by Maia Dylan
“I have control,” Santiago said adamantly. “There are a couple of speed bumps, but we will overcome them, I promise you.”
Vincent made a noise of disbelief. “You will of course forgive me for my misgivings. I see this IEH time and again in your reports, but still no information into who is behind it. I get the odd report that there is a woman laying waste to some of your men in random alleyways, and again, no reports on who she is. And then you know there is the Black Ridge issue. There is a plague in this city, led by Kieran Murphy, and despite my wishes, that man is still breathing, so it is very hard for me to believe you when you say you have things under control.”
Santiago felt a vein begin to pulse at his temple. He was not used to being mocked, or questioned, and it burned to have to listen to what Caruso had to say. “I understand your reservations, but there is a plan in play. We have a weapon against the shifters, one that cost me a small fortune, but makes it easier to remove them from the equation. The redhead is no threat to us. She keeps to the streets, and removes some of our more impatient and unskilled men, and as far as I am concerned they are easily replaced and no real loss to what we are planning. Chicago is ours.”
Vincent stood and walked out of the shadows. The thousand dollar suit the man wore screamed affluence, but the dark, soulless eyes told a much deadlier story. “We have the ability to transport our product and run the business the way we want, but we need the city officials behind us. Either through the political and financial strength we can offer through legitimate business ventures or through extortion. The latter comes with too much risk. We need to gain those contracts and lift the legitimate profile of our business.”
Santiago resisted the urge to snap at the man who was for all intent and purposes his boss. “We will. IEH is a blip, but it is one that we can overcome.”
Caruso raised a sardonic eyebrow. “That remains to be seen. This IEH, they love this city. They love the people in the city, and they think that somehow they will be able to convince the spineless hordes to stand up against your tyranny, just like the redhead. Perhaps there is a connection? Or at the very least, her very public death would send a strong message.”
“True,” Roberto said thoughtfully. “Then we strike back at the city and the people themselves. If we are lucky, we’ll get the opportunity to remove more of that damn pride, but this time, we make it very clear that we do so because of IEH.” He pushed the button on his phone that would connect him immediately to Matteo. “Find that red-headed bitch and bring her to me.”
****
“No mention of the three dead scumbags in a back alley,” Violet mumbled to herself as she reached for her coffee cup. “No surprises there.”
Violet sat at the kitchen table in her loft, reading through the papers and generally taking her time before she started her day. She had slept in that morning so the day was beginning later than normal, but she hadn’t slept very well. She could lie to herself and say that it had something to do with the fact that she had killed three men last night, but that didn’t really have anything to do with it.
Of course, Violet understood that killing was wrong. But for fucktards like the three who had pushed her into that alleyway last night with the intent to rape and scar her for life she had no hesitation. Furthermore, she felt no remorse for her actions. Santiago and his organization had filled this city with every lowlife, murdering scumbag the bastard had ever met. Just as it said in that open letter the city woke up to this morning, her actions had been about eradicating an infestation. And she was just the exterminator for the job.
No, it wasn’t guilt that had kept her awake last night. It was the thought of two leopard shifters that had kept her tossing and turning all night. Mason was the older of the two, and Violet knew immediately that he was the more serious. He was taller than she was by quite a bit, and she guessed he stood about six foot four. His dark blond hair was cut short at the back and sides, but there was a tousled length to the top that had her fingers twitching to touch the silken strands.
Jacob was the softer of the two, which was almost crazy to think, but that was the impression she got. The man stood just as tall as his brother, and only slightly smaller in build, but he was the one who had approached her slowly, not wanting to scare her, and she had to appreciate that. His hair was wavy, and fell almost to the collar of the black shirt he was wearing the night before, and she wondered if it was as soft as it looked.
Sighing she stood up from the table and moved into the kitchen to put away her breakfast things. The brothers were the reason for her late start. Her sleep had been filled with dreams of the two men. Erotic dreams that had her waking up hot and needy a few times, and on one occasion she awoke to cry out her release as she came from the erotic things they did to her in her dream, only to growl in frustration to find that she was alone.
“Come on, Violet,” she scolded herself as she found herself dwelling on those dreams yet again. “Get your shit together and get into the gym.”
Ten minutes later, and Violet was in her gym on the roof of the building she owned. She’d had a glass conservatory built on the roof, and it housed her gym, dojo, and sauna, and it opened out into the pool area. The building was the tallest in the neighborhood so she had no one that looked down onto her private oasis, and that was exactly how she liked it. She loved everything about the loft and rooftop she called home, but it was the gym, dojo, and pool area that pleased her most.
She finished up her warm-up, and moved toward her cardio machines. Twenty minutes on the treadmill, followed by twenty minutes on her Jacobs Ladder machine, and a final twenty on her rowing machine and she was a hot, sweaty mess. The workout had succeeded in clearing her mind, but the thought of the two shifters who had proclaimed her their mate the night before still lingered.
She stepped into the dojo and started working her way through her kata. She didn’t have much in her life that she could thank her parents for beyond being born, but they had started her with karate lessons at a young age, and it was something she enjoyed and had excelled at. Now, it was a skill necessary for her life’s work, and it was ironic that she had them to thank for it. When she was finished, her workout clothes were dripping wet, but she definitely felt more centered.
After a shower she threw on some yoga pants, a tank top, and a loose shirt and headed into her office. A quick glance at the clock on the wall and she saw that it was almost lunchtime. Grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge built into the cabinets at the side of the room, she sat down at her desk in front of the three large flat screens, and pressed a button on the keyboard in front of her. The center monitor came to life instantly.
“Morning, V!” A cheery voice sounded through the speakers, just as the image of a woman in her fifties, hair piled into a bun on the top of her head opened on her screen.
Violet smiled. “Morning, Dot, how are you on this fine day?” Dot was her secretary and her friend and one of the few people in the world Violet trusted. She had been working for Violet for the past five years, and Dot had proven her loyalty to her on more than one occasion.
“Oh, I’m fine, sweets, nothing to worry about here.” Dot grinned into the camera. “My Johnny still thinks I have the best job in the world, and I have to agree. Not many women my age get to work from home, earn an impressive salary and get asked to fly around the world to meet with businessmen and -women on behalf of her employer.”
“Speaking of which.” Violet grabbed a folder from the desk beside her, then ran the papers in it through the scanner. “I am sending you information on the next trip I would like you to make if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Ooo, adventure time!” Dot almost sang, and Violet laughed. “Where am I going now? Is it somewhere new?”
Violet nodded into the screen loving how Dot’s eyes lit up in excitement. “Yep! This time I need you to head over to Wellington, New Zealand. I have been in communication with the head of information systems for their Ministry of Education. They have so
me issues with the national processing system that pays their teachers, and I have a solution. They want to see my program at work in house so to speak.”
Dot nodded as she grabbed the papers from the scanner identical to Violet’s on the desk beside her. “That sounds like something you would enjoy. Going in and fixing someone else’s mistakes, it’s more fun for you if there is a problem attached.”
“Ah, you think you know me so well,” Violet teased, reveling in the older woman’s chuckle. “Now, I want you to take that husband of yours and stay over there for a couple of weeks.”
Dot’s expression turned serious, and she moved closer to the camera on her laptop. “We have to get ready to deliver phase one of what we proposed to the Chicago City Council. Why are you sending me halfway around the world? You only send me and hubby out of the country if you think there might be trouble heading our way through your other … endeavors.”
Violet winced as her ever astute secretary hit the nail on the head. “Last night didn’t exactly go as planned.”
“What happened? Are you hurt? Do you need me to come to you? I can be on a flight to Chicago in an hour and be at your place in less than four.”
And that right there was why Violet loved Dot so much. She would drop anything and run head long into danger if she thought Violet was in trouble.
“No, I’m not hurt, I’m fine.” Violet thought it best not to mention the three stitches she’d had to put in her own arm to sew up the wound one of the bastards had managed to score on her last night. “Don’t come here. It is safer for you to stay exactly where you are.”
“Then why are you sending me halfway around the world and insisting that I take my Johnny with me?”
Violet sighed and decided to go with the truth. “On my patrol last night I came across two men who turned up just as I finished dispatching a couple of douche-knuckles.”
Dot knew everything about her, and was completely behind her nocturnal activities. She and Johnny had lived in Chicago for many years, raising their two sons. Both of whom had been officers in the Chicago Police Department and had been killed at the hands of Santiago’s men, and on his direct orders.
“Who were they? What did they want?”
“Mason and Jacob Williams. They are two of Kieran’s men,” Violet said.
Dot had gone quiet, which for her was never a good thing, and Violet peered into the screen. Dot’s expression was … gleeful. Yes, gleeful that was the word for how the woman looked in this moment. “Why do you look like that?”
“I’m not sure if you noticed, sweetling, but your tone completely changed when you mentioned their names,” Dot said with a grin, and Violet felt a heat rise into her cheeks in the first blush she’d had since she was an awkward teenager. “Are you blushing? You are, aren’t you? Ha! I knew it! These shifters you met were hot and sexy and they got your girly parts all tingly, didn’t they?”
“Dot!” Violet exclaimed, never having heard her speak about girly parts, tingly or otherwise.
“Tell me I’m wrong?” Dot paused, and Violet remained stoically silent. “You can’t, can you? Because you think they’re hot. You met two shifters last night in a dark alley, and they left an impression on you. Oh, I thought this would never happen!” Dot clapped her hands and rubbed them together. “I might get me some grandbabies after all! Wait, would that make them grandkittens?”
“Stop it, old lady, or I will fire your ass,” Violet said through her laughter. “You’ve gone crazy. Johnny is loving you up and making you crazy, and I—“
A beeping sound from the screen to her left as it suddenly blinked to life and the vibration of her watch against her wrist had her stopping midsentence. She turned her attention to the screen. It was split into four separate images. The top left was car park level of the private elevator that led to her loft, and the one next to that was inside the elevator itself. The two at the bottom were different angles of the foyer downstairs where her building security screened everyone who came into the building.
The alarm had sounded because something about the two men who were standing in front of the front desk had concerned the guard. He was well trained, and Violet could count on one hand the number of times he had used this alert. She flicked one of the views to the camera behind the guard to get a look at the two men, and inhaled sharply.
“What is it?” Dot asked. She had heard the alarm sound but had kept quiet in order to give Violet time to assess the situation.
Violet frowned and took a deep breath. “Mason and Jacob have found me.”
“What! How in the hell did they manage to do that?’
Violet shrugged her shoulders. “I may have, kinda, sorta, told them my real name before I disappeared into the night.”
There was a hesitation on the other end of the call. “You told them your real name?”
Violet nodded, and Dot mouthed a silent O before morphing into a grin. “Okay then, I guess there is more to the story than you’re telling me. I’ll call Johnny, and we’ll make plans to leave according to the information you sent through. But leave your alert on, and press it if you need me to send in the cavalry. But before I go, sweetling, let me just say this. Sometimes a burden shared is a burden halved. If these guys are part of Kieran’s men and were in that alleyway last night, then they already know a side of you that no one else does. Don’t close yourself off from something more. Just see where things take you.”
Dot was grinning like a crazed woman again, and Violet knew she had romantic notions in her head about what brought them to her doorstep. Violet would have normally shot something witty back and rolled her eyes for effect, but if the truth be told, she was kind of in shock. She nodded and closed the connection down between her and Dot, then turned the sound up on the scene downstairs.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the guard was explaining, “but for the third time, without a last name or a security clearance word that the person you are looking for may have supplied you with, I cannot call upstairs and nor can I allow you past this point.”
“That’s actually a really smart security measure,” Mason said as he leaned on the counter. “It is one that I can not only understand, but we will probably steal and implement in some of the properties our extended family own—” by that Violet knew he meant the pride, “—but if you could simply let Ms. Violet know that Mason and Jacob are here, and that we won’t be leaving anytime soon, we would be most grateful. In fact, we are more than happy to sit outside and wait for her to come home so we may speak with her.”
Jacob leaned in to match his brother’s position and leaned on the counter. “Tell her that she has no reason to fear us. Surely she’s not scared of little old us?” Violet chuckled at that, as did the security guard. “True, we do outweigh her by a lot, but I happen to know she can hold her own. But hey, maybe she just doesn’t have the nerve to talk with us.”
Violet tensed at the challenge in Jacob’s tone. Could he know that she was listening to him?
Son of a cheese whip covered cracker.
“I think that’s exactly what it is, brother,” Mason said as his eyes shot to the camera, so it looked like he was staring directly at her from the screen. “She’s scared about what we told her last night, and what she means to us.”
Jacob’s eyes lifted to the same camera, and the half smile and challenging lift of one brow had her own brow rising. “Well, damn. Maybe we need to think about our immediate impression. Perhaps she’s not as fearless as we thought.”
They were deliberately trying to goad her into speaking to them. They were employing the oldest and most childish trick in the book to lure her to engage, and goddamn it all to hell and back, it was working.
Violet muttered to herself as she reached for the cordless phone beside her and pressed the pound key. She watched as both the shifters expressions turned hopeful and the guard grinned as he picked up the phone, knowing it was her immediately. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Aren’t they assholes, Reggie? Stand
ing there and freaking calling me out like that,” Violet complained down the phone. Reggie had worked there for the past three years and knew she owned the building, but they had never met face to face, only ever talked via the phone.
“That they are, ma’am. What would you like me to do with them?” Reggie stared at Mason and Jacob with a huge grin on his face and Mason and Jacob both tried to grab the phone off him at the same time, but he pushed his chair back with a laugh. “I could throw them out if you want, ma’am, just say the word.”
“Jeez, dude,” Jacob complained pressing a hand to his chest. “That’s fucking cold. We’re here on a mission of love and you’d throw us out on our ass?”
Reggie covered the phone, but Violet could hear his answer clearly through the monitor. “In a heartbeat. That woman is the best boss a man could have, and she has a huge heart. Me and my Virginia both work for her here, and she pays us well, and takes care of everyone who works for her. If I thought you’d hurt her, or if she wanted nothing to do with either of you, I’d throw you out on your ass just as soon as look at ya.”
Violet’s jaw dropped. She knew that Reggie and Virginia were married, but she’d never known that they felt so protective of her.
“Thank you, Reggie,” Mason said solemnly, nodding at the older man now standing behind the desk. “You’ve been looking out for our woman when we haven’t been here to do it. We will never hurt Violet. If we do, then you have my permission to shoot Jacob in the leg. Twice.”
“Yeah, we would nev—wait. What! Asshole,” Jacob muttered as he shook his head at his brother, and Violet giggled again. The sound brought Reggie’s attention back to the phone.
“Sorry, ma’am, just clearing something up with your visitors. What would you like me to do?”
Violet took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Send them up, Reggie.”
And just like that, Violet felt a shift in her world. Only time would tell if the shift was to be a positive one, or something that ended in her blood being spilt, just like it usually did.