His eyes were thoughtful.
“What are you thinking in terms of a plan?” Simon spread his hands on the table. “I have some information—”
“Romano is running a new business in California.” I slid one of the papers I’d taken from the office in the folder across the table. “From what I can see, it’s bringing in a couple million a month. What I’ve heard makes me suspect some sort of magical drug running.” He didn’t need to know about the merger with Mancini. I would keep that tight to me and use it if I had to.
Simon took the paper and looked it over. “Where did you get this?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “What matters is if we can find where this setup is, we both get what we want. You get money, and I get to make Romano pay for what he did to me.”
Simon pushed the paper back to me. “What exactly did he do?”
My eyebrows shot up. “You don’t know?”
He shook his head. “Nope, I was just to find you. Not an easy task, if I may say so. Took me twelve months, longer than any other job. Your Hider did an excellent job. Why did he quit?”
“He didn’t.” I frowned. “You know a guy named Peters?”
Simon’s eyes widened. “Peters? Death magic Peters?”
I nodded. “He broke the Hiding on my home, and that rippled outward.” I changed the subject. “How much per month does Romano owe you?”
“Hundred grand.”
“And he paid you none of it?”
He shrugged. “Just enough to keep going for twelve months, a tenth of what was owed, but when I went for my final paycheck this last week, and told him you were in Jackson Hole, well, he pulled a gun on me, and had me escorted out by the Shadow.”
I fought a shudder. The Shadow was the second of my father’s guardians, and while the Stick Man was deadly and freaked me right the fuck out, the Shadow was one that truly scared me. I’d never met the third of the guardians.
I pulled my shit together. “That sounds about right.”
Where Luca could, he made sure his money stayed with him, no matter what contract he had. I mulled over his words a minute. “He knew I was in Jackson Hole?”
“As of a few days ago he did, that’s when I went in to get my pay day.”
I schooled my face as I asked my next question. “Did you give him my new name? Did he know I was Bea Stark, married to Justin, mother of Bear?”
Simon nodded. “Yes, I gave him all of the info. That was my job.”
That burning rage that had fueled my life since Bear was killed arced through me in a sharp shot like lightning. There was no way Romano wouldn’t have fed that information to my brothers. Which meant Tommy had known when I’d faced him in the restaurant why I was there. He’d known that Luca had killed my husband and son.
And he’d not been sorry even a little that his nephew was dead.
I closed my eyes and placed my hands flat on the table as I struggled to breathe around this new truth. A miniscule part of me had thought that perhaps, just perhaps, if my family had known that it had been my boy, my husband, who had been killed, that there might be some remorse. That maybe there would be some reflection that striking down a child was not a smart thing for so many reasons.
The words came from me slow and measured. “He had my husband and son killed, and he knows it now, even if he didn’t when it happened.”
“Holy shit.” Simon breathed the words softly. “Your boy was just a kid?”
“Yes.” I opened my eyes, letting the rage fill them, letting it flood through my veins until I felt nothing but the anger burning a path through my every nerve ending. “Now you know why I want to make him suffer.”
“Why not just kill him?” Simon lifted an eyebrow, looked me over in a way that was all too thorough. He frowned. “Wait, you went to kill him tonight, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “He wasn’t where he should have been. So be glad about that.” I was shaking with fury. “Death won’t hurt him enough. What will hurt him is if I wipe out his business. If I take all his money. He doesn’t attach to people, Simon. He attaches to money.”
He was quiet a moment, then went back to our previous part of the discussion. “He doesn’t ever cheat Mancini?”
“That’s just suicide.”
“Which is why he was so pissed at you taking that cool million.” Simon glanced at me, and I didn’t correct him that it had been five million I’d taken. “He still paid Mancini his cut, which meant he was out double the amount.”
I smiled and couldn’t help the laugh. “Good. He damn well deserves to be ass-fucked until he bleeds out his mouth.”
Simon barked a laugh and pointed a finger at me. “You’re subtle. I like it.”
“Don’t get used to it. I’m headed to Cali right now. You coming with me?”
“Plan along the way?”
I nodded. “Yes. I’ll drive.”
The thing was, I was too keyed up to do anything but stay awake. I felt like I’d had an IV placed in me with a steady intense drip of caffeine. I was no longer shaking, and everything was clear, bright, and sure in my head.
The intense desire for revenge was still there, but I didn’t want Luca Romano to die, not until he saw his empire crushed under my heel, not until he realized I took away everything he held dear, that the revenge was complete and as sweet as it could be before I cut his still-beating heart out of his chest.
Chapter Twenty-One
Taking on a partner—other than Abe and my girls—was not something I would have ever considered even twenty-four hours ago. In the past, I’d worked alone. I’d done my jobs solo because there was less mess, less concern that someone else would fuck up the mark. I’d never even taken Zee with me. He’d been my mentor, one I planned with. But he’d kept his hands clean.
I glanced at the sleeping Simon. Abe had his face on my lap, and his tail on the abnormal’s. Driving across country would take a few days, less if we took shifts like this. By then, we’d be forced to get another vehicle. That would give me time to find out what Simon was capable of.
From the backseat inside my bag came a muffled grumble. Not Dinah nor Eleanor.
Linx.
I reached back and pulled the silver tool out. Linx shivered in my hands, and took on the form of a small silver hammer. “Whack me on his knees. I’ll wake him up.”
“Linx, what can you turn into exactly?”
I laid him on the dashboard in front of me. Without Rose, there was no levitation.
He shimmered and started shifting between shapes as he spoke. “Anything that is a tool. Key. Tweezers. Hammer. Plyers. Ice pick. Whatever.”
“And if I ask you to shift into something you’ve not done before?” I flexed my hands on the steering wheel, thinking.
“Like what, sweet cheeks?”
Oh, God. Another smart-mouthed inanimate object. “Like a knife?”
He flickered and shimmered, lengthening to a knife in only seconds. “What else?”
“Throwing star?”
“Done. Listen. Rose wanted me to come with you and that’s cool,” Linx said, “but the deal is really this. Any tool, anything you can think of, I can become within a size parameter. Like if you ask for an axe, I can do it but it’ll be smaller than what you want.”
“Got it.” I reached up and pulled him from the dash, setting him against my thigh.
Fatigue was finally catching up to me as the first rays of the new day cut through the clouds. “Simon.”
“I’m awake.” He grunted the words. “You got some fucked-up weapons, Phoenix.”
I ignored the unspoken question of where I got them from. “We’ll stop to eat, then you can take over driving for a bit.”
He rubbed at his face and nodded. The next truck stop appeared in the distance and I headed for it, pulling off the interstate.
After taking Abe for a quick walk on the minimal amount of grass, getting him water and breakfast, I went inside to where Simon had already dug into a huge platter of
flapjacks, sausage, eggs, hash browns and toast. I wrinkled my nose and ordered my own breakfast from the waitress.
“Steak and eggs, steak rare, coffee with two cream and sugar.”
The waitress was gone a second later and I leaned over, taking a slice of toast off Simon’s plate. His eyebrows shot up. “That seems rather familiar considering we just met.”
I slathered the slice of toast with peanut butter and took a bite. “You won’t be able to finish that anyway.” I motioned at the plate. Small talk was not something I was good at. I hoped he picked up on that and just stayed quiet—
“What did you do in Jackson Hole all those years?”
I had to fight to unclench my jaw and take another bite of the toast. I spoke around it. Maybe that would drive the point home that I wasn’t interested in talking. “Horses.”
“Horses?”
“Raised and sold them. Arabians for the most part, sport models, not the show lines. Did you not look that up when you found me?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Found you, that was my job.”
“Sloppy. Devil’s in the details,” I said.
He frowned over a bite of eggs halfway to his mouth. “Sloppy?”
“You’re looking for a known killer, and you don’t research what’s going on around her? You don’t know that her son and husband were killed by the man who sent you looking for her? You don’t know who else is there on the ranch?”
“None of that mattered.” He waved his fork at me, then shoved the food into his mouth. I snorted and shook my head.
“Zee is a Hider. It would have mattered.”
“I can handle a Hider.”
I frowned over my toast. “What are you then? You look for people, you’re a killer, you’re abnormal. But what is your designation?”
“Shit, I haven’t heard it put that way for years.” He dug into his eggs, scooping several bites into his mouth. He swallowed and pointed his fork at me. “Designation dangerous.”
I rolled my eyes. “You would have been in trouble if you’d run into Zee, I’m telling you that now.”
Justin wouldn’t have killed Simon on sight; shit, he’d have invited him in for dinner. But Zee . . . Zee would have killed him and buried the body out back in the shit pile. He might not have ever told me either so I wouldn’t worry.
“What are you smiling about?”
“Thinking about you being killed by my uncle.”
“That’s not very nice.” He didn’t seem overly bothered as he continued to shovel food into his mouth, which impressed me. I laughed and shrugged.
“Don’t ask me a question if you aren’t prepared for an honest answer,” I pointed out.
The waitress came back and plopped my steak and eggs in front of me. I dug in, eating fast, catching up to Simon in no time. When I realized he was no longer eating, I looked up and found him staring at me with wide eyes.
“You do speed eating competitions in your spare time?”
I grunted and kept shoveling. Food was fuel, and I needed it to keep going, which was why I went straight to the protein. The more, the better.
I was finished before Simon, even though he had a head start on me.
“You going to spill yet?” It was my turn to point my fork at him.
“You’d call me a chameleon. My magic gives me the ability to blend in with my surroundings. Different than a Hider who just disappears.” He looked to his food. “Chameleon with a penchant for speed.”
“A blended abnormal then, a parent of each kind?” I asked.
“Far as I know.” His face closed off. I knew the end of a conversation when I saw it.
I flipped some money onto the table and glanced out the window to see two police officers approaching my truck. Well, my stolen truck.
Abe paced side to side in the truck, and his jaw flapped open as he barked.
“We’ve got company.” I’d thought I’d have longer before we’d have to switch out vehicles. The time stamp said I still had two days. Apparently, it was off.
I was out the door and moving fast toward the truck. I had both guns on a shoulder holster hidden under my light coat.
“Officer,” I called out when I was still twenty feet away, “is there a problem?”
The two cops swung around and faced me, their bodies and faces tense. “This your truck?”
I nodded. “It is. And that’s my dog you’re upsetting.”
The first officer put his hand on his belt. “We’re looking for a truck that fits this description. Driven by a woman with her dog.”
“What for?” I blinked my eyes as wide as I could, hoping I could talk my way out of this. Broad daylight out in the public was not the best place to start pulling guns out.
“You entered a club with weapons out in New York last night?” the second officer said.
“Did you get a license plate number? Because I haven’t been in New York.”
“Where are you headed?”
Shit. I knew where this was going. They would detain me here with questions long enough that either they would get backup here, or I would be forced to go into the local police station for questioning. Neither of which could happen. All of which meant Romano was using his connections to Mancini to hunt me down faster now that there had been a legit sighting, and Zee was obviously not with me.
Of course, it probably hadn’t helped that I threatened Romano and his money.
Simon stepped up beside me and slid an arm around my waist. “Honey, are you ready to go? My mother is going to be seriously pissed if we are late again.”
I glanced at him. “These two officers think I was in a night club in New York last night.”
He burst out laughing and there was a tingle over my skin. Simon was doing something with his magic. I had to fight not to push him off me.
“We were in a hotel down the road here. Couple miles back,” Simon said.
The second officer opened a notebook and took a pen out. “What hotel is that?”
Simon didn’t hesitate. “Easy Inn Motel. On the cheaper end, but you know how it is being newlyweds.”
He could spin a story fast, I’d give him that. While the officers wrote down the information Simon gave them—including a phone number and home residence—we worked our way to the truck. I handed him the keys. “You should drive now, you’re a better driver, honey, ’cause all this has gotten me shook up.”
The one cop made a sad face, the other narrowed his eyes. Apparently, my skill at lying had gotten rusty.
We were back in the truck and pulling onto the interstate before I dared a look over my shoulder. “We need a new vehicle.”
“Yeah, I picked up on that.” Simon glanced in the mirror. “I can try cloaking us, but it will still be a truck.”
In the far distance, the flicker of red and blue lights lit up the morning sky.
Shit. “Faster, Simon. They’ve already called the motel.”
He hit the gas and the truck raced down the highway. We hit the next exit at top speed, almost sliding down the offramp.
So much for sleeping while Simon drove.
We were under the offramp and heading into the suburbs around the highway when the red and blue lights went across the interstate behind us.
“How long before they figure out we took the exit?” Simon asked.
“Ten minutes max before they turn around and realize we aren’t on the highway.” I kept my eyes on the road, looking for a place to ditch the truck and find something else. The “something else” would be a problem. A stolen car would be reported within hours . . . a flashing sign for a rental place popped up. That had possibility.
“There. You go in on your own and rent a vehicle. I’ll meet you back at the underpass.”
“Done.” He hopped out and leaned in. “See you later, honey.”
I rolled my eyes and slid across over Abe—not as easy as it sounds—and took the wheel. I waited until Simon jogged into the parking lot of the rental place, then steered th
e truck to the left, spinning around until I was headed back the way we’d come.
Which was how I passed the cops as they came flying into the suburbs. I gave them a wave and hit the gas.
Whoever said a killer wasn’t allowed to have any fun when on the hunt for revenge was truly wrong. I kept my foot jammed to the floor, the engine roaring as the truck gave me all it had. Abe panted excitedly beside me and I hit the power window button, rolling both down so the rush of air whipped up my hair and his fur.
There was the pop of a gun going off at the same time the back window of the truck shattered.
“They are not playing today, are they, Abe?”
“Can we help please?” Dinah yelled. “I smell bullets!”
I pulled Dinah out and shifted my weight so I could point her out the now-shattered window. I couldn’t aim much, so I pointed as best I could toward the hood and let Dinah do the rest. If I could take the engine out, that would buy me the time I needed. I squeezed the trigger and the sound of a bullet hitting the flat of the hood made me smile.
“Good job, Dinah.”
The cops veered off to the left and I took a hard right and found what I was looking for at the far end of the street, a dead end with an alley running between two houses.
I hit the gas hard and cranked the wheel, straightening the truck out. The truck all but flew down the narrow street.
I slammed on the brakes as the truck slid into the alley, grabbed my backpack and leapt out before the wheels had fully stopped moving. Abe was right behind me as we ran between the two houses.
The cop car screeched to a stop and two car doors slammed. Good. They were on foot, which gave me the edge.
I circled around the first house and back to the street. I spun on the silencer to Dinah’s muzzle and shot out the tires in the cop car and my truck in quick succession while Dinah giggled.
Hiking my small pack onto my back, I ran across the street, heading toward the interstate. I wasn’t sure Simon would be waiting for me, and if he decided to leave me out high and dry, then I would have to come up with Plan B in record time. Hitchhiking was always a possibility, but getting someone to pick me and Abe up would take time.
Fury of a Phoenix (The Nix Series Book 1) Page 21