For the first time since Vinnie had met him, Eugenio looked afraid. Another report came from below them, followed by ten more in quick succession. They heard raised voices, alarm spreading through the apartment like fire through a woodpile.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” Eugenio barked at Vinnie and Marco. “Go!”
Vinnie imagined he must have looked a sight to Eugenio as his mouth flapped open. His face betrayed his fear as Marco grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him into the hallway.
Gunshots were coming from everywhere. The loud reports of the infiltrators’ weapons were interrupted by the muted pops of the silenced Colts of the grunts in the corridors. Plaster dust had built up into a haze that stung their eyes as they ran down the stairs toward their fellow mobsters’ cries.
“Get your ass in gear,” Marco called from up ahead. There was a hungry look in his eyes, the look of someone who believed they could be the one—the single person to stop the rampage and claim the glory for his captain.
He disappeared around the corner of the stairwell. A moment later came the loudest shot yet, followed by blood splattering on the wall. Marco’s lifeless body was thrown backward with a hole in his chest big enough to shake hands through.
All courage failed Vinnie. He scrambled backward and leaped up the stairs two at a time. He only made it to the next landing when he felt the bullets rip his insides and snuff out the light, the momentum enough to turn him and give him the briefest of glimpses of his attacker.
The most terrifying woman he had ever seen.
Eugenio heard the gunshots cease. The house fell into a heavy silence. He blinked nervously but puffed out his chest. Whatever was to come, he would handle it like a man. He had been through worse, dammit, and he had always come out on top.
Carmelo stood beside him. Both brothers had their weapons aimed at the open doorway. They could hear them—someone coming up the stairs. Their steps were light, but they were coming.
In the corner of the room, the girls huddled together, their hands bound and mouths gagged.
“The first sighting you get, take your shot,” Eugenio side-mouthed.
“And if it’s one of our own?”
“Fuck ‘em. We can find new people.”
Carmelo nodded, resolute.
The footsteps grew closer, and the sound got louder. To Eugenio, it sounded as if they were on the landing and now approached the room, although he couldn’t see anyone. Maybe just the faintest shimmer, as though a heated air vent had opened and rippled the air.
“Eugenio?”
“Hey, reprobates,” came a voice from next to them. “Mind if I join the party?”
Before the brothers could react, she fired and knocked the guns from their hands. They clattered impotently to the floor as their hands clapped to their ears.
“Who’s there?” Eugenio shouted, the volume unnecessary in the quiet house. “Show yourself!”
“She’s one of those. She’s one of those!” Carmelo squealed, whirling in a panic as he looked for their attacker.
The woman materialized out of nowhere. “One of what?” She cocked her head to the side, a grin painted on her face. She wore round-framed glasses with tinted lenses. In one hand, she held a small pistol, and in the other, something that could easily have been a sawed-off shotgun but was nothing like any rifle the brothers had ever seen. Both weapons were aimed at the men’s genitalia.
Carmelo’s voice quivered. “She’s a ghost. She’s a fucking ghost.”
The woman walked toward the brothers, her hips swaying seductively as she did so. “Oh, you have me all wrong. I’m not a ghost, sweetheart. I’m not like anything you’ve ever seen before.”
Eugenio scowled, eyes darting to his weapon on the floor. “Then who are you?”
The woman smiled. “I’m your worst fucking nightmare. I’m the bitch they send in to clean up the big messes, and oh, boy, have you two made a big mess!”
“You’ve got nothing on us,” Eugenio muttered. “We’re bulletproof—”
Eugenio stopped talking the second the bullets entered his body.
She fired from both guns, holes appearing on his body in a matter of seconds. The girls in the corner screamed and Carmelo fell to the floor with his hands over his head.
When she was finished, Eugenio’s body hit the floor, the light gone from his eyes.
“He doesn’t seem bulletproof to me.” The woman sighed, then turned the gun on Carmelo. “How about you, handsome? Think you’d fare better than your brother?”
Carmelo shook with fear. “Please! Please, no. I beg of you. Don’t hurt me!”
The woman turned to the girls in the corner. “See? All it takes is the simple threat of a gun, and men fall to their knees faster than they think you will for the right bidder.” She turned her back on Carmelo and crossed the room, then knelt before the girls.
The sisters recoiled as she approached. “You don’t need to worry anymore. We’re getting you back to your parents. This nightmare is over.” She wiped away their tears and gave them a reassuring smile. “You’re both safe now. Trust me, I’ll get you home.”
The girls looked blankly at her. She couldn’t misread the alarm on their faces, but she did what she could to assure them in their own language. “Vous êtes tous les deux en sécurité maintenant. Croyez-moi. Je te ramène à la maison.”
Rough, but it did the job.
She untied their hands and pulled the gag from their mouths. As she was on the final knot, she heard movement from behind. The girls pointed, now that their hands were free.
But she was prepared.
Without looking, the woman aimed her pistol and pulled the trigger. A neat hole appeared in Carmelo’s forehead. He fell to his knees, his pistol still clutched tightly in his hands.
“They never learn.” The woman shook her head. “No matter how many chances you give them.”
She helped the girls to their feet and told them to follow her in the same halting French. When she reached the door, she realized they were still in the corner, their feet glued to the floor.
One of the girls looked at the woman with wide eyes. When she spoke, it was with a thick French accent. “Who…Who are you?”
The woman took off her glasses and tucked them into her pocket. “I go by a lot of names, but you two can call me Rogue.”
Sirens began to blare a few streets away. The police had been alerted to the shootout in the suburbs.
Rogue ushered the two girls onward, and they were gone before the first police officer kicked down the door.
Chapter One
New York City, USA, Present Day
“This isn’t proper. You know you’ve come here to complete a task. What good is alcohol in helping you achieve your mission?”
Genevieve “Jennie” King raised the shot glass to her lip, sniffed the thick licorice tones of the liquid, and let it fall onto her tongue. The sambuca warmed every part of her it touched, the buzz making her come alive.
The man beside her, Worthington Conrad, clicked his tongue and turned away, folding his arms. He would have been an unusual sight at the New York bar, a vibrant little place by the elegant name of Shots, Shots, Shots. If his thick British accent hadn’t marked him as a stranger to these lands, his clothing certainly would have given the game away.
If anyone could see him, of course.
“I’m not talking to you,” Jennie told him, raising her hand to the bartender to indicate another round for herself. “You don’t exist, remember?”
Worthington huffed. “You don’t have to be so obtuse about it. If I didn’t exist, could I do this?” He turned to the man on the stool beside him and sat on his lap, his entire body disappearing into the unlucky stranger’s.
The man’s eyes widened, and he choked on his cocktail. He shuddered and looked around for the source of the chill.
Jennie rolled her eyes. If there was one thing she hated about being permanently babysat by one of the queen’s specters, it
was their selfish need to feel valued.
Ego, ego, ego. That was all any of them cared about.
Worthington came out of the man’s body and took his seat beside Jennie once again. “You were saying?”
Jennie was unimpressed. “Oh, great—you can make people feel cold. When will your powers cease to amaze? If only I could make people chilly, I could make a right killing moving closer to the equator and offering a human air conditioning service.”
Worthington’s face fell, and he turned his nose up. “Well, at least I don’t need to find my happiness in the bottom of a bottle.”
Jennie opened her mouth to speak, then saw the bartender approach and shut it quickly, knowing that no one else could see the pompous form of the former royal guard sitting next to her. She was used to the strange stares she got from others when she spoke to her specter. That didn’t mean that she didn’t occasionally fancy the night off from it.
“You know you look ridiculous, right?” Worthington commented. “I mean, who wears sunglasses indoors?”
Jennie shrugged. “They’re a part of my look, okay?”
Worthington curled his lip and spoke in an impression of Jennie. “They’re a part of my look, okay?”
Jennie downed her drink and spun to look sharply at him. “Well, at least I don’t look like Marge-fucking-Simpson with a stupid hat on my head. What is that, anyway? Why do meat-eaters need to wear chimney brushes on their heads?”
Worthington blustered. “It’s ‘Beefeater,’ you wretch. We’ve been over this. I can’t control the clothes I died in. This is me and what I wear now. I’ve come to terms with dying in uniform, and so should you.”
Jennie was about to reply when she saw the curious stare from the man Worthington had climbed into. “Everything okay, ma’am?”
The man had a kind face, with the right amount of stubble to make him appear rugged. He wore a dark-blue shirt with the first two buttons open and had gray eyes, which now studied her intently.
Jennie blushed. More than the man’s good looks, she found herself melting at his accent. After spending most of her life in the UK and its surrounding partners in Europe, it was refreshing to hear an American accent firsthand.
Jennie nodded. “Yes, everything’s fine. I just have some inner demons who need exorcising.”
“Rude.” Worthington sighed. “And I’d appreciate if you didn’t look through me at your man-toy.”
“Don’t we all.” The man laughed, then leaned forward and shook her hand. “Jamie.”
“Jennie.”
Jamie offered to buy Jennie a drink, and before long, that had turned into several. He was nice, telling her about his day job as a merchant banker in the big city and the stresses the job brought. They spoke about his bitch of an ex—his words, not hers—and how he just wanted to settle down with a nice woman and live the family life.
When he asked Jennie about her job, she reeled off the line she had repeated so many times over the years that she didn’t even need to think before she said it.
“I’m a researcher of sorts. I travel around the world and track down artifacts that were lost and need to be found and identified.”
Jamie grinned. “So, there goes the whole settling-down deal.”
Jennie returned the smile. “Oh, sweetie. If you’re looking for someone to settle down with, maybe don’t look at a random woman in a bar and offer to buy her a drink. You’re better than that.”
Jamie nodded. He raised two fingers at the bartender, and a moment later, two more shots were in front of them.
“So, go on then, Ms. Researcher. What treasures are there in New York that brought you all the way across the Pond to the land of the free?”
He stared into her eyes, clearly taken by her charms. Then again, most men were. Behind him, an impatient Worthington waved his hands furiously, his expression screaming, “Don’t say a word!”
“I’m here to seek out an ancient cult.” Jennie smirked. “There have been rumors and sightings of some, well, questionable practices that date back to the late 1600s.”
Jamie leaned back and moved a hand to his head. He wobbled as he tried to sit up straight. “Wow, sounds exciting. Isn’t that around the time of the Salem witch trials?”
A sparkle appeared in Jennie’s eyes. “Oh, a history major?”
Jamie shrugged. “Minor, actually. I majored in accounting and took history to keep me sane.”
Worthington scoffed. “He took history to keep sane?”
“I love history,” Jennie replied facetiously. She leaned forward, chin resting on her hand. “You can’t imagine how far back my lineage goes.”
Jamie leaned closer, his eyes moving to her lips. “Oh, really? How far?”
And then they were kissing. His breath tasted of sambuca and something else she couldn’t identify. They locked lips, hands searching each other furiously, and before they knew it, they were out the door and hailing a cab to his apartment.
The night was a hazy blur of passion. Jennie moaned and rolled and writhed until there was nothing left to give. When Jamie tapped out and fell asleep, she got dressed in a heartbeat and headed out the door.
The streets were dimly lit as she strolled through the city, her head feeling light and clear after her workout at Jamie’s apartment. She took a deep breath, familiarizing herself with the sounds and smells of New York.
The thing she loved the most was the precision of the city. Streets laid out in blocks, each an almost perfect square, which made the whole place easier to navigate. Judging from the nearby street sign, she was only a few blocks away from her place. If she was lucky, she’d be back before sunup.
“I see you’re not going to bother waiting for me?”
Jennie rolled her eyes, a smug expression on her face. “Oh, Worthington. I didn’t see you there.”
“That joke gets old pretty quick.”
She grinned. “So do you.”
“Correction: specters don’t age, and you know that.” He caught up with her and moved ahead, walking backward to face her. His body floated through any obstacles he passed: hydrants, streetlights, people. “Are you going to tell me what the hell all that was back there?”
She shrugged. “A bit of fun?”
“Oh, ‘a bit of fun,’ she says. You do recall that the queen sent you over here to deal with a crisis? And there you are, gallivanting around with the first US hunk who decides to say hello to you in a bar.”
Jennie let out an exasperated sigh. Across the street, she spied another specter, this one a large woman in a nightgown, with her hair in curlers. She floated lazily by, casting a curious look at Jennie and Worthington as they passed each other.
Jennie stared at her longingly, wondering what it would be like to have a choice about her specters. To not be bound by whatever pick the queen threw at her. Even to have a specter who gave her a spare few minutes to play without being shadowed and watched.
Worthington continued, “You know I’m going to have to report this behavior? I don’t want to, but it’s my job to ensure that you’re concentrating on your task at hand. To keep you accountable.”
“That’s not your job,” Jennie snapped. “Your job is to support and provide me with the powers I need to get the job done. You’re nothing more than a corporeal bag of tricks designed to make my job easier so I can do the shit that I need to get done. The minute you start forgetting that, this whole thing falls apart.”
Worthington’s mouth fell open. He paused in the street. “If that’s what you think this relationship is, then you’re in for a big surprise, Genevieve.”
Jennie glared at him. “Don’t you dare call me that.”
Worthington took a step back, hands defensively held in the air. “Okay, okay. My fault. We’ve spoken about this.”
Jennie rolled her eyes and took a left down the avenue.
When they came to a small alley that opened up on the right, Jennie slowed down. She could hear grunts and the telltale sounds of fists on fl
esh. She poked her head around the corner and saw two scrawny thugs laying into a homeless man laid out between bags of trash.
“Another day, another arse-kicking,” Jennie muttered, shaking her head to clear some of the effects of the alcohol.
She stepped into the opening of the alley and cupped her hands to her mouth. “Oi, dickweeds. You’ve got about ten seconds to go before I come over there and show you what it’s like to get your arses handed to you.”
The thugs stood up straight, their dark eyes leering at Jennie from underneath their hoods.
“Oh, look. The pretty lady wants to fight.” The first thug laughed. “Hey, darling? Why don’t you leave the fun stuff to the men, eh? Go on your way before we decide to use you as a human piñata.”
“We’re going to hit her with a stick?” the second thug asked.
The first thug pinched his eyebrows. “No, you idiot. We’re going to use our sticks on her.” He glanced down at his crotch.
“A reference to the Latin culture,” Worthington informed Jennie. “A children’s game involving hitting a papier-mâché animal—sometimes a donkey or a horse—that has been filled with sweets and strung from a tree, with a stick. What a diverse choice of threat.”
“Was that necessary?” Jennie asked.
“Who’s she talking to?” thug number two asked in confusion.
The first thug punched his partner in the arm. “How the fuck should I know?”
The homeless man groaned and clutched his side. He coughed and spat up a thick glob of something Jennie didn’t want to see.
She glanced at an imaginary watch. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but time’s up. Consider yourself lucky. I don’t often give people extra seconds to appreciate their legs.”
“Appreciate their… What’s she talking about?”
The second thug shut up as Jennie sprinted down the alley and came straight for him. She jumped at the wall, pushed off with one leg, and landed a kick in the man’s chest with the other.
The second thug flew backward, stopping when his back smacked into a nearby dumpster with enough force to bend the metal rim.
Rogue, Renegade And Rebel (In Her Paranormal Majesty’s Secret Service Book 1) Page 2