“Glad you could make it,” she said, sliding the breadstick out from between her lips, giving him a sexy grin. They shook hands and she held his longer than necessary.
Such an old trick, he thought, but he couldn’t help but enjoy the electric touch.
“Uh, I have to meet Nick again in a little while. What did you want to see me about?”
Heather rolled her eyes. “Right to the point, eh?” She made a tight little smile and handed him a breadstick. “They’re very good.”
He hadn’t meant to, but he took it, hoping to brush skin again and they did.
“You’ve been Nick’s partner for a while now, haven’t you?”
He nodded, still holding the breadstick like a sword.
“You know he’s a little…different. Right?”
“He’s very dedicated,” he said, enjoying her awkward fishing. He was supposed to ask how different?
“Yeah, well, he’s obstinate and obsessive,” she said. “You can call it dedication if you want.” She picked up another breadstick from a large mug where they grew like petal-less flowers, but she played with this one. “What do you know about his private life?”
DiSanto watched her manipulate the breadstick in about as phallic a way as anyone could.
“I know enough,” he said. “I know about the—”
She was mouthing the breadstick, smiling around it, her eyes seeming to swirl like kaleidoscopes and…
Wait, were her eyes changing color?
“Do you know what Nick and I share, Richard?”
He couldn’t stop staring. He nodded and shook his head at the same time.
“We share lifestyle, that’s what we share.”
He felt one of her feet climbing up his calves under the booth.
Why?
What did she want?
“Is Nick planning to do something about the information I gave him?” Her tone was that of a particularly sly interrogator.
Her foot was parting his thighs, her toes reaching, reaching…
“I, uh, I think he’s prioritizing. Jessie may be in trouble—”
“Damn it!” she said vehemently. “That fucking bitch, she’s always in the way.”
DiSanto thought Heather would stand up and stalk out, but she didn’t.
Her foot pried even farther between his thighs, toes finding and caressing his growing manhood even as he tried to back away. But he couldn’t, the booth was bolted down and her hands had grasped his across the table and held on, her eyes fixed on his, as her foot massaged his groin until his head spun with insane lust and desire.
Later, he had no idea how they’d made their way to his car where it was parked behind the old converted warehouse that housed the bistro, but she was straddling him back to front, guiding his length inside her as she rocked up and down and wickedly sideways. His hands reached around her torso and cupped her firm breasts, pinching her bloated nipples. She moaned with unabated desire, leaning back on him in the limited headroom, turning her head so she could seek out his hungry mouth with hers and lock lips.
Her tongue was a living thing probing inside his mouth and he thought he would faint if she didn’t stop soon.
But, damn me to hell, I don’t want to stop…
Heather
She’d had a thing for DiSanto since she’d met him, truth be told, and just about the best way she could think of to screw—really screw with Lupo right now—was to screw his saintly partner, he of the wife and kids and the wholesome parochial school vibe he gave off.
She loved corrupting people, especially when she could use it to mess with someone else.
As it turned out, she didn’t have to work hard to corrupt this one.
He was thrusting up into her even as she pumped up and down on his solid erection, and the pleasure was almost enough to send her over. She felt tufts of coarse hair popping out on her arms and legs and back, knowing he couldn’t tell, and almost wishing she would just let it happen, turn into a werewolf right there, taking his pleasure and lust and then devouring him like a black widow spider after mating.
Their rhythm increased and they grunted like animals as the car rocked unevenly backward and forward, and when she sensed he was swelling within her she unstraddled him and flipped acrobatically around so she could lower her head to his sweaty lap and take him in her mouth as he reached his moment.
She drank from him almost desperately, then reached up and forced his mouth to hers, kissing him with ruthless abandon.
His eyes widened as he stared into hers and she knew he was entranced by the swirling of her pupils and the changing of colors he saw there, and when she finally released him he recoiled—spent, humiliated, but somehow ensnared by her although she was already straightening her clothes and climbing out of his car.
“Tell Lupo I’m doing what needs to be done. I’m heading out, and he can go and rescue his whiny little bitch. You tell him he’s an asshole.”
As she stalked away, she turned and saw him putting his face in his hands.
She smiled.
Now she knew what Lupo thought was happening, and his plans.
She had copies of the flash drive data, of course, and had already plotted a route. She would have preferred heading out with Lupo and maybe even his trained little monkey partner, a raid like they’d done with the Wolfpaw headquarters in Washington. That was magnificent.
Figuring she had little time before those killer drones found her again, assuming Lupo was right about it all, she collected her rental car and set out to drive back across the state, through Madison, and finally over the Mississippi and into the northern woods of Minnesota. Along the way, she wondered how many cameras and eyes in the sky tracked her.
She would do this herself.
Fuck Lupo.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Lupo
He was in a rental car. He couldn’t afford to get caught at the precinct, not with the possibly crooked feds looking for him. He’d taken DiSanto’s advice and rented a late-model Mustang. But now he was missing his old Maxima. They’d grown up together.
Still, this isn’t all that bad, he thought, gazing at the retro rounded gauges. The engine purred better than it had a right to.
She caught him on his unofficial line, the number of which he had given her earlier when she’d agreed to think about it.
“Yeah, Danni?”
Beside him, Ghost Sam nodded as if he knew what she was going to say, and agreed it was good.
On the line, Colgrave made a long sigh. “I may be killing my career. I want you to know… Ah, fuck it. I’m in. All the way in.”
Jessie
The place was huge, like an Up-North dream house made of logs and glass. She could see the lake behind it, with a private beach and pier. No boats. Woods all around. Not-Bruce’s SUV was parked out front.
This was good enough, wasn’t it?
She’d back out of the driveway, keep her head down, and call Nick. This had to be the Vegas mobster’s little compound, didn’t it? Made sense, it was an upscale place but on the remote side, and it was close enough to both the rez and Eagle River to give them the feel of having whatever they needed. It wasn’t Vegas, but that wasn’t why they were here, was it? The rez casino, and hotel that was almost finished, was making a bundle. It was an untapped stream. Of course a Vegas guy would see this as a boon.
Okay, she thought, just a little closer. Maybe I can figure out how many goons he brought with him besides not-Bruce. Robb, or whatever his actual name is.
She hugged the driveway’s shoulder but from the side of the woods. The pines came right up to the gravel and she was able to navigate the undergrowth and keep an eye on the house at the same time. She wasn’t one of those who grew up learning woodcraft, not really, but she was awful silent for a half-city type.
She approached the monster cabin, a sort of expanded Cape Cod with side wings, a wraparound deck, and a huge garage, while keeping an ear tuned to the doors and windows. The glass was
reflective, so she’d never be able to tell whether anyone was watching. But why would anyone watch the woods?
They were probably playing billiards or xBox, or whatever mobsters did when there weren’t strippers and poles around. Maybe they were eating pasta. She grinned. Nick would love her stereotyping. He’d make a crack about her people, the Indians, sure enough.
She straightened a little to step over a narrow gully, and when she had landed on the other side she took a few steps and then something hard poked her in the side.
A voice whispered in her ear, so close she felt the heat of his breath.
“Well, well. What do we have here?”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Lupo
“Damn it, Dee! Didn’t she say anything else?”
DiSanto shrugged. He had just told his partner cryptically that Heather had indicated she was going to survey the Minnesota house herself. It was identified on Wineacre’s satellite photos, and somehow he’d also managed to obtain a schematic of the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired structure.
“She’s pissed, Nick. Said to tell you you’re an asshole. Nothing you haven’t heard before! She expected us to raid the place, but you’re distracted by Jessie. She’s…uh, possessive. I think she has a thing for you. Sounds like she hates Jessie.”
Lupo snorted. He’d never described for his partner exactly what had happened when the two women had gone for each other with murder in their hearts.
Yeah, she hates Jessie, all right.
Lupo was pissed too. Heather was a selfish, spoiled, raging narcissist and opportunist, and the fact that she was heading into the jaws of hell or something like it was her way to draw his attention away from Jessie. He guessed she hoped he would take his team and follow her, leaving Jessie to deal with the mobsters on her own.
Well, fuck that.
Lupo made up his mind quickly.
“We have no choice, we’re gonna have to split up. You and Colgrave follow Heather. Hopefully you’ll catch up to her before she does something stupid. Maybe she’ll just keep the place under surveillance. Fat chance, though.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll meet up with Charlie and try to find Jessie. If she’s in the hands of this Bastone character, we’ll bust her out. Assuming we’re not too late.”
“Not much of a raiding party—two people.”
“No, definitely not. We may go down in history as the dumbest rescuers ever.”
DiSanto looked sheepish, as if he were hiding something. Lupo wasn’t sure what it was, but it had drained Dee of much of his boundless energy and enthusiasm. He figured Heather and her body had something to do with it.
Not my problem. He had enough of them.
He looked at his watch. It was time to call Colgrave and see how quickly her connections could come through. They’d need some gear she had announced she could borrow.
She had some fuckin’ strange connections.
Heather
It was a gigantic fucking house, yet it would have been impossible to find without the satellite view she had matched to a map. The roads in and out were more like overgrown rutted tracks, and the nearest freeway was miles away.
Northern Minnesota looked just like Northern Wisconsin—same vegetation, same lakes and streams and channels, and same innumerable lake cottages and resorts. This place was large enough to be a fancy-ass resort, but it was so out of the way one could only stumble on it or zero in as she had done. It was more like some reclusive celebrity’s crib.
But the human remains spread out over the forest that wrapped around the installation reminded her these folks didn’t play nice.
Well, neither do I.
She left her car several miles away, stripped, and went in after a particularly enjoyable change. She’d always felt orgasmic when changing, and loved the feeling. She figured Lupo never felt that way, which explained why he was such a whiny boy. Well, he’d met his whiny girl match, hadn’t he?
Here’s Heather, doing your job for you.
She had no real moral stake in this fight, but she loved a good story, loved an adventure, and loved devouring human prey. Sometimes these things aligned and she did something that was less than evil.
But evil suited her just fine.
She literally stumbled on a patrol of two armed humans, surprised them, and had one’s stomach slit open and the other’s throat ripped out with her jaws before they could even raise their rifles. As it turned out, one had silver loads and she had to keep her distance, but the sentries were both dead.
She moved on, the house looming up over the trees.
It did look like some sort of alien craft, but it had human-style antenna and radar pods sticking out of it.
Overconfident.
This Wolfclaw group—couldn’t they come up with some original monikers?—was clearly decadent and self-important. They’d left humans to guard the place, and humans were no match for her.
She dispatched two more patrols, the blood singing in her throat, happy when her fangs could tear some tidbit from each corpse. And soon she was close enough to spot the rear door. There was a single bored-looking sentry, and she was upon him long before he could raise an alarm.
She changed back to her human form, never worried about her nakedness, and used a key card she found in the dead guy’s possession to open the door.
As soon as the door swung open, she changed and leaped in on all fours…
And found herself in a cage with silver-lined bars.
She screamed a half-howl and collapsed, flashing back and forth from wolf to human as her body fought against the effects of the silver all around her.
She felt as if a hundred needle-point flames had been turned on her skin, burning through layers of fat and muscle and boiling the blood in her veins. Then a sharp object pierced her skin and in seconds the pain was joined by something else.
She howled again, long and loud, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the most pain she had ever felt. She regained her human form.
Then she blacked out.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Bastone
He paced the den, which was almost like a library because there was a wall of bookshelves. They were bare, of course, but he would do something about that. Eventually.
Right now, he paced because he wasn’t really sure what to do.
Deuce was holding a nickel-plated Beretta 92F on their visitor, and she was something else.
He admired her from behind a hard-eyed squint.
She was magnificent. Sure, she was a bit older than the showgirls he usually preferred, but she looked like a showgirl who had taken great care of herself and moved to the woods. She wasn’t wearing much makeup, but he saw a lot of potential there. She had a model’s face and body. Her features were magazine quality.
What the fuck was she doing here, in Fuckville?
And what the fuck was she doing here, at his house—his fucking house!—with a loaded shotgun?
Rabbioso was leaning against a wall, a relaxed pose, watching.
“So what’s her story?” Bastone asked him.
“She’s the reservation doctor, boss. I mean Gus.”
Bastone glared at him.
“She’s more than what she appears. She was in Grey Hawk’s office telling him she knew about us coming in.”
“She’s the one?”
“Yeah, I guess she overheard Johnny and Marty shooting off their mouths in the casino…”
“The fuck, what are the odds?”
“Truth is stranger than fiction,” Deuce interjected.
“Shut the fuck up,” Bastone said. “Just hold the fuckin’ gun.”
“You’ll have to let me go, you know,” said the doctor. She didn’t seem afraid at all. “There are people who know where I am, and if I’m missing too long, they’ll come looking. And I’m guessing you don’t have much in the way of a plan yet, and you can’t afford to call attention to yourself.”
“Keep tal
kin’, Red, I really like your voice. You got some mouth on you.” He leered.
Now she did shudder visibly.
Don Bastone did not like the implied disrespect. Not at all.
He licked his lips obscenely.
“I like your voice and your mouth, but I absolutely love your ass,” the Don said, just to needle her. He figured she’d cower and break down and start spouting all the information he thought he needed.
But she didn’t.
Instead she laughed.
Big mistake.
Heather
She awoke, her limbs feeling leaden, and her stomach turned suddenly and she retched up globs of bloody meat. Her throat was on fire and her chest throbbed, and the pit of her stomach felt like an acid bomb had been detonated inside its walls.
“Oh, fuck!” she gasped when she could formulate a word. Blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth. Her blood.
She felt the healing starting, but slowly—very slowly indeed.
She forced herself to her knees, unsteadily, and let her head hang like that until she was more or less certain it wouldn’t fall off.
“You don’t know what happened to you, do you?” The voice was electronically enhanced and unrecognizable. The tone was monotonous, robotic.
She flipped out a middle-finger salute. Then gargled up more blood.
The voice chuckled. The sound was chilling.
“Wolfsbane, my dear. First I dosed you with a dart, and then I force-fed you our own concoction of two strains of Aconitum. Your guts should feel like shit for quite a while, until you manage to pass or vomit it all out of your system. But by then you’ll have other problems.”
“Fuck you,” Heather croaked through her ruined throat. “Fucking fuck.”
“Oh my, I’d have thought an accomplished television personality such as you could do better than that.”
Her head was spinning, but she felt the effects of the poison herb lessening. Her family had always bragged of an ironclad stomach—maybe she’d continued the trait into her werewolf-hood.
She made a huge effort and managed to get to her feet, though unsteadily. She tottered, but slowly straightened.
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