenty-five years. Odds weren’t great she would now.
“So, are you going to tell me who put their hands on you?” She motioned to the bruise carefully concealed beneath the sleeve of Cora’s silk blouse when Cora could do no more than stare. “You didn’t think I’d notice?”
Crawling out of her surprise, Cora lifted her arm and checked for holes in the material. “How...?”
“I’m a trained assassin. I get paid to notice shit.” She took a sip of her water, licked her lips, and set her glass down. “Plus, I saw it earlier when you were in the bathroom, washing your hands. So, who was it?”
Cora shook her head. “It’s nothing. A customer had a little too much to drink. But I handled it.”
Deidra hummed quietly, her intense gaze burning straight through Cora. “Do I need to have a talk with this person about minding their hands?”
The only problem with Deidra’s idea of talking with someone always involved a chair, duct tape, and a sharpened knife. Cora had gone into the other woman’s apartment once to find the place wrapped up in plastic and some naked man taped and gagged in the middle of the living room. It turned out that Deidra had been hired by the man’s wife after beating the shit out of her. Nevertheless, Cora had learned quickly never to let the woman do any of her talking for her.
“I have it covered, but thank you.” The empty martini glass was seamlessly exchanged for a fresh one even before she could swallow the mouthful. “Wow. Service is impressive here.” Needing a slight break from the drinking, she set the glass down and peered at Deidra. “Keep an eye on her, yeah?”
Deidra snorted. “Girl, please, I’m not letting anything near that woman. Oh, there’s my cue. Be good, baby girl.”
Elise had finished with the bartender and was waving one slender arm in the air.
Cora barely had time to say goodbye before Deidra was already pushing through the crowd in her mother’s direction. She watched her dissolve seamlessly into the crowd and disappear from sight. Then it was just her and the realization that she had no life.
Resigned, she gathered up her things, in no mood to be sitting in a bar, drinking alone on a Friday night. She left a generous tip for the waiter, and took to the streets glistening with the rainfall they’d had earlier that evening. The crack of her heels kept her company to the end of the block and the steady rush of traffic, despite the hour sitting at close to midnight.
It was the thing she loved most about her city. It never slept. The people never seemed to go home. They were always out, working or partying. It was a place of constant motion and chaos. A person was never alone, no matter what the hour.
In her case, she knew, without glancing back, that there was at least two people following behind her. She could feel their eyes even if they were smart enough to soften their footfalls. Her senses prickled along the line of her spine, lifting the hairs at the nape of her neck and sending a chill through her. Being a woman was never easy, but being a single woman at night, leaving a club in a secluded section of town was worse.
But she kept her even strides. She kept her back straight and her eyes forward. The blinking light at the end of the block became her finish line, her source of safety. Once she reached Main Street, they would scatter back into the shadows. Only fifteen feet.
“Yo, mammy!” one called, disturbing the night with his mocking catcalls.
Cora didn’t stop. She didn’t slow or quicken her pace. But her fingers tightened just a fraction on her purse strap. Her free hand remained loosely swinging at her side.
“Yo! Yo! Hold up.”
Cora let twenty-five years of training propel her into action the moment the footsteps quickened into a trot. Instinct drove her hand into the open mouth of her purse and reaching for the Ruger .380 concealed inside. The cold metal burned at her touch. Its light weight oddly familiar and comforting.
She spun, weapon lifted and pinned properly between the youth’s bushy eyebrows.
“I wouldn’t.” She braced her stance on the off chance she actually had to shoot. “I’ve been trained as a sniper since the age of seven by two of the best shots in the north. I can take all three of you down before you can even blink.”
The trio skidded to a halt. The one in front raised his hands, palms open.
“Hey, chill. We just wanted to talk.”
“I’m not in a chatty mood, so I suggest you walk away before things get really messy.”
“Fair enough.”
The two behind him started backing up. One nudged the first boy, jostling him into action before turning on his heels and scampering into the closest alley. The second one quickly followed, leaving their leader behind.
“I like a girl who can hold her own.” He grinned lopsidedly. “You sure I can’t convince you to stick around? I know a crazy party going on right now.”
“Let me guess, it’s happening in your pants.”
His smirk widened. “If that’s what you want.”
Cora had to resist the urge to shoot him on principle.
“Get out of here.”
“You sure—?”
“When the lady holding the gun gives you a chance to run, your common sense should agree.”
Both the boy and Cora jumped at the intruding deep, masculine voice rumbling from the shadows. The boy spun even as Cora’s gun hand jerked in the general direction.
Something in the thick puddle of black pouring down the side of a building shifted. Its massive bulk flickered in and out of the light with a fluidity that could only be supernatural. She barely made out the end of a long, black coat before it dissolved back into the darkness. She barely caught the glint of a button before it was gone. It was like waves in the night, passing seamlessly over the sand. The scene would have terrified her, if she wasn’t completely enthralled.
“Who the fuck are you?” the boy stumbled closer to Cora.
She didn’t mind it. Whatever was lurking just out of sight would have to take the boy before getting her, which would be just enough time for her to run.
“I’m not nearly as nice as she is,” said the phantom voice. “You should leave. Now.”
The command seemed even more frightening when it was done with a calm as frigid as winter air.
Even Cora shivered.
“Fuck this.”
The boy bolted. He took off with a swiftness that nearly knocked Cora of balance when he clipped her shoulder. It was pure luck her gun didn’t go off, not even when it flew from her grasp and clattered into the shadows with the phantom. Its disappearance left behind a cold welling of dread in its place that sent her back a step.
“Did they hurt you?”
The unexpected question momentarily stunned her into silence; attackers very seldom inquired the well-being of their victims.
“I would like my gun back,” she said instead.
There was a faint scuffle, then a spark of light off metal. But the gun never reappeared. It remained lost in the dark folds.
“You shouldn’t be out here alone. It’s dangerous.”
“I can handle myself.”
“Possibly.” A large, toned hand emerged gripping her gun, handle first. It was extended to her. “Be careful getting home.”
She took it quickly, but didn’t put it away. She held it at her side, finger over the trigger as she backed up.
The voice didn’t stop her. It didn’t speak again either. She could have been completely alone for the silence that returned.
But she could still sense him.
She could feel his eyes following her every movement, the way a wolf tracked an injured animal, a feeling that should have felt threatening, terrifying even, but all it did was increase her he
art rate.
Gradually, she put her back to him and resumed her walk to the brightly lit street, minus her earlier confidence. There seemed to be an odd weakness in her knees she couldn’t account for and a sense of unease in the pit of her stomach that she couldn’t shake. But it was the unstoppable urge to glance back that she struggled with most. It was a battle of strength she’d never had to wrestle before. She tried to tell herself it was her uncle’s voice badgering her to never turn her back on a possible attacker, but she knew that wasn’t it.
Main Street greeted her with its usual bustle of pedestrians racing to their destinations. It hummed with the rush of traffic and raised voices and bright lights. She joined the rat race and followed the stream down half a block to the designated cab stop. Her gun was carefully slipped back into the safety of her purse before she raised a hand.
It was only when her ride arrived and she was about to slip into the worn and cracked leather of the backseat that she dared herself a glance in the direction she’d come from. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to find, an ominous black shadow, maybe. But all she saw was a sea of hurried faces and faded stone structures. Whoever he’d been, he was long gone and she was almost certain she’d never see him again, which, she told herself, was a good thing.
It was a little after midnight when the cabbie pulled up to the two story building. Cora paid and slipped out of the backseat with her coat over one arm and her purse strap dangling from her shoulder. She rummaged for her keys while making a slow path to the bar.
The street loomed dark and empty in both directions once the cabbie abandoned her beneath the dull patch of yellow spilling from the lamp. The silence left behind with his departure prickled the night with all the other sounds usually absent in the security of sunlight. Someone not familiar with the city noises would have only heard the buzz of electricity from the neon sign across the street, the rustle of a discarded newspaper getting swept along the gutters, the clatter of metal from a cat knocking over a trash bin in a nearby alley. A native heard the rest, the scuffle of movement as the homeless guy two buildings over settled in with a cheap bottle of vodka, the rattle of chains from a group of street thugs a street over, the cackle of working girls trying to make a living in the seclusion of darkness. Cora heard it all from beneath the jingle of her keys as she let herself in.
Blood Script Page 3