by Lois Greiman
Tony cleared his throat.
I shot my gaze to him. His summer blue eyes were troubled, his young brow creased. I scowled, sighed, then lifted the back of my hand to my forehead and faked a swoon.
Chapter 35
I’d rather be crazy than boring.
—Chrissy McMullen, age fourteen, who, that said, should be pretty damned satisfied with her current state of affairs
Being home felt surreal. I cried when Harlequin was returned to me. Bawled like a Kardashian. He slobbered on my ear, knocked me over, then lay across my prone form and whimpered with happiness.
Rivera watched, looking tired but amused.
Harley allowed me to sit up after a while, as long as I continued to cuddle. “Shirley said you told her I was going to be gone for a month, so she should reschedule my appointments,” I said.
He shrugged. “I figured if they’re crazy now, they’ll be even crazier later. It’s a win-win.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t take up psychology yourself,” I said. “Sensitive soul that you are.”
“Like a saint,” he said, and pinned me with his hard-ass gaze. “So your assailant insisted that you park in the lot at Trader Joe’s?”
I dragged my attention from Harlequin, who had rolled onto his back, jowls drooping. I stroked his chest. “Yeah.” After my masterful faux swoon, Rivera had pretty much forgotten about Tony…and Hiro…and Zephyr. He had concentrated solely on me. And I’d enjoyed it, until he’d insisted on calling an ambulance. Then I’d felt it necessary to fake coming to. I wouldn’t have minded a little R and R, but I wasn’t about to pay for a gurney ride to the nearest hospital. Instead, I had moaned and sniffled and begged him to carry me. In retrospect, it had been kind of mean considering he was still recovering from a leg wound and had just done about a seven-minute mile. And since Tony was the only one with an available car, Rivera had dutifully hobbled to it.
Hiro reappeared just as the lieutenant was tucking me carefully into the back seat. Our gazes caught for a second before he shook his head in amused disgust and turned toward his Beetle. I hadn’t seen him since. Not that I cared. I was just lucky Rivera hadn’t felt it necessary to question me about the fleet-footed Zen master.
“Where Mr. Amato just happened to be shopping,” Rivera added.
I exhaled, going for breezy. “I guess.”
“That doesn’t seem a little strange to you?”
“Life is strange,” I said, and rose to my feet. “I thought you would have noticed that by now.”
He watched me go to the cupboard where I keep the doggy treats. Harley scrambled to his king-sized feet and pattered noisily after me.
“Yours is,” Rivera acknowledged. He was watching me a little more closely than I thought necessary. I was entirely unsure how I wanted to handle the situation with Tony/Cosmos and his weird-ass brother, Jeff/Zephyr. But I was safe. I was home. And I didn’t want to think too hard. “It’s not usually quite that weird, though.”
I shrugged, fed Harley a heart-shaped biscuit.
“How did he get in the car?”
“Tony?”
“Yeah, Tony.” He was sounding more tired by the minute.
“I don’t know.”
“Weren’t the doors locked?”
“I think so.”
“You think so, or you know—”
“He must have had the wrong girl.”
“What?”
“Z…My abductor,” I said, remembering I had somehow neglected to tell Rivera Jeff’s real name. “I believe it was a case of mistaken identity.”
He watched me, eyes narrowed. Don’t ask me why I was protecting the creepy little magician. Maybe it was because he was Tony’s brother, and I kind of owed Tony a favor. Maybe it was because I have brothers of my own who I didn’t want to see get hurt because of some lame-ass stunt that…Nope, that wasn’t it. I was sure of that much, if nothing else.
“You’re not worried?” Rivera asked. “Not concerned that he’ll come for you again?”
“Well, you know…” I shrugged, showed Harley another treat. “With Tony around to protect me…”
Someone growled. It might have been Harlequin, but I didn’t think so.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m kidding,” I said. “Tony just happened to be shopping at Joe’s.”
“And he recognized you.”
“Yeah.”
“In a dimly lit parking lot, in an unknown car.”
“I guess.”
“So he just popped into the back seat and wrestled this Jeff guy outside.”
“I can’t help it if he’s young and strong and—” I began, but I was interrupted by the doorbell.
Rivera scowled toward the front of my little house as if it were being deliberately obstinate, but I was happy to escape the current conversation. This wasn’t the first time my dialogue with Rivera had felt like an interrogation. Also not my first experience with being an irritating smartass.
I glanced through the peephole, felt my heart rate bump up a notch, and opened the door.
Hiro Danshov stood on my stoop. Shikoku was beside him.
Harlequin pattered up and snaked his neck around my legs, gaining a front-seat view without risking his bulk. I put a hand on his boxy head.
“What are you doing here?” It was Rivera who spoke. I turned toward him slightly—surprised, probably foolishly, by the abrupt animosity in his tone. Danshov took that opportunity to step inside.
He ignored Rivera completely. “I came to say goodbye.”
There was something about the intensity in his gaze that made me feel a little hypoxic. “Oh, well…goodbye.”
He nodded, held my gaze. “So this is your Dane.”
“Yes…” I cleared my throat. I could feel Rivera’s presence like a disapproving solar flare behind me. “Harlequin. He’s a little shy.”
“He is not a little anything,” Hiro said.
I laughed.
“Shikoku,” he said, and motioned almost imperceptibly toward the wolf/dog.
The animal strolled into the kitchen, eased onto the rug, and laid her muzzle on her paws.
“Ummm…” I said.
“What the hell’s going on?” Rivera asked, and stepped into Hiro’s personal space.
Their gazes met, mercury on mocha.
“The dog will stay,” Hiro said.
Rivera narrowed his mocha. “The hell she will.”
Hiro stared at him. “The hell she will not.”
“Ummm…” I said again, pretty sure that this time it would clear up any misunderstandings.
“If you did not wish for interference, you should have kept her safe,” Hiro said.
“I have kept her safe.”
Hiro huffed his disbelief. “She did not even know of the saphenous artery.”
“Not this again,” Rivera said.
“Again? Not what—” I began, but Hiro spoke over me.
“If you had educated her properly, she would not have been compromised.”
“If you had done your fucking job, she wouldn’t have been battered like a damned cod.”
“You expected me to trust you?” Hiro huffed his disbelief. “To assume you were not setting me up for—”
“Jesus! Have you forgotten you owe me? That I—”
“How?” I asked.
“Don’t,” Rivera began, but I had rounded on him with a growl that made both dogs cock their ears.
“You knew where I was!” I snarled. “Knew all the time.”
He scowled. Hiro was silent.
I took a cleansing breath. “I would like you to tell me how.”
“Listen, McMullen…” But I stopped Rivera with a slice of my hand that had Shikoku rising to her feet and Harlequin hiding behind her.
“I want to know how!”
“The Black Flames were raising hell. Shit! They offered a reward for you! Do you realize—”
“There was a tracking device in his Jeep,” Hiro said.
&
nbsp; Rivera’s glare sharpened, but I pulled myself off the barb and turned toward Hiro.
“So you’ve known the lieutenant for…” My voice was breathy. I took a step toward Danshov. “For years?”
Hiro held himself perfectly straight. “We worked together some time ago.”
“And you’re a…” I shook my head. “A cop?”
“Not while there is breath in my body,” he said.
Behind me, Rivera snorted. I didn’t bother to kill him.
“What, then?” I asked.
Hiro held my gaze. “It does not matter.”
“I told you to protect her, not beat the crap out of her,” Rivera growled.
“And I could have done so,” Hiro agreed. “But in this world there are many Things.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“He told you to…” I remembered the grueling workouts, the gnawing fear…the kiss. I also remembered, rather hazily, that Hiro had told me about Rivera’s injury, causing me to skitter back to L.A., before I jumped his bones. But at that precise moment, I wasn’t sure if that made me grateful or increasingly angry. “To take care of me?”
Hiro lowered his head a fraction of an inch. “Any woman whose amour has faked his own death must learn to care for—” he began, but in that instant I tackled him.
We went down together, me on top. I jerked my knee toward his privates. He blocked the blow with his thigh. “You son of a bitch!” I snarled, and slammed my forehead into his nose.
That’s when Rivera stepped in, plucking me off Hiro like an angry blueberry. I came up swinging.
“Easy. Easy now. I’ll handle—” he began, but I wasn’t foolish enough to let him finish. Instead, I twisted out of his arms and thumped him in the chest with both hands.
“Were we under attack?”
“What?” he asked, and took a step toward me.
I’m not sure, but I think I might have been frothing at the mouth. “At your place…after the incident at the gym…when I went to you for help…were we or we were not under attack by the Black Flames?”
“Listen, McMullen, the Flames are nothing to fool with. They’re killers. Without morals. Without—”
“But they hadn’t come to your house, had they?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I was worried about you. Couldn’t take a chance—”
“Who was it?”
“What?”
“Your kitchen window. I heard it break.”
He held my gaze. Seconds ticked away. “Sometimes the neighbor kids get a little carried away playing ball,” he said.
I stared at him, mind whirring. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. It’s a problem. Damn teenagers—”
A pulse thundered in my temple. There was a pretty fair chance my head might explode. “I was marooned with a bunch of cannibalistic…” I paused, exhaled, caught my breath. “Shots were fired,” I said, certain of that much.
Rivera managed to hold my gaze, but his lips twitched, just a little.
“Weren’t they?” Okay, maybe I wasn’t absolutely certain about anything.
“Davey Kipling’s been having some trouble with his air-to-fuel ratio.”
I shook my head, slowly, so my world wouldn’t swing out of orbit.
“A car backfired,” Hiro said, interpreting for me.
I took my time ingesting that. “And the vehicle that followed me?”
“Guess you about ran over one of the Jorgenson kids.” Rivera shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “Took me a full week to convince Tad to drop the charges.”
I inhaled leisurely, still thinking. “I thought I heard gunshots from your kitchen.”
Rivera watched me in silence, foolishly allowing me time to consider the possibilities.
“You fired your weapon,” I said. “To make me believe we were under attack. To make me believe—”
“Just—” Rivera said, but I threw back my head back and laughed, guffawing at the ceiling like a wild hyena.
When I was done, Rivera was staring at me. Hiro had narrowed his eyes. Only Harlequin was wise enough to take cover. “I bet I scared the bejesus out of those kids when I came ripping through your garage door, huh?”
“I know you’re mad,” Rivera said, and peaceably raising a hand, took a step toward me. That’s when I spun, dipped, and kicked him in the chest. He stumbled backward, struck his injured leg on the couch, and dropped to the carpet.
I prepared for the kill, but a voice from the doorway stopped me. “Mac?”
“He knew!” I snarled.
“What’s going on, honey?” Laney’s voice was soft, placating.
“Maybe this is a bad time.” Solberg’s voice was as timid as a kitten’s when he stepped in behind her.
“He knew where I was, Laney. Knew all the time. I was so…” I wiped my nose on the back of my hand, turned shakily toward her and the baby-sized bundle she carried. “I didn’t know if he was alive or dead. And it was all a lie.”
She glanced toward Rivera, just wrestling himself to his feet. “Is that true?” she asked.
“The Black Flames—” he began, but she nailed him with her never-lie eyes.
“Is it true?”
“I sent the coordinates to Danshov. Told him to look after her.”
She nodded once, turned toward the other dumbass in the room. “You’re Danshov, I assume.”
I’ll say this for Hiro, he could look at Elaine without falling to his knees. It was more than could be said for most men with a full pair of testicles. “And you are the friend she would die to protect.”
Her eyes filled with tears. She narrowed them, studying him. “What about you?”
He watched her, filled his lungs, let his head fall back half a degree. Something not quite human passed between them. “Everyone dies…even wuwei hua,” he said, and speared me with his haunting eyes.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Rivera asked, and took a limping step forward. Elaine held up a hand, stopping him, addressing Hiro.
“Why didn’t you tell her the truth if you were there to keep her safe?”
“The truth is a dangerous machine driven by few, manipulated by many.”
“Oh for fuck—” Rivera began.
Hiro twisted toward him. “You do not deserve her!”
Rivera snorted a laugh. “And you think you do?”
“How many attempts must be made on her life before you—”
“I wasn’t the one who let her—”
“Leave.” Laney’s directive was soft but incontestable.
We all faced her.
“You should go now,” she added quietly.
“Listen—” Rivera began.
“I do not—” Hiro said.
“I’ll wait in the car,” Solberg promised.
“I didn’t mean you,” she said, and reached for his hand.
He nodded and clasped her fingers in a terrified but brave manner that a less enlightened women might find endearing. As for the other two asshats, they were still faced off like…asshats.
She raised her perfect brows at them. “We’ll let you know,” she said.
“Elaine…” Rivera began, but Laney spoke first.
“She’s had enough, Jack,” she said.
He caught my gaze, held it steady, then glared at Hiro for a second before turning toward the door.
“You too,” Laney said, and nodded at Hiro.
He shifted his hot mercury gaze to mine. “The Things will not bother you, though they are here.”
“What?”
“It is said that they plan to open a restaurant in the city.”
“What city? This city? The twins?”
“Neither will the one called Jeff harm you.”
I almost stumbled back as the truth struck me: While Rivera had been rushing me into the backseat of Tony’s car, Hiro had been hotfooting it after my abductor. “What did you do?”
He raised a brow.
I t
ook a threatening step toward him.
“We spoke,” he said, though, as usual, he seemed more amused than terrified.
“Is that some dumb-ass euphemism?”
He laughed. Actually laughed. The sound was soft and low and disturbingly erotic. “He is hale, wuwei hua,” he said. “But he is…enlightened where you are concerned.”
“You found Halloway? Where is he?” Rivera asked. “What’s his real name?”
Hiro shifted his attention to the lieutenant.
Their gazes clashed, then they stepped toward each other, heads lowered.
“Quit it!” I snapped. They stopped. I inhaled, flexed my fingers, softened my tone. “I’m tired,” I said, “but I swear to God if you two don’t get out of my sight I’ll rip off your heads and feed them to the dogs.”
They looked mad enough to eat bullets, but finally they turned and shuffled out the door in tandem ill-content.
The house fell silent. Harlequin scooted across the floor on his belly toward Shikoku.
“Wuwei hua?” Laney asked.
“It means ‘weakling’ in…some dumb-ass language,” I said, and dropping onto the couch, covered my face with my hands. “You’ll let them know about what?”
“Which one you choose.”
“Which one…” I huffed my outrage. “I’d rather be shackled to a freight train. I’d rather be buried alive. I’d—” I was just getting started, but she had already moved on.
“You okay?”
“No.” I closed my eyes. “Maybe. Probably. Why do men hate me?”
“Are you serious?”
“Rivera didn’t even bother to let me know he was…” I lost my breath for a moment. “I was actually worried about that…” I glanced at baby Mac. It’s hard to swear around an infant who bears your name. “Dummy,” I finished lamely. “And Hiro…”
“What about Hiro?” She was silent for a second, then, “Has he always called you ‘fearless flower’?”
“What?” I straightened, concerned that labor had driven her mad.
“Wuwei hua, loosely translated, means ‘fearless flower.’”
I shook my head, but I never actually doubted her accuracy; Laney was born speaking languages I’ve never even heard of. “He was complimenting me?”
She shrugged.
“After the hell he put me through, he…” I paused, trying to catch my breath. “He has a crush on me?”