“Tweezers, Linx.”
He shimmered and shifted and then I held him at an angle so he could work the slivers that had crawled from my thighs up through my belly and to my ribcage.
With those removed, I set to washing the bite on my shoulder. In the cupboard, I found an arsenal of medical supplies including some heavy duty antibiotics of which I downed three with the lukewarm tap water, then stuffed the remainder of the bottle into my bag. That would have to do for any infection brewing.
Next I washed the bite, using a medical grade cleansing solution. The tooth marks were ragged and were going to scar badly.
I hated to ask for help.
“Can either of you do stitches?”
“I can,” Noah called back, and I let him into the bathroom.
He said nothing as he stitched me up, and I wasn’t feeling chatty. He stitched up the knife wounds on the other side of me as well.
I let out a breath and waited for him to leave. He stepped out. “You’re welcome.”
I almost killed him right there. But I still wanted answers so I kept Dinah and Eleanor on the flat of the counter even though they both grumbled on my behalf.
My extra clothes were hard to get on over all the wounds, but it was the best I could do for now. I needed to find a place to sleep and heal and decide what I was going to do next. Where I was going to hit Romano.
I thought about Noah in the other room with Simon. He was my best shot at knowing where to go next. But I wasn’t sure I trusted him at all, even though I thought he had the bible that would decode the papers from Justin’s desk. He’d burned my house down. He’d killed Abigail. Yet, Justin had worked with him for years.
Could I do the same?
I couldn’t stop my shoulders from tensing or the resulting pound of a headache starting behind my eyes. The same headache I’d gotten after every job. After every major kill.
Cleaned up and dressed, I walked into the living room. Simon was passed out on the couch. Noah stood quietly against the bar countertop.
“You going to tell me what’s going on, or am I going to have to convince you to tell me?” I tucked my fingers into my belt loops, and cocked a leg as if I didn’t want to lie down and sleep for days. I could outwait him.
Noah’s blue eyes danced over me and away. Looking for a way to lie his way out of this. “You figured out that Justin wasn’t a ski instructor.”
I nodded. “No shit. Keep talking.”
He let out a big breath. “He’d heard a rumor that Romano’s oldest daughter had died, but he didn’t believe it because of the rumors around your death that the body went missing. He went looking for you, Bea. He thought . . .”
I finished the thought for him. “He thought he could score big with Romano if he brought the oldest wayward daughter home.” Which was a joke because I was the reason Bianca’s body was never found. The note she’d left for me with Dinah and Eleanor had asked that I hide her body away. A last request I couldn’t refuse even though I was only eighteen. That had been when I’d begun to wonder about my life. To wonder if it was everything it should have been.
Noah nodded. “But he met you, and couldn’t do it. Couldn’t turn you in. He always said it was the look in your eyes, this mix of hunted and hunter that drew him to you.”
I remembered the first time Justin and I met. How when I’d told him my name was Bea, his face had lit up like I’d just handed him a stack of cash.
I didn’t give Noah any sort of indication how I felt, but let him keep on talking.
“He never went back to your father for the money. You need to know that.”
The ramifications rolled through my mind, the first and foremost that Justin had loved me enough to try and hide me from my father. To fool a man who could pull the trigger on him at any time. Just like Romano had.
Noah watched me closely for a moment, then went on. “I work for a division of the FBI trained to infiltrate Mancini’s crew, to find out what they are doing with myst magic, to work undercover with them.”
“Lancaster is your real last name?” I said, recalling the badge in his room in Jackson Hole.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“And the score Justin was after this time?” I frowned. What did he think he was going to do?
“He was blackmailing your father. He told him that he would go to the police with information of all your father’s holdings, money, underground dealings, the illegal magic usage. Names of everyone he was working with, which government officials he was connected to. Everything. That is why the hit was called out on him. I caught wind of it but too late to warn him.”
“Romano has lawyers; he would have fought Justin’s papers and won.” I waved my hand in dismissal.
“Yeah, well, Justin wanted to hurt him, and he thought he could do it. I did too, I thought we could take Romano out.” Noah’s words were weighted with meaning. Justin wanted to hurt my father for what he’d done to me. A lump formed in my throat and I struggled through it.
“I burned your house down because I couldn’t have anyone else getting that paperwork. I . . . I know you wouldn’t have found it. Justin told me it was well hidden and that you’d never noticed. I didn’t have time to do much more than take a cursory look before I—”
I glared at him, the gaze intense enough to shut him up.
“You were the one in my house, you took the bible?”
His eyes didn’t lower. “I was.”
I narrowed my eyes, thinking about how the steps of the man in the house had been wide and staggered. The gortex in Abigail’s teeth suddenly made sense. “Abigail got a piece of you, and made you limp, didn’t she?”
He nodded. “She did.”
“Thank you for your honesty, Noah. Now where is the family bible?”
His eyes widened. “Why would you want that?”
“Because I have the coded papers.” No point in lying now.
He sucked in a sharp breath that seemed to pain him. “Justin wouldn’t have wanted you to go after—”
“This isn’t about Justin. He didn’t know all of my story. He didn’t know who I really am. He thought I was my sister, Bianca. I let him believe I was her. I let him believe I was not the other sister. You know the one I mean.”
Noah visibly paled. “You’re not . . . Bianca Romano?”
“No. I’m not. I’ll let you figure out who that leaves me to be. Surely even you can manage that much.” I kept my eyes locked on him. “Where. Is. The. Bible?”
He swallowed hard. Abe growled.
“You can’t do this on your own,” he said.
I knew what he was saying. He wanted in. “The bible.”
“I don’t have it.” Noah shook his head. “I took it from you, and someone stole it from me.”
“Who stole it?” I stared hard at him.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
The lie was so obvious he might as well have painted it on his forehead in neon lights. “Right, you expect me to believe that shit?”
He turned away, then back to me, his face twisted with anger. “I think it was one of Romano’s men. An abnormal that was so well cloaked I couldn’t get features on him.” Noah growled the words. “
The Shadow then, the second of Romano’s guardians. With that I knew that the chances of getting the bible back were zero to none.
Simon let out a groan and sat up. “Are we leaving, yet?”
I grabbed Simon’s arm, yanked him to his feet. “Your bedside manner leaves something to be desired, my love.”
“You want to stay with the dirty cop?” I let go of Simon and he wobbled where he stood.
“Nah, I think I’ll pass on that. Rather go with the dirty assassin.”
I grabbed hold of him again and dragged him to the back door. I scooped up my waiting bag, my body groaned, and in seconds we were in the car.
I left Noah there, not caring what happened to him. I had bigger fish to fry. For months, I’d stared at the coded papers from
Justin’s desk. Wondering what they were. Wondering if they were worth breaking.
“You know a code breaker who can deal in magic codes?” I steered us onto the main interstate that would take us out of LA and back to Brentwood. Barron was my best bet. Not a code breaker himself, but he had connections. Maybe even Killian could help if Barron couldn’t.
A name was all I needed . . . my foot eased off the pedal as we pulled up to Barron’s home, shock filtering through me.
The entire place was on fire, exploding here and there, glass shattering as the flames escalated. On the front porch was a single body, slumped against one of the ugly statues. I had no doubt who it was.
I backed the car up and hit the gas, ramming through the gates.
Simon yelped, and Abe let out a whine, but otherwise they were quiet.
I hit the brakes, sliding sideways as we got close to the front steps. I leapt from the car and was around the side in a flash, on my knees, next to Barron. A note was stapled to his chest. I put a hand to him, his eyes closed as if sleeping.
He groaned, surprising me. “Barron,” I said. “Hang on, I’ll get Killian—”
“No. Romano did this. Because I helped you.”
“How did he know?”
His eyes fluttered open. “Watching me. All along. The Shadow.”
My guts clenched. Romano had sent his guardian after Barron. “This is my fault. Because I came here.”
He gave me a tight smile. “No. My fault. I was still helping him. On the side.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. Damn him and his greed.
I blew out a breath. “Code breaker, Barron. I need a code breaker.”
“Talia Lovstark.” He breathed her name. “Seattle.”
Seattle. I leaned down and kissed him on the lips. He kissed me back. “Love you, Phoenix. Never stopped.”
I lied to him, because he was dying. “I love you, Barron.”
He smiled and the last breath of air slid from him. I stood, took the paper from his chest and read it.
I will kill everyone you know, bitch.
I snorted.
“That makes two of us, fucker.” I crumpled the paper and threw it down beside Barron.
Luca Romano paced his office in downtown New York, the Shadow in the corner not moving, not even breathing under his dark hooded cloak.
Luca looked at the papers on his desk again. The bank records had to be wrong. They showed the entire two months of money from the deal in LA was gone. He’d had his two hackers on it for the last three days and while they’d traced the money in a circuitous route, they hadn’t been able to stop it from moving. Or figure out where it had ended up.
Romano slammed the flat of his hands onto the desk in front of him. The entire operation had been a clusterfuck the second that bitch of a daughter had stepped foot into it. Gabe was dead. The money was gone. The Stick Man was missing.
And Mr. Mancini was again going to expect answers from him. Answers along the line of where the hell was the money and where was all the Diva that had been promised to him? Romano ran a hand over his head and the intercom on his desk buzzed. He hit it harder than necessary.
“What is it?” He didn’t know his secretary’s name. Only that she was an ugly fat cow. He wouldn’t have kept her around if she hadn’t been so good with the filing system, and the occasional blow job didn’t hurt either.
“You have a Jim Gordon here to speak with you, from LA.”
“Send him in,” Romano growled.
A big man dressed in a nice suit that was far too tight over his oversized muscles stepped into the room. An envelope was clutched in his hands.
“That it?” Romano barked the question. Jim nodded.
“Yes, sir.”
“Open it, and read it to me.” On the off chance Phoenix decided to leave a nasty surprise in the envelope, he would not be opening it himself.
Jim didn’t seem to realize the danger he was in. He peeled the envelope open and flipped open a single sheet of paper. His face paled and his eyes flicked to his boss and to the paper again before he cleared his throat and spoke slowly.
“This is war. You took what was mine, and I will take everything you love. Your money. Your power. Your family. Remember that you made me who and what I am. Karma is a bitch, Romano, and she’s come full circle to ram her vengeance up your ass so hard, you’ll choke on it.”
Romano didn’t react. The words were all Phoenix. Tough. Hard.
But he knew her, he knew where her weaknesses were. With a quick dismissal, he sent Jim away and brought his secretary in. He stared down at the small 4X5 picture in front of him. The boy with the dark hair, the dark eyes, the dimple so like his own. In his new school uniform just a week prior.
“Take this picture of the boy.”
His secretary blinked several times. “Sir?”
“Take it,” he handed it over to her, “and make sure it’s sent to Zee Preston in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.”
Afterword
September 2, 2017
Blood of a Phoenix
(The Nix Series Book 2)
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Fury of a Phoenix (The Nix Series Book 1) Page 28