by Karin Harlow
“I challenge you to look at this proposition with different eyes. We have until midnight tomorrow night to gather intel on Mr. Cruz and his handler, Mr. Black. I suggest we get on it, and, sir, with all due respect, if they prove to be legit, which I am sure they are, then I say we stand back.”
He squashed out the aromatic cigar on her custom Parnian desk. His handsome features morphed into something violent and ugly. Selena leaned back, unsure of his next move. “I will not be dictated to. There will be no deviations from the original plan.” He schooled his features back to normal as he strode to the door and opened it. He turned and said, “I love you as if you were my daughter, Selena. Do not give me a reason to feel otherwise.”
Then he was gone. Stunned by Señor’s radical change in personality, Selena sat silent for long minutes in her office, trying to come to terms with how she felt. Gradually she realized that she didn’t give a rat’s ass whether Nikko got the cask or Señor. Either one would do right by it, so why jockey for position? What she cared about was getting her hands on Vetis’s heart, then going after her father. Because what mattered was her endgame. Once Paymon was ashes in the wind, she was taking Marisol and starting over. No more Miami, no more Los Cuatro, no more immortals. She was going to be Betty Crocker and Donna Reed rolled into one. She had enough money stashed to live comfortably for ten lifetimes.
Let Nikko and his Mr. Black fight with Señor over the cask. Regardless of who ended up with it, it would be safely stored.
Nikko told his team everything, most of which they already knew. His past with Selena, his present, her reason for collecting the nanorians, and whom her final showdown would be with. He laid it all out on the table, except how he felt about Selena. He could not articulate that even to himself. As he told her story, his admiration and respect grew. She was an amazing woman who had done amazing things, and all of it for the love of her child—and him.
He swiped his hand across his face and looked at the stone-cold-sober faces of his team. They had remained silent the entire hour it took him to tell the tale.
“When all is said and done, Cruz, what do you want?” Godfather asked.
“My family.” The words escaped before Nikko thought about them. He sat up and looked Godfather straight in the eye and said with more conviction, “I want my family.” When put to task, there had been no hesitation in his heart. He wanted his family, and that included Selena.
“That is not possible,” Cross said. “The Order will exact punishment for the Rev.”
“Only if they find out about it. After what I just told you, don’t you think your Order would be grateful to Selena for outing that daemon Apollo?”
“Apollyon,” Cross corrected. “There is also the assassination of her own kind to consider. The terms of the truce are specific: we cannot kill our own kind.”
“You killed Lazarus and your mother, both vampires,” Cassidy said. “And were pardoned. Why would it be different for Selena? Sounds to me like she should get a medal, not executed.”
“I do not make the rules, I only enforce them,” Cross said, looking none too happy with Cassidy for taking a stand opposite his.
“Okay, kids, let’s get back to why we’re here. That cask,” Godfather refereed.
“Mr. Black,” Cross said, looking at the screen. “This news of Apollyon’s plans to take over the Order must be immediately delivered to Rurik. I need to go—”
“A minute first, Cross,” Godfather said.
The vampire nodded.
“I can’t take any chances that your people will mess up the acquisition of the cask for us. I want your word there will be no interference on your side.”
“The Order does not involve itself with mortal business.”
“But what if that mortal business threatens immortal business?” Nikko asked.
“The Order will not cross the line into mortal business.”
“Not even when immortals make humans their business?” Nikko pushed.
“The immortal is dealt with, not the human.”
Cross’s ominous prediction about Selena’s future churned in Nikko’s gut. He looked at Cassidy, who stared at him, unblinking. When she had needed them to save Cross from the vampire Lazarus, they had only watched as Cross lay dying. Not, Nikko justified, because they didn’t want to help, but because they didn’t know how to help or if any action would have sucked the team into a peril they had no way of escaping. It had been an incredible revelation that immortals walked among them. Not acting had been prudent then; this situation was different.
“Go do what you have to do, Cross,” Godfather said.
Cross nodded.
“Wait!” Nikko said, standing up. “Give me some time, Cross, before you out Selena.”
“It’s out of my hands.”
“No, it isn’t,” Cassidy said, coming to Nikko’s defense. “Once we have possession of the cask, the threat by Apollyon will be moot.”
“Do not meddle in matters that do not concern you, Jax,” Cross growled.
“The mental and psychic well-being of my team concerns me. Put Rurik on alert, but keep Selena’s name out of it.”
“I will not lie.”
“You don’t have to lie, Marcus, just don’t tell him everything.” She approached the angry vampire and took his hand. “Rurik showed compassion when you exposed Lazarus. Who is to say when this is over he won’t show the same to Selena?”
“Because it will reveal weakness. The only reason Apollyon has the balls to do what he’s doing now is because Rurik showed weakness by allowing me to live!”
“I will not surrender Selena to you or any other immortal entity,” Nikko stated.
“It will be done if the Order demands it,” Cross said, and strode from the house.
A heavy pall hung over the room. Nikko’s fists opened and closed. He was a righteous man. A passionate man. A man who understood that sometimes rules had to be broken for the greater good of the whole. Selena would not pay with her life for outing the daemon king’s world-domination plot.
“We have work to do,” Godfather curtly said from the screen. Nikko looked up to find Godfather’s arctic gaze on him. He knew what was coming next. “Cruz, I understand your predicament, I also sympathize with it. However, there is a greater cause here than all of us combined. We can do this with you or without you. I prefer with you. It’s your call.”
Emotions churned within Cruz. Godfather was asking him to use Selena to land the cask, then to stand by while the Order meted out its punishment. He would not do it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Nikko sat stone-faced as ideas, emotions, and resolutions careened through his head. In less than a week, his world had been turned upside down and inside out. He had been forced to come to terms with the ghosts that had haunted him. Who he was—what he was—had been challenged, stripped bare, and rebuilt. Johnny Cicone and Nikko Cruz had melded, becoming a stronger, better version of both men, wanting the same world, the one that came with an eight-year-old girl and her mother. No, not wanting—needing that world, those people.
The fear of losing them both after just finding them hovered on the perimeter of his mind.
Nikko didn’t do things half-assed. He loved and hated hard. Played and worked hard. But what was he to do now? He was loyal and couldn’t let his team down. But he also loved, more deeply than he’d ever thought possible, and he couldn’t let his daughter or her mother down.
Resolved, he turned to Godfather. “I’ll use Selena to get the damn cask, but once we have a lock on it, I want something in return.”
“Doing your job comes with conditions?” Godfather demanded, his voice barely contained.
“I am a L.O.S.T. operative. I will remain a L.O.S.T. operative, but I’m not a fucking cyborg!” He turned to his teammates, who regarded him closely. He should not reveal his weakness—he never did—but this time he had no choice. “None of us are. We’re human, with human emotions, human needs. My daughter needs her mother
alive.” Nikko sucked in a deep breath, then cursed. “I need her mother alive. And I need L.O.S.T.’s help to save Selena from the wrath of the Order.”
“How do you propose we achieve that?” Godfather asked.
“I’m putting money on a daemon, courtesy of Apollyon, possessing one of the bidders at the auction tomorrow night. Selena’s powers are so honed, she’ll be able to sniff it out the minute it steps into the club. She will then eliminate it, thus foiling any chance the daemons have of getting their dirty hands on the cask. Once the auction has commenced and the deal goes down, dispatch a team to go after the cask, and another team, made up of myself, Selena, and, I hope”—Nikko looked at Cassidy, then back to Godfather—“Cassidy and Cross to go after the last Hellkeeper. We’ll collect the seventh stone, and then eliminate her father.” Nikko held his breath for a long moment, then said what had just come to him: “I will convince Selena to give Rurik the necklace. A trade. Her life for the power of the necklace.”
“Why would he do that?” Stone asked.
“Its power is untold,” Nikko answered. “You have no idea what can be achieved by the one who possesses it. It would be the equivalent to a prison for the daemons, and I’m going to assume that so long as Rurik holds on to it, he will be supreme commander, his position unchallengeable.”
“If she does not agree to hand it over?” Cassidy asked.
Nikko raked his hand through his hair. “Then I will.”
“And get your ass kicked in the process,” Stone said.
“She’ll get over it,” Nikko shot back. Better than her being dead. Better than Marisol not having a mother and Nikko having to live without the woman he loved.
“Team?” Godfather asked the group.
“I’m in,” Cassidy said. She looked at Stone and Satch.
“Count me in,” Stone said.
Satch stood and clasped Nikko’s shoulder. “I’m all yours, buddy.”
Nikko’s fists opened and closed. He nodded, not trusting his voice.
“I’ll head the extraction team,” Godfather flatly said.
Nikko’s head snapped back. Every eye in the room stared at the screen. “Are you serious?” Nikko asked, not believing what he had just heard. Godfather was the maestro; rarely did he go out into the field.
“As a heart attack.” Godfather smiled a rare smile. “Once you all stop gaping, I’d like to get back to the matter at hand.”
Four jaws collectively snapped shut.
“Thank you,” Godfather said with his game face back on. “Now, a most interesting development has come to light.”
“Please tell me it involves humans,” Cassidy said, sitting forward in her chair. “Those immortals are a pain in the ass.”
“Tell me about it,” Nikko said, but smiled thinking of his half-immortal. He could not love her more if she were all human.
“For now, it does,” Godfather said, tapping the touch pad in front of him. Balderama’s face flashed up on the screen. “From the moment we learned Los Cuatro was in the hunt for the makings of a nuke bomb, I knew it was not for philanthropic purposes. So, I contacted Interpol and Scotland Yard and asked them to snoop around for intel on Balderama. They came back with little usable info. But something told me to keep digging. My next call was to an old friend in Tel Aviv. No one watches nuclear traffic more closely than the Israelis, Mossad specifically. Lo and behold, Balderama popped up on their radar a year ago while they were surveilling Manuel Arias, one of Venezuela’s old elite. Manny and friends want their pre-Chávez capitalistic life back. They have been hard-core buying arms and mercs. Mossad took a closer look at Balderama. A little more digging revealed that Balderama had been part of Chávez’s MBR-200 movement in the eighties. After the failed coup, Balderama and Chávez had a major falling out. Chávez was imprisoned, while Balderama mysteriously was not. He flew the coop to his mother’s people in Cuba, where he was welcomed by Castro. Once he regrouped, he set off for Miami, where he began his quiet grassroots project Los Cuatro.”
“So Los Cuatro is not the benevolent Robin of Locksley stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Los Cuatro is King John disguised as Robin Hood, stealing from all but his most influential nobles and then lining his own pocket?” Stone summarized.
“Yes,” Godfather said.
“Balderama is working right beneath Chávez’s nose to—what? Launch a financial coup?” Nikko asked, shaking his head. Selena was going to be furious. And hurt. He felt for her. But he could not change what Balderama was.
“Right again, but with power. Nuclear power.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. But he’s positioning for a strike, a strike he can only make with a dirty bomb.”
“Massad knows our interests in Venezuela—why are we just now hearing about this?” Stone asked, pissed off.
“You need to understand something about the Mossad. They are highly functional, highly capable, and rarely require outside help once they lock onto something or someone. Plus, according to my contact, they have been recently compromised.”
“I guess they’ve been trusting the wrong people,” Satch said.
“Why did this contact tell you, then?” Cassidy asked.
Godfather hesitated, then said, “Back in my heyday, I was on an extraction team with several Sayeret Matkal operatives. As you all know, the bonds forged under extreme duress are lifelong and impossible to break. My contact trusts me. I trust each of you. What I’m going to tell you next cannot, under any circumstances, leave this room.”
The team nodded in unison.
“My contact will have a plant at the auction table tomorrow night. They want the cask, and like us, they want to ID each bidder.” Godfather looked pointedly at Nikko. “They are well acquainted with Lost Souls. And Selena de la Roja.”
Nikko’s heart leapt against his rib cage. His reaction must have shown.
“Relax. It’s all good,” Godfather continued. “She’s one smooth operator and has impressed some very important people in some very high-level positions. As an aside, my contact told me once the cask is secured, his people will be heavily recruiting Selena.”
Nikko shook his head and stood, looking for something to punch. He grabbed a pillow from the sofa and hurled it across the room. No fucking way. Even if the Sayeret Matkal was the Israeli equivalent of L.O.S.T. “Once the cask is secured and her father dust in the wind, Selena is going to be recruited by a much more formidable force than the Sayeret Matkal. The position being offered is full-time mother and wife,” Nikko flatly said.
Cassidy coughed. “Yeah, right.”
“Here’s what’s going to go down tomorrow night,” Godfather said. “Selena will play hostess to Noslov’s master of ceremonies. With the spyware we’re installing in each of the laptops being used to make the bids, we’ll be able to track the bids through keystrokes. Cruz, as our representative, you will be alerted via Selena, whom we will alert and who will be wearing an earpiece, when all the bids are in as well as their amounts. You will enter an amount one dollar higher than the highest bid. Once it’s confirmed you are the highest bidder, the money will appear to be transferred, and the instructions will be given for delivery. My team will take it from there, and you and your team are free to go with Selena and do what you have to do.”
“What’s the backup plan if something goes haywire and we don’t make the highest bid?” Nikko asked.
“Then your girl will have to get in the head of the person who wins. We need the location of that cask.”
Nikko didn’t like it. “It puts Selena at grave risk to do what you’re asking. It’s her call, not mine.”
“I’m aware of that. Cross gave us a Daemon 101 course while you were gone. We will do everything humanly possible to protect her.”
“And if Selena balks at any of this?”
“Then you will convince her.”
“I have to tell her about Balderama.”
Godfather nodded. “Do that as soon as possible.
I don’t want her to have that conversation with him as we discussed. It’s imperative Balderama goes into the auction thinking he’s in the clear. If he suspects Selena has spoken to anyone about his intentions, she may be in danger.”
Nikko stood. “I’m outta here.”
As Selena stepped out of her office into the anteroom, she had the unnerving feeling she was being watched. Her nostrils twitched at the acrid smell of sulfur, so strong her eyes watered. Simultaneously, the soft rustle of dry wings vibrated around her. Her head snapped up and she caught her breath. Dozens—no, at least one hundred—power daemons hung like bats from the high domed ceiling, their iridescent gray bodies still, their red eyes closed. Higher in rank and power than the soldiers that had attacked her and Nikko on the beach, these daemons were masters at emotional manipulation. And they usually preceded a more powerful daemon. Vetis? Or had her father decided to pay her a visit?
The stones warmed around her neck. The floor beneath her feet shook. Above her, two hundred wings began to vibrate, creating a rush of air strong enough to push her several feet backward.
Selena stood her ground as the wings began to beat furiously. Red eyes flared open, followed by shrill screeching. They fed on human fear; it was how daemons were able to access human dreams and thoughts. Dropping en masse from the ceiling, they furiously dove at her. Their sharp teeth and claws tore at her hair and clothing. Their mad tempers slashed at her mind and heart, viciously digging to fashion even the tiniest of openings. Once in, they would drive her mad.
Selena flung her arms into the air with her hands open, fingers extended. “Begone!” she commanded. The instant she opened her mouth, a daemon flew in. She spat it out. Closing her eyes and lips, she turned in a tight circle, like an ice-skater doing a two-footed spin, propelling herself until she was a human funnel cloud. The velocity of her maneuver flung the daemons from her.
Outraged shrieks reverberated around her. Then eerie silence.
“Selena!”
Nikko? What the hell was he doing here? He was going to get himself killed! They would devour him! Selena slowed her spin, and as her vision cleared, her heart fell to her feet. The swarm of daemons covered Nikko like ants on a dead bug.