“Did you know about the trafficking?” I asked. She nodded slowly. “Even before Connor did?”
“They asked me help them, to keep it a secret so he wouldn’t find out. They needed his funds.”
“And you agreed?”
She sighed. “I don’t know how to make this sound like it’s not wrong. I was only looking out for his best interests. We were going to get married. I couldn’t let a scandal like that ruin it.”
“Because you love him so much?”
When she looked up at me again her eyes were filled with tears. I fought the urge to roll my eyes. I was being the epitome of politeness.
“Can’t you understand that?” she asked.
“Actually I can’t, no,” I said. Honesty was your best policy. I couldn’t imagine loving someone enough that something like trafficking couldn’t ruin it. I often argued I didn’t have morals. Maybe I was wrong. “Besides, I think you did it for the money.”
“They weren’t paying me for my silence!” she said, her cheeks ashen.
I shook my head. I was going out on a limb here. Her reactions guided me. “I’m not talking about their money. I’m talking about his.”
She gasped and the air around us became cold. Not the supernatural kind of cold, but the kind that came with a person realizing she’d talked herself into a corner and there was no way to get out of it again.
“I can’t lose it all. I won’t go back to the hole I was in when my ex-husband left me.”
Ex? This whole thing had suddenly turned to a saga I didn’t want to be closely involved in.
“Look, I don’t want to hear from you again. You lied to me, and you got me in a mess where if I don’t do something soon, I have a feeling people are going to die. You better hope to god that doesn’t include me, because you signed off on my death sentence by not letting me know what this was about.”
The tears that had sat on the rims of her eyelids spilled over her cheeks now.
“I knew it,” she whispered. “I’m doomed either way, then.”
Yeah, sure. Don’t’ worry about your fiancé or his health, his life. Or mine. Just about your own. I knew better than to speak any of those words out loud, but people like Jennifer disgusted me.
“I have to go,” I said. I’d had just about enough of this house, the riches, the urge for something that didn’t matter at all. The betrayal.
She stood up without a word and walked me to the door. I walked down the driveway, curling around the trees along with it, and when I stood outside the gate and it closed firmly shut behind me, I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
This was the last time I was going to try help someone.
Chapter 12
I got a call from the workshop telling me my bike was ready. I stopped by and picked it up. I wasn’t going to spend more time without my bike, come what may.
I looked up at the sky. The sun was low, touching the horizon. It was time I met Connor. Unease swirled in my stomach like nausea. What was I doing? I couldn’t keep doing this. I had to go there and kill him, get it over with. That was what I would do.
I drove to Mulberry Street and sat in the road, finger stroking the stake absently while I turned it all over in my head. I was going to march in there and push the stake into his heart, break my promise because that was what I did. I broke things. Or maybe I was going to use my Smith & Wesson and blow his head off. I was going to do this.
I closed my eyes and breathed, ready to walk up to him and finished the job… when I sent my feelers out, and the house was empty. Connor wasn’t home.
Disappointment lodged in my chest and dragged me down like it was made of lead. I wouldn’t get to see him, then. I wasn’t sure why I was upset. Was it because I couldn’t see him, or because I wouldn’t get the chance to kill him? We had an appointment. Wasn’t I important enough?
I started the bike and flew down the street, embracing the roar of the engine that surrounded me and the hum of the speed in my blood. Not tonight. I wouldn’t have to kill him tonight. But at some point, I’d have to.
I swallowed hard. This was the most difficult job to date, and killing people was particularly easy, as a rule.
The office was cold and dark when I arrived just before midnight. I parked a block away so my bike’s engine wouldn’t announce my arrival. I wasn’t a girl that liked an entrance. I wore my leathers and I felt comfortable and at home in my body again. I climbed the stairs, trying to ignore the pain every time I bent my leg. I got to the second floor and walked through Sonya’s deserted office and into Ruben’s. Apparently she did take a break now and then. A dim lamp on his desk was the only source of light in the room. Ruben sat at his desk looking worn and haggard, like a lifetime had passed between now and the afternoon’s meeting. A faint smell of alcohol hung in the air.
“Don’t you just look like a ray of sunshine,” I said to him. He looked up at me like he wasn’t fully registering my presence.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. My back was up immediately, and I opened my senses. I’d been careless. The office had never been a danger zone. But now warning in a thin trace of terror hung in the air. Ruben’s terror, if something didn’t subdue him as much as it did. The alcohol smell was also a rouse. Something that intended to throw me off.
A dark shadow stepped out of a corner, and I jumped. The feeling intensified. The man was tall, wearing a black duster like cowboys in the movies. His skin and hair was pale, and he wore black wrap-around glasses, and he wasn’t a man at all. This was a vampire. No wonder Ruben looked like death warmed up. He didn’t usually come face to face with the underworld, not like this. He only employed them, but we took contracts from humans.
Another shadow appeared almost behind me. The only reason I knew it was there was because I smelled it before it had moved. I couldn’t see it but I felt it coming closer.
“Stop right there,” I said with a low voice filled with warning. The first vampire chuckled when I spoke.
“So this is your assassin? A woman? No wonder she hasn’t been able to get the job done.”
“I wouldn’t be so quick with the insults if I were you,” I said. Ruben didn’t respond. The thigh sheath and the two guns on my side and at my back burned imprints against my skin. My fingers itched to use them, but I wasn’t going to jump the gun. With two large vampires, me and a defenseless human in a small office it was better not to jump right into fighting if it wasn’t necessary. Blood shed needed space and a lack of human audience.
“You want O’Neill dead,” I said matter-of-factly. The vampire nodded. I was aware of his partner moving around the office, probably listening and feeling for the presence of people or other vampires.
“You’re not doing what we asked,” the vampire said. “We’re becoming impatient.”
“Why do you need me to do it?” I asked. “You look like you have what it takes to do it yourself.”
The vampire laughed a low evil laugh that danced across my skin and I broke out in shivers. I hated them off the bat, but this was worse. This vampire was powerful, more so than the ones I’d been hunting for so long. More powerful than my father had ever been. Where did the vampires that felt like this hang out? I realized I’d been dealing with the bottom of the food chain.
“Let’s just say it’s in our best interest not to be tied to the murder.”
“She’s on the case, I told you,” Ruben spoke for the first time. His voice was dull and without inflection or emotion.
The vampire ignored him.
“He wasn’t supposed to live through the change in the first place, but he did. Now you need to get rid of him.”
So they were the ones that had dumped him in the alley.
“He’s getting away from you, isn’t he?” I asked. My tone was mocking and I smiled although none of this was friendly. “You can’t find him, and it’s ticking you off that you have to ask for help.”
The vampire in front of me scowled and the air turned ice cold aroun
d us. Frost formed on the window, on the inside, and crawled up the lamp stand. I shivered. Vampires this strong could only be masters. They were old, very old, and they had far more control than the everyday newbies I dealt with.
“You should know better than to mock me,” the vampire said in a hiss, his voice spitting and I could almost feel it on my skin.
“It looks like she needs some motivation,” the other vampire said in a gravelly voice that sent a bolt of fear into my body. His eyes slid to Ruben. I readied myself to grab my gun the moment something happened. But they hadn’t meant a fight. Instead the first vampire laughed again, like I was a child that tried to play grown-up games.
“You’ve met Celia,” the vampire said, and the icy finger traced the outlines of my body when he mentioned her name. I nodded slowly. He wasn’t talking about the reporter she’d come disguised as. He was referring to the woman that had been playing games with me. The cat.
“I can’t say it was a pleasure. She needs to be put on a leash.”
“She’s perfectly in control. She only does what we tell her to. She more like… a pet.”
“A pet that needs to be put down,” I spat. I glanced at Ruben. He was hanging on his desk his eyes staring into nothing. I could smell his fear, but his face was calm. They had him under some sort of spell that kept him drug-like. If he were left to his own devices he would probably have panicked or tried to escape. Or worse. People turned crazy when fear took over.
The other vampire, the one that wasn’t the obvious leader, pointed a gun at Ruben. So they had guns too. They were faster than me. I wondered if I jumped at them, if I would be faster than a bullet to get to Ruben.
“You have a lot of anger in you,” the leader said. He could smell my emotions better than I could smell his. He waved at his friend and the vampire lowered the gun. I felt like I could breathe again. Threatening Ruben’s life was foul play. “I don’t know if that will be enough.”
“Enough for what?” I asked. My voice was hard and I imagined taking my S&W and blowing his head right off.
“Enough to save her.”
Fear rippled through my body and suddenly every thought of violence was gone, replaced by my sister’s face. The smell of fear permeated the room, sour and vile, and the vampires both laughed.
“Yes, that’s the one. Your sister, I believe. You’ve worked hard to cover her up, but we found out anyway.”
“Don’t you dare!” I shouted. All control was gone now. Yep, crazy with fear.
I pulled out my gun and pointed it at the vampire in front of me. They were both strong enough to overthrow me. They could have beaten me to a pulp right there and no training in the world would have prepared me. They could have killed me in an instant. But neither of them moved. The vampire I pointed my gun at was surprisingly calm looking down the barrel of a gun that could finish it, but that was because he knew as well as I that it wasn’t going save Aspen. And if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t do it.
“Finish the job, and we’ll leave you alone,” the second vampire said. “It’s not difficult. A life for a life. Take Connor’s we’ll spare hers, or you can have it the other way round. You let us know which you prefer.”
They both dematerialized with a whoosh that pushed Ruben’s papers off his desk. The small office, filled with their presence until now, was suddenly cold and empty. Ruben’s eyes lost their glazed quality and he looked up at me.
“God I hate it when they do that to me.”
“I gather it wasn’t the first time,” I said. Ruben shook his head.
“I told you they were dangerous. Just finish the job, Adele. Dammit.” He pushed himself upright in his chair and rubbed his eyes. Then he dragged his hands down over his cheeks, deforming his face for a second.
I looked at Ruben, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. It was like I’d turned to lead. I doubled over, clamping my arms over my stomach, trying to stop the terrible pain that sliced through me. My head spun and I felt like I was going to throw up.
“They’re going to kill her,” I said, dry heaving. There were no tears. Only the fear making my blood thick in my veins and forcing my body into the kind of submission I’d only felt once before, when she’d nearly died the first time.
“Come on, Adele,” Ruben said, tugging at my arm, trying to pull me back to reality. “Keep it together.” He sounded panicked. That made two of us. “Just kill him, and then it will all be over.”
He was right. The panic left my body as quickly as it had come, and I unfolded myself, peeling myself off the floor. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, finding all my pieces and forcing them back together.
“I need to go,” I said, sounding controlled again.
“You know, this is the first time I’ve ever seen you lose it,” he said.
“We all have our demons, Ruben. I’m sure you have things in your life that reduce you to a pile of fear.”
Ruben nodded. “After this, vampires,” he said.
I walked into the night, the air filling my lungs like I hadn’t breathed before. The open sky above me was freedom after the jail the little office had become. I looked at the time. It was one, but I took a chance and dialed anyway. Aspen’s sleepy voice sounded just before the phone would roll over to voicemail.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she said and yawned. Relief flooded my body and I felt like my knees would buckle under my weight. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, angel. Go back to bed.”
“You’ve only ever called me that when something was really wrong.”
“I’m taking care of it,” I said and hung up. Because I was. I was going to save my sister. There wasn’t a question in my mind about who I would choose when it came down to it. Aspen would win out every single time, no matter how much Connor amused me. No matter how human I felt around him. Because at the end of the day, if Aspen died, I would die. And that was no life at all. So for Aspen to live, for me to live, Connor would die. He was just a vampire, anyway.
I found my bike and got on it, kicking the engine to life. I rolled out, determined to finish what I’d started. It wasn’t far to Mulberry Street, and when I was at the top of the street most homes were filled with sleeping bodies. Their resting states reached out to me with long fingers that reminded me how tired I was. It wasn’t the kind of tired that I could fix with sleep. This was the kind of tired that had built up in with a lifetime of doing things that never brought me peace.
When I reached number thirteen it was quiet and dark. The Jasmine in the air pinched my nose and I was annoyed with it, wishing it would go away. I killed the motor and popped out the stand, leaving the bike in the drive. I made my way into the house. It was still empty, I’d felt it the moment I’d set foot in the yard. It had been a saving grace for me earlier tonight, but now the tables were turned and he was lucky, or he’d be dead in three seconds. But he would come back eventually, and until he did I wasn’t leaving.
Clyde was in the kitchen again when I walked in, and he mewed. I hopped up onto the counter and settled in the corner where the tall cabinet rose up. The cat rubbed up against my arm, purring.
“Two-face,” I said softly, but scratched the cat behind his ears. It was nice to have a living being close to me. The warmth was comforting, and I felt safer than I had all night. I leaned against the tall cabinet, my head resting against the wood. My head felt heavy, suddenly, and I closed my eyes.
I jolted awake from the grating sound of shutter rolling into place. The house was locking down in anticipation of dawn. I panicked. I’d fallen asleep, and I hadn’t heard a thing. Clyde was on my lap, head lolling off the side, fast asleep.
I strained my ears, trying to hear past the grating sound if someone was home, but I heard and felt nothing. The shutters were probably time-controlled. I looked at my phone. The battery was low. The time told me it would be dawn in about ten minutes.
“Are you ready to tango?” I asked Clyde, and scratched its neck s
oftly. The cat started purring softly again, and I wondered if it would still like me after I killed its master.
The front door clicked, and I felt Connor come home before I saw him. His aura was like a sweet mist at dawn, before the sun drove it away. Fresh, unscathed, unpolluted. I wrapped my fingers around the stake at my side, and crouched, ready to lunge for him when he walked through the door.
He walked in without switching on the light which made it easier for me to stay concealed until the last moment. He heard me before I moved but I was quick enough with the element of surprise on my side. I had him up against the wall, my arm against his throat again just like before. My stake was against his skin, pushing against it. I should have done it right away, but something stopped me again.
“You promised not to bring the stake,” he said softly.
“You were supposed to meet me at sunset,” I countered.
“I had to take care of something and I didn’t know how to contact you.”
“Well, that’s too bad.” I pressed my arm harder against his throat. He gasped for air and his breathing was raspy. I could feel it against my arm on his throat.
“Does that deserve you trying to kill me?” he asked. He still wasn’t scared.
Tears suddenly sprung to my eyes and I snarled at him through clenched teeth because he’d managed to make me cry. I never cried.
“I can’t lose her, okay? If I let you live she dies.” The tears streamed down my cheeks now and I felt ashamed. I pressed the stake harder against the soft skin under his ribs. He looked me in the eye, and his dark ocean-eyes looked right into my soul. Why the hell wasn’t he scared of me? Didn’t he believe I was going to kill him? Didn’t I?
“I’ll do it!” I cried out, threatening, pushing against the skin hard enough to leave a bruise. My whole body was tense, muscles aching with the strain of keeping myself together.
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