He told me where to find her, and it didn’t fill me with optimism.
Chapter 8
The dive bar was hidden in a strip mall, the kind of place tourists overlooked and locals flocked to. Well, they would flock there after five o’clock, anyway. Right now, it was barely noon, and seriously, what the hell, Lagarde? I hadn’t even known she drank. Alcohol seemed like too much fun for her. She always struck me as someone who drank water or… I don’t know, pureed vegetable juice. Something healthy and boring.
I stepped inside and had to pause once the door closed behind me to let my eyes adjust to the dimness. The blinds on the windows were closed, creating a perpetual twilight indoors. The ceiling was low, and the walls were covered with an assortment of photographs, mirrors, and Miami Dolphins paraphernalia. It must have been an old bar, because the smell of cigarette smoke lingered despite it having been illegal for years.
The pool tables stood empty and unused, and a few regulars sat in the booths. They looked up at my entrance, squinting through the burst of sunlight, before dismissing me as a stranger and returning to their drinks. I spotted Lagarde’s back where she sat hunched atop a barstool. A white spinal brace wrapped around her torso, matching the braces on her legs, and a pair of metal forearm crutches leaned against the bar next to her. Her braids were pulled into a ponytail at the base of her neck, and she didn’t turn around at my approach.
“Agent Lagarde!” I exclaimed in an obviously fake tone of surprise as I sat on the stool beside her. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“God damn it,” she said when she saw me. “I’m not drunk enough for this.”
Mid-forties and black, Agent Lagarde wore her standard pair of electric blue glasses that prevented her from using her powers on everyone she looked at. Her normally crisp business suit had been replaced by sweatpants and a T-shirt stretched across her rather impressive chest, and I thought she looked sick until I realized she just wasn’t wearing any make-up.
Seeing her like this made my stomach twist uncomfortably. I didn’t like Agent Lagarde, but I respected her (though if you ever tell her that, I’ll mind-control you into slamming your hand in car door). I was used to her being an unstoppable force of nature with two settings: mildly aggravated and seriously pissed off. Seeing her depressed was like seeing a shark flop around on land.
“I need your help,” I said.
Objectively, the look she gave me was brilliant. I should have snapped a picture so I could study the way it managed to convey, “Are you kidding me? I’m not dealing with this crap,” without her needing to say a word. But I was too busy trying to calm my fluttering heart, realizing I was getting off to an even worse start than expected.
“Connie, I’m gonna need another shot,” she said flatly.
The bartender, a woman with tanned, wrinkled skin that told of years on the beach, took a bottle off the shelf.
“Make that two,” I said. “I’m buying.”
Agent Lagarde finally turned to look at me. “Can I save us both the trouble and just say no to whatever this is now?”
“No. I know you don’t like me, but I’m not asking for me. I’m asking for Dave.”
That put some life into her dead expression. Back when I’d cut a deal with the DSA and Lagarde had been the unfortunate agent assigned as my handler, I’d learned she was a White Knight fangirl—and a devoted one, too, if his marriage to me hadn’t turned her off.
Grimacing like she wanted to kick herself for responding to me, she asked, “Is he okay?”
The bartender set two shot glasses in front of us, and I stared into the clear liquid.
“No.”
The last thing I wanted to do was tell the whole awful story again, but I needed to get Lagarde’s sympathy and convince her how urgent this was, so I did. I watched her face carefully for clues to her reaction, wishing I had my powers so I could at least catch a stray feeling or two. When I finished, I downed the shot, and she joined me.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll pray for Dave, and I wish I could help, but the agency has me on medical leave. I have no idea what the Prophet King’s been up to.”
I tried to quash the disappointment and despondency that climbed up my throat like bile. “Then help me find out.”
“Don’t see how I could.”
“The hell are you talking about? You’re one of the strongest telepaths I’ve ever met and a trained DSA agent on top of it.”
She took a deep gulp of the beer she’d been nursing when I came in. “Not anymore.”
“Come again?” I asked intelligently.
“I’m not a DSA agent any more. They benched me.” She gestured vaguely at the spinal brace and crutches.
“Permanently?”
She stared darkly into her glass. “Apparently, I’m too valuable to risk in the field anymore. They want to keep me at a desk and use me for interrogations.”
“And you don’t want that.”
“A desk job? Are you kidding? I want a little more action than fighting a broken copy machine.”
The burner phone I was getting all my calls forwarded to vibrated in my purse. My heart jumped, and I pulled it out, hoping to see Bianca’s name and good news about Dave. Instead, the name “Moreen Lee” showed on the screen. I put the phone away in disappointment. I’d call her back when I was done here.
Looking back at Lagarde, I tried to summon my sympathy. “Then quit,” I said. “Get a job in private security or something. I hear they pay better. Better yet, nurse this grudge and turn supervillain. You’d kill it out there.”
She didn’t crack a smile, still staring at her beer. “I’ve been with the DSA since I was fifteen.”
If I had another shot, I would’ve choked on it. “Are you serious?”
“I basically destroy a person’s mind whenever I looked at them. I was too dangerous to be out unsupervised. They helped me control it, and once I turned eighteen, they put me to work.”
“Sheesh. No wonder you don’t have a personality.”
She gave me a hard look and took another sip of her drink.
“Look.” I ran my hand through my hair. “You want action? Great. Help me find out why the Prophet King attacked my family. Prove to the DSA you can still handle yourself in the field.”
Behind the blue lenses of her glasses, her eyes lowered contemplatively. I rested my elbow casually on the bar, resisting the urge to lean forward anxiously as I awaited her answer. All Lagarde would have to do was look at Jean-Baptiste to disable him and instantly know all his thoughts. I could get to the bottom of this so much more quickly with her help, and the sooner I knew what was going on, the sooner I could plan my revenge.
“No.” She shook her head, turning away so she faced the bar squarely. “You’re asking the wrong person.”
I took a deep breath through my nose, and it was probably a good thing my telepathy was off, otherwise my anger would have spilled into everyone around me. “What happened to you sucks,” I said. “I get it. I’ve been there. But you can’t—”
“Don’t preach at me, Belmonte. I’m not in the mood.”
“Fine.” I bit back the curses that wanted to jump from my mouth and instead pulled a pad of paper from my purse. After scribbling a number, I tore off the top page and handed it to her.
Lagarde barely glanced at it. “Your phone number in case I change my mind?”
“Dave’s room number at Jackson Memorial Hospital. If you can’t get off your ass to help me bring his attacker to justice, then do me a favor and look at him—see if your powers can pull him out of the coma. Mine couldn’t.”
I slammed cash onto the bar for the drinks and rose without another word. As I strode to the door, part of me hoped she would call after me, but there was only silence in my wake. I stepped outside into the heat and waited a moment for my eyes to adjust to the sunlight. I wanted to scream, but instead, I pulled out my phone. Calling Moreen back would distract me for a minute, at least. I had to do something to stave
off the feeling of utter helplessness.
But before I could press the call button, a black limo pulled in front of me.
The driver got out and opened the back door for me, and I stared for a moment, my stomach sinking. I briefly considering striding around the limo and getting into my own car, but I might as well get this over with, so I climbed inside the limo and sat down.
Joey Giordano waited on the genuine leather seating beside me. A tall, bulky man, he wore an expensive navy suit with a flower in the lapel. His salt and pepper hair was slicked back, and he had thick eyebrows and a hard, grim mouth. The smell of his aftershave mingled with the scent of leather, and he had the limo’s air-conditioning set about five degrees too cold to be comfortable. Joey used to be my father’s right-hand man, back when my father had been alive.
And yeah, I killed my father, in case you were wondering. He’d twisted my youngest sister, Mary, making her think she had to kill me to inherit the family business. I’d had to shoot her to protect the rest of my family—my baby sister, a person I’d cared about far more than the cruel man who’d given us our shared DNA. In revenge, I’d lured my father out onto a pier under the guise of a meeting and had Eddy snipe him from the shore.
But Joey didn’t know that. If he did, he’d have used the limo for a drive-by shooting rather than picking me up.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“Your safety is important to me, Valentina.” He tried to smile, but his mouth was so unused to the motion that it looked tight and pained. “I keep a close eye on you.”
Great. Joey going stalker on me was the last thing I needed. Not for the first time, I wondered if I’d made a mistake by letting him inherit Dad’s criminal organization after he died. I could have challenged him, but my interest in leading the Belmonte crime family was about as high as the temperature in a meat locker. Bianca and Sonia hadn’t wanted the job, either, but maybe I should have worked harder to convince one of them to take over. Leaving Joey in charge gave him too much power.
“I heard about what happened to your husband,” he said. “I’m very sorry.”
It took all my self-control not to snort. Joey had proposed to me twice in the past and hadn’t exactly taken it well when I’d turned him down. Word is he’d been furious when he’d learned I’d married White Knight. I swear, if he tried to make a move on me now that he thought Dave was out of the way, I was going to turn him over to Irma and her knives.
“Thank you,” I said politely.
He folded his hands in his lap and gazed at me. “The full resources of the organization are at your disposal. All you have to do is ask.”
I felt sick—because I was extremely tempted by the offer. My father’s organization had resources and connections I’d given up when I’d left, which would certainly help me fight Jean-Baptiste. But that help wouldn’t come for free.
“At what price?” I asked.
Joey’s thick eyebrows raised about a centimeter. “Is any price too high to avenge a loved one?”
A good question. The answer was probably yes, but I wasn’t sure what price that would be. The feel of Dave’s limp, lifeless hand surged to the forefront of my mind, and I felt a sob threatening in the back of my throat. Would doing a favor for Joey in exchange for his help really be so bad? I could use the backup, and I knew Joey. If we had to match wits, there was nothing he could do to surprise me. It would be much less dangerous than playing this game with my father.
Then again, if you’d asked me yesterday, I’d have said the same thing about Jean-Baptiste.
I fixed Joey with my haughtiest stare. “How do I know you’ll make it worth my while?”
Rather than being insulted by the question, he smiled as if I’d made him proud. He picked up a briefcase that had been resting at his feet, an old-fashioned leather one I recognized as having belonged to my father. A frown tugged at my lips as I realized his cufflinks and tie pin had been Dad’s as well. Not that I gave a damn about the old man’s stuff, but Joey was starting to creep me out. This whole situation stunk of my father, like Joey was trying to be him.
“Here.” He passed me a manila envelope. “An offer of good faith.”
I weighed the crisp envelope in my hand, feeling only paper inside. No bomb, then. What were the odds it was covered in a fast-acting poison?
Taking my chances, I opened it and let the stack of papers slide out. A grainy photograph of Jean-Baptiste exiting what looked like a hotel lobby fell into my lap, a paperclip holding the rest of the stack together. I flipped through the papers and saw a detailed record of his movements. It looked like he’d anonymously rented the entire top floor of a hotel downtown. The envelope held floor plans, a rough pattern to his schedule over the last few days, and details on where his guards were posted. When I’d told Eddy and Irma I’d needed intel before I could go on the offensive, this was everything I’d meant and more.
I put the papers neatly back into the envelope and took a steadying breath before meeting Joey’s gaze. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” he replied. “But once you study that thoroughly, you’ll come to the same conclusion I did: you can’t take him alone. When you accept that, you know how to reach me.”
I reached for the door handle. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Just remember, Valentina,” he said, making me pause with one foot in the car and one on the pavement. “There will always be a place for you in the family.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong. But in every way that mattered, he’d completely missed the mark. I belonged with my family, but that wasn’t the toxic criminal organization I’d grown up in. It was the family I’d made with Dave, the one that was broken now, that I’d failed to keep safe.
“Take care of yourself, Joey.”
I closed the door behind me and didn’t look back.
Chapter 9
Back at the safehouse, I stared at the papers Joey had given me where they were spread out across the kitchen table. It was a small, white wooden table barely big enough for four people, and I’d shoved aside the centerpiece of fake flowers to make room for everything. With cheery blue walls, bright white cabinets, and wall art displaying colorful tropical fruit, the kitchen was a poor atmosphere to plan a murder in.
Eddy sat in one of the chairs, munching on a bag of chips, while Irma stood across from him and studied one of the photographs. Poor Elisa had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room, and we were all being careful not to wake her. My burner phone sat on the table in front of me. I wanted to see the instant it lit up with a new message, hopefully from Bianca saying Dave had woken up. But no matter how many times my eyes drifted toward it, the screen stayed resolutely dark.
“This stairwell is our best bet.” Eddy pointed to a spot on the hotel floor plan. “That tight corner should give us cover and keep them from rushing us, and his room is right over there.”
I pushed away the ache in my chest when I thought of Dave and studied the layout, drumming my fingernails on the table. “Too many other exits. When he gets a flash of us coming, he’ll just calmly walk the other way.”
“We could poison his room service,” Irma suggested.
I shook my head. “And when he sees that coming, all he’ll have to do is not eat it.”
We stared at the table in silence for another minute.
“This is impossible.” Eddy crushed the empty bag of chips in his fist. “He’ll see us coming no matter what we do. We can’t beat that.”
Irma glanced at me, and it took me a second to decipher her expression as worried. Worried about me? Did she think I’d give up and break down now that my plan for revenge had hit a roadblock? She should know me better than that.
I straightened up. “We can beat him. We just need a plan so perfect that even when he sees it coming, he won’t be able to stop it.”
“Well, when you put it that way…” Eddy glanced up hopefully from his chair. “You got a plan like that?”
“Not yet.” I
looked over the papers, my mind grasping for connections. “But you see what I mean, don’t you? Take that stairwell.” I pointed at the same spot Eddy had earlier. “If we had men posted here, here, and here”—I tapped the other exits—“it wouldn’t matter if Jean-Baptiste foresaw our assault. No matter how he tried to escape, we’d still have him.”
Irma leaned over the floor plan. “We’ll need more manpower.”
“Just like Joey said…” I murmured.
“Humph.” Irma sniffed. “Now don’t you start thinking Joseph Giordano has all the answers. Even if we might need help, he’s not the only game in town.”
But who in Miami would be suicidal enough to go against the Prophet King? Besides us, I mean.
“What did Corpse-Maker want?” I asked, suddenly remembering her dinner date with him, back before we’d gone on vacation and Dave had been fine. It felt like a lifetime ago.
“Nothing,” she said.
Eddy raised his eyebrows. She heaved an exasperated sigh.
“He offered me a contract. It’s not important now.”
That surprised me, though it shouldn’t have. Irma had been an elite assassin back in the day. True, her day had been a long time ago, but Corpse-Maker had to be in his seventies by now; he’d remember. Why shouldn’t he try to hire her? She still knew her way around a knife and had been killing people for longer than I’d been alive. Honestly, I was probably underutilizing her skills.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“I said I’d have to think about it. Now can we get back to the matter at hand?”
“All right,” I said, though I’d definitely be bringing it up again later. “So, I’m not prepared to completely rule out Joey’s offer.”
“Eh, Irma’s right, kid,” Eddy said. “Joey’s no good. He’ll want something from you.”
“Of course he will,” I said, thinking back to the chilly limo and the sick feeling in my stomach. “That’s how these things work, but it’ll be worth it if he can—”
“No.” Irma set the photo she’d been studying back on the table, her focus fully on me. “You gave up that life, remember? You said you were never going back.”
The White Knight & Black Valentine Series (Book 4): Kill Them All Page 7