by Amie Gibbons
“You mean without any possible assassins noticing?” Carvi asked, smirking.
“Yeah,” I said. “I know we’ve been keeping me away from the house, but I was hoping you could get him. If that’s possible?”
Carvi looked at AB. “You willing to help?”
“AB?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Carvi said. “AB, you won’t raise any red flags they may have to detect anything magical, and if you go in, we can lay spells to cover any traps or anyone watching.”
“Will she be in danger?” I asked.
“Possibly, but we can minimize it.” He looked at AB. “Are you up for this?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said slowly, looking between us. “Who or what is Pyro?”
###
AB grabbed my sleeping flying carpet outta the house without any issues.
At least, none we could see.
We checked him and her over for any tracking devices or spells, and it looked like she got away clean.
We met Quil and Natalia, one of the assassins that’d switched sides once she learned I was under Carvi’s protection, at the airport. Since it was during the day and Carvi was the only daywalking vamp, that we knew of, Natalia had to get Quil there under blankets in a car.
“Hey,” I said, trying not to run up to him in the hanger.
Quil’s six feet of lean muscles and yummy goodness. He’s got sharp features, big bluish green eyes that make me melt every time I look into them, and short blond curls soft as butter left on the counter in June.
“Hey, sweets,” he said, scooping me up and kissing me hard.
My knees went weak, and I giggled as we pulled apart.
Natalia gave a wave and didn’t say anything, strong features perfectly straight and professional.
Honestly, after she wasn’t trying to kill me anymore, we’d really hit it off too. She was chill and competent, and had some great stories.
“Seriously, you guys say the word and we’ll have one hell of an orgy,” Carvi said
I ignored him and Quil gave him a look.
“Hello, Carvagio,” Quil said in an even tone. “How have you been the past few days?”
They’d never really gotten along, and not just cuz Carvi wanted to have his wicked and rough way with Quil and wasn’t subtle about it. And now they had issues mostly cuz Milo died when Carvi wasn’t there to protect him, since Quil hadn’t invited Carvi to the meeting where Milo had been shot. But they’d reached a certain level of understanding the last few days when it came to me.
Partially because Carvi was helping me deal with my psychological issues, which Quil saw as a very good thing. He’d said I’d already showed signs of being more mature in just a few days, probably because I’d actually been dealing with my issues.
My issues weren’t exactly unique.
I’d never gotten over how bad my first time was, and my boyfriend abandoning me afterwards, both a lot like AB. But that was all built upon my sister abandoning me at that same time (which was the only reason I’d given it up to my boyfriend anyway) and that was the wound that really hadn’t healed. I’d supposedly projected a lot of this onto Grant, and when he basically dumped me, I was crushed, and both my vamps were helping me deal with that.
I couldn’t believe how understanding Quil was being about all this.
He may’ve been a vampire, but I swear he was a saint.
We got onto Carvi’s plane and took off pretty fast, everything apparently all arranged to get us outta the small airport without much waiting.
The flight to Montgomery was only about an hour, and we already had a car ready to pick us up from the small airport near there and take us to Daddy’s headquarters.
After that, things would get interesting.
Because no matter what protections I had on me, the assassins knew who I was, and would know exactly where I’d be tonight.
Which meant we couldn’t count on what we had been, which was them not being able to find me, and would have to have an active defensive shield around me.
That was a lot of freaking magic.
And it was gonna get expensive fast.
Which was one reason Carvi wanted to get my butt down to Miami on Saturday, and skip the election events then, for me to find the phone that’d been used to send the text and go off of it.
I’d agreed to do that, even though it’d mean missing stuff from Daddy’s campaign, especially since I’d already missed a chunk already. But him being able to say his daughter was an FBI agent and that’s why I couldn’t make it mostly raised his profile in the eyes of the public.
We couldn’t have gone down to Miami in the last few days, because Carvi said he needed those to recover after Halloween.
He’d helped bring nineteen guys back to life, so when he said he needed a few days to recover, I believed him.
I was surprised he hadn’t brought more people into the hotel room to feed off of. Sticking to one person wasn’t his usual MO and it made me seriously curious about him and AB.
Like maybe he liked her for more than just fun.
Or maybe he’d brought others in and sent them away when he was done.
Considering how embarrassed AB seemed, that was also possible.
It took everything in me not to ask what’d happened there during the flight.
###
We landed in Montgomery just after sunset, kept the windows drawn during the flight to make sure nothing got in to roast Quil, and landed in a small airport semi-close to the city without incident.
Carvi’s hired guns met us there.
He had a group of four security guards waiting for us as we exited the plane, and two people dressed in black uniforms who hurried forward to grab our bags.
AB gave me raised eyebrows as they pulled out my big suitcase and I shrugged.
Quil chuckled and gave my arm a squeeze.
What?
I packed like a girl.
And I wasn’t gonna beat myself up about it.
Quil walked over, pulled Pyro off the cases and carried him over.
Pyro was my flying carpet and he was living in secret. So we couldn’t let even our security know there was anything unusual about him.
“Do you think your dad will like his present?” Quil asked, holding up Pyro.
Ohhhhhhh, that was his cover for grabbing him. And for us bringing a carpet in the first place.
Good thinking.
I grinned and nodded. “Oh yeah. He loves Persian carpets.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Quil whispered, kissing my cheek. “Pyro, you okay with flying me around while I do warning spells over the city?”
Pyro barely flicked the tassel between us up, and I petted him, whispering, “Thanks, baby.”
“And thank you,” I said to Quil, only keeping my arms off him since Pyro wouldn’t appreciate being sandwiched between us while we did anything icky.
“I’ll be quick,” he said. “This way we will have a grid spell to tell us if anything magical is in the area, and where.”
“And we have protection spells that can stop anything non-magical. Good thinking.”
“I’m not just a pretty face, sweets.”
I grinned and rubbed his arm before he walked away and out of the hanger.
“How dangerous is this going to be?” AB asked as we walked in a group, surrounded by the four giant, beefy guards, out the other side towards the parking lot.
I looked over at Carvi.
“I told her,” he said mentally. “I don’t think she quite got it, though.”
“Dangerous,” I said. “There’s a contract on my life. And unless they’re really stupid, they know where I’ll be tonight. We’re under magical and physical protection, and I’m still in denial about how much risk I’m in, and that I’m puttin’ y’all in.”
AB pressed her lips together and nodded. “Okay. I’ll help.”
“How?” I asked Carvi.
“Who do you think researched the spells to protect you
tonight?”
“She had time for that with you… er, keeping her busy?”
He shrugged. “I had to bring in a few others to fully charge up, and she was not interested in group play.”
So that answered that question.
“Thanks, AB,” I said out loud. “I really appreciate it.”
“Of course,” she said.
I grinned.
We’d only met this week, and here she was, putting her life in potential danger on the off chance she could help.
Yeah, I’d definitely made a new friend here.
We piled into the limo, two guards up front and the other pair in an SUV behind us.
“What?” I asked as we got comfy and AB stared at her phone.
The limo started up and I looked around for the minibar I knew Carvi would have in here.
She shook her head. “It’s nothing… I got a text while we were flying.”
“No,” Carvi said.
I paused and glanced at Natalia.
She shrugged.
AB looked at Carvi and he raised his eyebrows and held out his hand.
She handed the phone over to him and tossed her hands up, face drawn and eyes heavier than I’d seen them since Wednesday when she’d talked to her ex in the hospital.
“He is such an asshole,” she said, barely loud enough for me to hear.
Carvi sighed and gave the phone back and she raised it to eye level, fingers poised. “What do I even say to that?”
“Nothing. You are not texting him back,” Carvi said.
“But…” she said.
“Fine. You answer him. What would you say? That everything's cool? You had a hand in saving his life so you’ll take him up on his generous offer to be your friend again?”
I snorted. That answered the question of what the jerk had written.
“Of course not!” AB said.
“Then why answer?” Carvi asked, staring so hard at her it made me uncomfortable and want to hide in the leather.
“Because he's a using, lying, narcissistic asshole, and he needs to know I know that for sure now!”
“Trust me, he knows. And if he doesn't, you telling him that isn't going to convince him of it.”
She opened her mouth and he held up a hand.
“No,” he said. “Never in the history of breakups has a guy ever heard a woman tell him he was an asshole and walked away thinking anything besides, ‘She's a bitch.’ Don't answer the fucking text.”
“Is this the first contact since the hospital?” I asked.
“No.” Her face clouded and anger made her eyes small behind their frames. “He called that night. Left a message. Said all this stuff about talking about how to avoid pressing each other’s buttons because we’re poor at communicating, and we need to work on that, because it’d be easier on everyone if we could get along.”
I snorted. “He means easier on him, since he was kicked outta your group, right?”
“Oh yeah,” she said. “I texted him back. Said poor communication wasn’t our issue. That as far as I could tell, he doesn’t care about me or my feelings, and never did. And he was only asking that because he realized he can’t be in the group without being around me, and I wasn’t going to let that happen, especially after what he said in the hospital. I asked if he actually cared or not.”
She took a deep breath.
“So he answered today,” she said. “And he…”
She growled under her breath and thrust the phone at me. “He didn’t answer my question, which tells me all I need to know. You tell me what to do with that crap?”
I took the phone and scrolled up.
It was a long text.
I read what AB had written first.
It was basically what she said, with a few things in there about how he hadn’t acted like a friend since his divorce was finalized at the end of August and it seemed like he was taking his frustrations out on her, and then that it seemed like he was only making nice now to get back in the group, and partially because she’d helped save him.
Then… well, I thought Grant was being bad.
Grant just told me how things would be and was cold and calm about it.
AB’s ex went on a tirade about everything she’d done wrong as a friend, like the vaguebooking posts she’d put up on Facebook, thinking no one would be able to tell who she was talking about, and how he thought she’d done that to drum up drama, because to her it was fun.
Then he said a real friend would be happy for him when he got some, and she just got jealous and bitchy, so obviously she wasn’t a real friend to him anyway. And as far as he was concerned, she was the one who blew up this friendship.
He finished it with saying he was willing to start over if she was. They could put this all behind them, he could look past what she did, but she had to cut this shit out. And that was up to her.
“That arrogant asshole!” I said, thrusting the phone back at her. “I’m with Carvi, delete that crap, right now. And delete his contact too. You do not need that in your life. Oh, he could look past what you did. Like he’s doing you a favor! He didn’t even say anything about all the stuff he did to you! That’s it, when we get back to Nashville, I’m kicking his butt out of a window again for you. That is ridiculous!”
“Thank you!” she said, way too loud for the small space. “That’s what I was thinking. What kind of self-absorbed fucking prick is he? Seriously, what’s a stronger word to call a man than fucking asshole? Because I need it right now.”
“Okay, Carvi’s right,” I said. “Don’t do anything. He’s a narcissistic jerk, and it’ll drive him nuts if you ignore him. It’ll be worse than anything you could say.”
“Good point,” she said, hitting a few buttons on her phone. “Jackass deleted.”
I grinned.
It wasn’t funny, but it was nice to have the distraction from the problem facing us right now.
###
“Daddy!” I slammed the limo door open and hopped out into the parking lot in front of the office Daddy’d made his headquarters.
Daddy was, of course, waiting outside for us.
“Baby,” he said, folding me in his arms and holding me tight.
My daddy’s six-three and broad shouldered, with a full head of closely cut hair, though it’d gone silver long ago, and a strong, square face.
A retired marine colonel, he still had the look of a man who’d spent his life fighting for others. Strong, steady, and proud to bear the scars he’d received in the service of his country.
Of course, he was my daddy, so I was biased.
We split apart and I grinned up at him.
Somehow outta all my siblings, I’d gotten the short genes in the family. Mama was a perfectly respectable five-six, and my siblings were all between five-four and six-two.
But I was the only one who’d gotten Daddy’s green eyes.
“How are you?” I asked as we broke apart.
Daddy smiled, but it just made his eyes sad under the parking lot lights.
“I’m supposed to ask you that,” he said.
“I’m alive,” I said. “So I’d say I’m doing pretty skippy.”
He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and held me close as he turned. “And who are your friends?”
“Daddy, this is Carvi, Annabeth and Natalia. Guys, this is William Ryder.”
“Where’s Quil?”
“Makin’ sure there’s spells around the city to protect me.”
Daddy grunted.
A sign of approval, I was hoping.
They’d met before, but it was when I’d been kidnapped by Truck and things had been a little tense.
“You doin’ okay, Daddy?”
He just stared down at me.
Carvi cleared his throat and I pulled away from Daddy to half turn and look.
Mama ran outta the building and hugged me before I even registered she was there.
“Baby!” She squeezed me hard.
“Mam
a!”
Mama has short, dyed blond curls and a round face with high cheekbones and a strong nose. She has big brown eyes and the best big smile that makes them light up. She’s heavier than she’d like, but in pretty good shape for a woman in her sixties.
She pulled back, grinning that big, beautiful smile.
But something was off.
It didn’t reach her eyes.
“Mama, what’s wrong?”
She shook her head and glanced at Daddy.
He shook his head.
Carvi cleared his throat.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Guys, this is my mom, Amanda Ryder. Mama, what’s up? I can just see it if I need to.”
She sighed.
“Mama?”
“One of our interns had a heart attack tonight.”
“Intern?” I asked, looking around. “Like somebody your age going back to college?”
“No, like a senior in college. He’s twenty-two.”
Chapter two
“Well, that’s not natural,” I said. “Sorry for stating the obvious. What happened?”
“He was working on calls and suddenly dropped the phone,” Mama said. “He grabbed his left arm and fell out of his chair. It looked exactly like you’d expect a heart attack to look, but…”
“No one has a heart attack at twenty-two without serious contributing factors,” AB said.
You could practically see the doctor’s hat going on.
“Is he obese?” she asked. “Does he have a family history?”
Daddy shook his head. “I know his family. His father is almost my age and runs marathons. His grandfather is still alive and is healthy for a man that age.”
“But you didn’t want Mama to tell me?” I asked.
He looked at me. “I don’t want you playing detective.”
I jerked and crossed my arms.
Did Daddy always think of my job that way?
“Daddy, I am a detective. I work for the FBI.”
“I know, baby, but-”
“No but, Daddy. I’m an investigator and a darn good one. If there’s something going on here, I should look into it.”
Daddy blinked quickly.
I don’t think I’d ever cut him off a day in my life. Not even when I was a sassy teenager who thought I could get away with saying anything.