Blood and Fire

by McKenna, Shannon

  Bruno was waiting for her to look him in the eye. She looked at his hands. They were filthy, scratched, scraped, burned, knuckles bloodied. She shut her eyes again. Let him wait.

  “Lily?” he said, finally. “Are you OK?”

  “No,” she said. No social lies left. It was all burned out of her.

  “Please,” he said, after an agonizing silence. “Look at me.”

  His soft tone sucked her in. She did, and wished she hadn’t. She hated it. That soft look. It killed her. Because she couldn’t trust it.

  “Lily.” His voice was rough with emotion. “About what happened in there, with King. I’m so sorry that I—”

  “Don’t.” She jumped up. Hot coffee spattered all over Bruno’s arms. “Any apology you could make would only make it worse.”

  She backed away, but he followed. “You have to understand,” he pleaded. “This guy, he fucked with my head, Lily. When I was a little kid. He’d programmed me, somehow. And he knew details about us, things you’d said to me that only the two of us could have—”

  “I don’t want to know the gory details,” she said. “I don’t give a shit what he told you. He was a psycho. A monster. You knew that. And you believed him, instead of me. That’s not something I can just put behind me. So . . .” Words failed her. She shook her head. “So nothing. Good luck with your life. Good bye.”

  “No,” he said fiercely. “I won’t accept that.”

  “It’s not up to you! Don’t make me get ugly with you!”

  He held his hands out, palms up. “But I—”

  “Get one thing straight,” she cut him off. “I appreciate that you saved my life, OK? I appreciate you saving the babies, too. Superheroic. Yay for you, you get big-ass points for that. Thank the McClouds, too, for their help. They have awesome timing. God bless them.”

  “Lily—”

  “I even appreciate the fact that you didn’t kill me on sight, being as how you thought I was one of King’s drones.” She hurried on, intent on getting it out before it turned to cascades of snot. “Very generous of you, under the circumstances. So thanks, OK? Thanks a million. And now, just please, please fuck off.”

  She turned her back and walked away, praying that he wouldn’t follow, and realized that she was tiptoeing, listening for his footsteps behind her. Hoping that he would follow her.

  He didn’t, though.

  Then the sniveling came, the tears. She clutched the blanket around herself and blundered on into the darkness.

  Any direction would do, as long as it was away from him.

  36

  Six weeks later . . .

  Aaro smelled Petrie before he spotted him sneaking a quiet smoke behind the conservatory while hiding from the wedding crowd. He looked good for a man who’d been shot in the ches

  t six weeks before. His suit was flapping loose on him, but it stayed on.

  Aaro sussed the suit with the expert eye of a person who’d grown up with gangsters. Versace, on a cop’s budget. But he’d researched Petrie after what had happened at the cop shop with the girl. The guy came from money. He was wearing some of it today. Petrie caught sight of him, looked up. His face relaxed when he saw that it was Aaro.

  “Got a death wish?” Aaro asked. “Sucking on those damn things with a hole in your lung?” He held out his hand. “Here. Give me one.”

  Petrie shook one out, gave him a light. They sucked their cancer sticks in companionable silence. Aaro pulled out his flask, took a gulp of single malt, passed it on. “Might as well slam your liver, too, while you’re at it,” he said. “So you’re hiding, too? Why’d you come?”

  Petrie sipped at the flask. “Had to. Zia Rosa knows where I live.”

  “Ah. There is that.” Aaro blew out smoke. “The curse has taken hold. When they start inviting you to their weddings, you’re meat.”

  Petrie’s eyebrow twitched in unwilling curiosity. “Curse?”

  “It comes from hanging out with the McClouds,” Aaro said. “When I took up with them, my cars started blowing up. My house. These days, I sleep with a girl I meet at a bar, and pow, she explodes in front of me.”

  “You blame that on the McClouds?” Petrie’s mouth twitched.

  “Look at yourself. You get interested in them, and suddenly you’re in intensive care, tubes up every orifice. I’m telling you. It’s the curse.”

  Petrie let out a philosophical sigh. “Maybe so.”

  “Don’t try to run,” Aaro added, helpfully. “It’s too late.”

  Movement caught his eye through the wall of the conservatory. A bright color that whipped his head all the way around to see if . . . yes, it was. Oh, holy shit. “That’s Lily Parr,” he said.

  Petrie lunged to see and winced. “That’s gonna be interesting,” he said. “What’s she doing?”

  Aaro craned his neck to keep her in sight. She stood in the shadows of a rhododendron bush, looking pale and spooked. Her red-gold hair gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. “Lurking, like us,” he said.

  “Should we, uh . . .” Petrie hesitated.

  “Tell Bruno? Hell, yeah.” Aaro stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe. “I’ll go find him.”

  Bruno burst out the door that led to the solarium, decked in a tux, a bag hanging over his shoulder. He held his newly adopted baby girl Lena under the armpits. He looked wild-eyed and hassled.

  “There you are,” Aaro started. “Good. Look, man, we just saw—”

  “I need diaper wipes!” Bruno bellowed.

  Aaro and Petrie exchanged panicked glances. “Huh?”

  “Wipes!” Bruno repeated. “Lena’s leaking! And the ceremony’s about to start, and I’ve got the rings in my pocket! And I can’t find Zia, or Liv, or Margot, or anybody with wipes!”

  “Oh. Uh, well, shit,” Aaro said, helplessly.

  “Yeah!” Bruno yelled. “Like, literally! A lot of it! Cascades of it!”

  Sveti wafted out, looking stunning in a dress that swirled and fluttered. She waved a package. “I found wipes! Erin had some.”

  “Thank God,” Bruno muttered.

  In the distance, the string quartet started a wedding processional. Bruno jerked. “Oh, Christ,” he moaned. “Not now. yet.”

  “Go, go,” Sveti urged, grabbing the toddler and bag from him. “I’ll change Lena for you and take her to Zia. You hurry.”

  “Wait!” Aaro shouted after the man as he loped away.

  Bruno stopped in the doorway. “What?”

  “Just thought you should know. We saw Lily Parr outside.”

  Bruno looked like he’d turned to stone. His mouth moved. No sound emerged. “Where?” he finally croaked.

  “That way. In the rhododendrons outside. She’s hiding.”

  “Bruno!” Sveti shouted as he lunged blindly in the Lily-seeking direction. “The ceremony! The rings! You have to go! For Kev!”

  Bruno swung on his heel, confused and agonized. He fixed Aaro with a burning stare. “You. Find her for me. Do not let her get away.”

  Don’t fuck up again, being the subtext of that directive.

  Aaro nodded. “Got it.”

  Bruno’s stiff arm dropped, but he still could not seem to move.

  Aaro touched his shoulder. “Bruno,” he said quietly. “Breathe.”

  Bruno bolted, leaving them with Sveti holding the wriggling baby girl, and a very uncomfortable silence. Sveti was the first to break it.

  “Well?” she said crisply. “I could use some help.”

  Aaro and Petrie exchanged terrified glances. “Uh, what kind of help?” Aaro asked, nervously.

  Sveti’s eyes narrowed. “This table where I must change her is cold, hard glass, see? So unless one of you gentleman has a blanket or towel . . . ?” Her eyes fell to their suit coats. Oh, man. Harsh.

  Petrie slipped of his Versace, spread it out on the table with a martyred air. Sveti sniffed and gave him a horrified stare. “You smoke?”

  “Uh . . .” Petrie’s eyes shifted. “I, uh, just qui
t.”

  Sveti harrumphed. She lay the wriggling baby girl on his coat and started the smelly process. “One of you get out wipes for me.”

  The men looked at each other over the back of the girl’s slender bowed neck, exposed under gleaming, elegantly twisted-up hair, and the graceful, sweeping curve of her pale, mostly exposed back.

  “Now, please!” The razor edge in her voice made both men jump.

  Aaro took three steps closer to this smelly biological event than he had ever wished to, and popped open the package of wipes.

  Sveti glared at both men in turn. “I know why you two are out here, hiding, eh? Sucking on cigarettes and liquor.”

  “You do?” Aaro passed her a handful of wipes.

  She swiped the poopy, wiggling bottom with practiced ease. “Yes. I do.” She directed her blazing stare upon Aaro. “You are sorry for yourself because they took Lily from you at the hospital, eh? I am sick of your attitude!” she scolded. “Remember when Novak took Rachel? His men took her right out of my arms! There was nothing I could do. I wanted to die, you know? I wanted to disappear!”

  Aaro stuffed more wipes into her hand.

  “Oh, yes, I know you think because you are big man, lots of muscle, big gun, that it should be different for you, but it is not different! It is same! Get out diaper, quick! Lena will get cold.”

  “Yeah.” Aaro fished out a diaper. Baffled, but meek.

  “And you!” Sveti turned her burning glance on Petrie. “You should be ashamed. Dirty opportunist. Attacking Zia with pictures of corpses!”

  Petrie sighed. “You’re still hung up on that?”

  “I am disgusted by that!” she shot back.

  Petrie’s face had gotten some color, Aaro noticed. But a guy would have to be two days dead not to have his blood pressure affected by Sveti in a low-cut evening gown, spitting nails at him.

  “Doesn’t taking a bullet for her cancel that out?” Petrie asked.

  Sveti snapped Lena’s onesie closed and started wrestling the little girl’s white tights back onto her chubby thighs. “No. Any fool can catch a bullet. You just have to be in its way. Why should a bullet excuse you for being an asshole?” She lifted Lena into her arms, slung the bag over her shoulder. “You can take your jacket back,” she conceded.

  Petrie picked it up, sniffed at it. Shrugged it gingerly back on.

  Sveti glared at Aaro. “You, go find Lily, like he told you. And you.” She hefted the heavy, stinky diaper and plopped it into Petrie’s hands. “You get rid of this.” She stalked off toward the music. Lena’s bright dark button eyes regarded them with wonderment over Sveti’s shoulder.

  They stared after her, their minds wiped blank by that surreal encounter. Aaro recovered first. “Wow,” he said. “Ouch. She hates your scrawny cop ass, man. She hates it bad.”

  “Looks that way,” Petrie agreed.

  Aaro unstoppered his flask and passed it to the other man, who took a grateful sip, his eyes still fixed on the last place Sveti had been.

  “Just as well,” Aaro offered, by way of comfort. “She’s too young.”

  Petrie’s gaze swung around. “How young?” he asked.

  “Oh, nineteen, twenty, I think. Put her out of your mind.”

  “Right.” Petrie took another swig, passed the flask back. “Right.”

  Aaro slid it into his pocket. “I’m going to go stalk Lily Parr now. Go watch the ceremony, man.” Petrie looked like he was rooted to the ground. Aaro joggled the guy’s shoulder, remembering the healing bullet wound too late when he saw Petrie flinch “Hey,” he said. “Breathe.”

  A ghost of a smile flashed across Petrie’s face as he held up the noxious diaper. “With this thing in my hands?”

  Lily focused intently on the string ensemble in the back of the conservatory playing the wedding processional with great verve.

  It was hard not to stare. The musicians were very easy on the eyes. Six drop-dead gorgeous chicks in plunging sequined evening gowns. And they played their instruments beautifully, too. Go figure.

  Lily could not believe she’d talked herself into this. Yes, she needed to express her gratitude to the clan; yes, she did need to wish Edie and Kev the best; yes, she owed Tam congratulations for her baby.

  And yes, she needed to speak to Bruno.

  She’d thought, why not do it all in one fell swoop and move on from there? Liberated and lightened, with new clarity of mind. Right.

  Wrong. It wasn’t going to be like that. She was in deep shit.

  She’d tried to be unobtrusive. She’d swept her hair nto a fuzzy roll. Worn smoky charcoal gray, but the beaded gown was pretty. She’d painted her face carefully to mask her pallor. Rented her own car for a sure getaway. This Parrish mansion, one of many, was located outside the city. She’d hung back in the bushes, in the cold, until the processional began so that everyone else would be already seated inside the old-fashioned glass conservatory where the ceremony was being held.

  She’d lurked by the door. She had no intention of going to the reception afterward. As if. But in spite of all her efforts, Sveti had spotted her. And of course, the girl jumped up, waving, and ran down the center aisle like a pink-tinted gazelle, dress fluttering behind her like fairy wings, her face lit with one of those incandescent smiles, so that everyone had to rubberneck to see who she was running toward.

  And Lily was so very busted.

  Sveti hugged her and dragged her up the aisle to where all the other McCloud women and kids were sitting. She was forced to field big smiles of welcome and a ripple of fierce whispering. Liv was there, and Zia Rosa, too, all jubilant smiles and winks. There were a number of women she hadn’t met yet, holding babies and toddlers, exchanging speculative glances. The McCloud men were all up front, standing up behind Kev, along with Bruno. She tried not to look, but her gaze was sucked to him. And Bruno stared straight at her. Shockingly gorgeous in his black tux. Thinner. Sharper. His dark eyes burned.

  The eye contact stopped her breath. Her face went hot. Everyone watched her blush. Well, not everyone. Some people were probably watching the bride and groom. Kev looked so happy. Edie was the most beautiful bride Lily had ever seen. She wore a draped chiffon thing, with bias-cut ruffly edges that perfectly suited her tall, graceful form. Her long hair flowed loose, accented by vaporous bits of lily of the valley.

  The couple gazed at each other, hands linked. True lovers who’d passed through all trial and danger, and had finally come home to each other. They shone together. They were literally bathed in light.

  It made her heart burn and ache. Jealousy was unseemly in the face of such perfect happiness, but she wasn’t an angel or a saint. Good thing tears were appropriate at weddings. Tough to tell the difference between heartfelt good wishes and plain old rancorous envy.

  Tam stood up with the bride, along with a pretty girl who had to be Edie’s younger sister, from the looks of her. Tam was looking trim and elegant, in spite of having given birth to her daughter, Irina, only two weeks before. News of that event had filtered back to Lily, in spite of the shields she’d put around herself. Tam studied Lily, her expression hard to read. It looked like approval. Showed how much Tam knew.

  Everyone seemed to think a happy ending was guaranteed. But she’d gone over it a thousand times. She’d been so sure. Positive she and Bruno were linked, heart and soul, ’til the end of time. And when she realized he didn’t trust her, that he didn’t believe her, well.

  She just wouldn’t be able to survive that a second time. And if it happened once, why not again, when she least expected it? In spite her discovery. She was still reeling from it. Riding a hormonal roller coaster.

  Lily broke eye contact with some difficulty, Tam being Tam. She scanned the crowd until she found Val a couple of rows behind her. A tiny baby swathed in hot pink chenille was draped on his shoulder over a burp rag that protected his elegant black suit. Rachel was beside him.

  Val gave her a nod, a smile. Rachel bounced and waved. Lily’s throat ti
ghtened, looking at the tiny baby. She was so glad fo them. At least some stories had happy endings. And not just this one. There were two rambunctious black-haired toddlers crawling all over Zia Rosa’s and Sveti’s laps. The very kids she and Bruno had pulled out of King’s burning house. So Bruno had gotten custody of his little siblings. Something good had come of all this evil. There was that to cling to.

  She dragged a Kleenex out of her purse. Bruno stepped up behind his brother to give him the rings. Their gazes crossed. No getting away. They stared at each other while Kev and Edie exchanged their vows.

  Lily didn’t hear a thing. She was trapped in an airless, invisible prison. All she saw was Bruno’s face. All she heard was her heart, thudding. Emotions rose up, swelling out of control. Threatening to burst out in some inappropriate, badly timed way, a sobbing fit, a fainting spell, a freak-out. She’d worn low heels in case she ended up running. And waterproof mascara. The gummy stuff weighed her lashes down like they’d been painted with tar.

  Then Kev and Edie joined in a clinging kiss so joyful and inevitable the room broke into cheers, howls, applause. Everyone rose to their feet, yelling and whooping. So happy that these two fine people had found such joy together. Something snapped. The sobbing part was coming on.

  Oh, shit. Not now. She jerked loose of Sveti’s hand and ran toward the back of the conservatory, out into the garden, pointing herself blindly toward the parking area—

  A hand seized her arm, bringing her up short with a jerk.

  She gasped, wet eyes wild, staring into the face of Alex Aaro. She sagged, trying to catch her breath as her heart tripped and stuttered.

  “Oh, God,” she quavered. “Oh, God, you scared me to death.”

  “Sorry,” Aaro said. He sounded both apologetic and sullen.

  She stared, pointedly, at her trapped wrist. “I will accept your apology if you let go of me.”