by Selina Woods
Hearing a soft step outside the bathroom door nearly had me shifting and lunging forward to seize a throat, no matter whose it was. Iliana, in her human body, peeked around the edge before I did something unforgiveable, and I kept the growl that wanted to escape reined in.
“Are you all right?” she whispered, staring at me.
Rather than answer, I demanded, “Why are you here alone? Where’s your old man? How did that asshole get in here anyway?”
I thought for a moment she’d run, but instead, she came all the way around the door. “My dad was supposed to be back, but something must have kept him,” she answered, her voice soft, yet her eyes met mine boldly. “As for how that asshole got in, well, he came in while we were open and hid somewhere. Then my dad left and, well, you know.”
Oddly, her quiet voice soothed my rage when only the passage of time ever managed to calm it. I glanced away from those sapphire depths, feeling ashamed of myself for screaming at her. “Sorry I yelled at you,” I muttered. “Pain makes me cranky.”
Iliana stepped closer. “Want me to take a look at your wounds?”
“I’d go to a healer I know,” I replied, “except she wouldn’t open her door at this time of night.”
Suddenly, a voice bellowed Iliana’s name, and I heard the sound of running boots, no doubt drawn to the light of the bathroom. She turned around as Hyde filled the doorway, his expression of fear and anger only amplified by seeing me there. I thought he’d go for my throat, and perhaps Iliana did as well, for a single step to the side planted her firmly between her dad and me.
“What the fuck happened?” he roared, shooting evil glances at me, even though I still sat.
“Griffin saved my life, Dad,” she replied, and I had to admire her remaining calm in the face of both my anger and now Hyde’s.
He clamped his jaws shut and drew a ragged breath through his nostrils. “You killed that lion out there?” he demanded, his anger not quite under control just yet.
I knew that if I answered him, my rage would climb again, and then I’d be at his throat, and he mine. I had little desire to fight, much less to either kill him, or him kill me, so I simply bowed my head and closed my eyes. My pain coursed through me, making me sweat, and I wondered if Hyde would allow me to walk out of there if I told him to move.
Half expecting him to charge into the bathroom and attack me, I merely waited, hoping he’d finally see reason. I heard his ragged breathing and then Iliana started to talk.
“He did, Dad,” she said, her voice soothing my frazzled nerves, and I had no idea how it could do that. “The enforcer waited until we closed up and you left. He attacked me, and then Griffin came in. He fought and killed him.”
I lifted my head and managed a tiny grin. “Hey, you helped.”
If her soft voice had an effect on me, it must have helped Hyde as well, for the anger drained from his expression like water down a sink. He ran his fingers through his hair and blew out a gust of breath.
“Sorry, I got mad,” he told me. “I see Iliana in danger and I lose it.”
“I get it, dude,” I replied. “It happened to me, too.”
He stuck his hands in his pockets. “I guess, uh, thanks. You know?”
“Yeah.” I stood up stiffly, hurting like hell. “I know. I suppose you might need help in getting rid of that guy.”
“If you’re offering,” Hyde grinned, “I’ll accept.”
“Not until after I take a look at Griffin’s wounds,” Iliana said firmly. “I think they need stitches.”
“I’ll see the healer in the morning,” I told her, heading for the door.
Hyde stepped out of my way and let me pass him, but Iliana’s voice stopped me. “I have some healer training. Please. Let me help you.”
I gazed at Hyde. “She does?”
“Yeah. She’s pretty good, too. You might want to take her up on it.”
Staring at the mess I made of the bathroom, I gestured. “In here?”
Iliana shook her head after a quick glance at all the glass. “Maybe not. The lights in the kitchen are bright and won’t be seen from outside. Will they, Dad?”
“No. Come on, Griffin.”
I followed him to the kitchen, where he flipped on the light switches and pulled a stool toward me. Surrounded by stoves, vats of cold oil, refrigerators, and ovens, I sat down on the stool with a sigh. “You hungry?” he asked. “I can fix us something.”
I hadn’t been until he mentioned it. “Yeah. Sounds good.”
Hyde turned on the stoves and the vats of cooking oil and busied himself while Iliana came in. Her arms were filled with bottles, cloths, and packets of what I suspected were needles and suturing thread. I eyed her warily as she set her items down on a table, then went to a cupboard where she pulled down a metal basin.
She filled it with warm water and picked up a pair of scissors from a drawer. “I hope you’re not fond of that shirt.”
I glanced down at the ripped and bloody plain white t-shirt, of which I had several more just like it at the penthouse. “It happens to be my favorite.”
“Try not to cry when I cut it off you.”
With a few efficient snips, Iliana dropped my shirt to the floor, then wet a cloth in the basin. While I hissed and tried not to squirm in pain, she cleaned the wounds. “This will hurt,” she warned me, picking up a brown bottle.
“Like what you just did didn’t?”
“Nope.”
Iliana wasn’t kidding either. The disinfectant stung like hell, and I clamped my fists at my sides, counting from a hundred backward to keep my anger from exploding. I had been cut up in fights before and knew the routine of cleaning and preventing infection, and as always, my rage soared when pain hit me.
“Now, that wasn’t so bad,” Iliana said, putting the bottle away as though I hadn’t been within a hair of throttling her.
Hyde grinned at me as he cooked. “From the scars, I’d say you’ve gone through this before.”
“Yeah.” My voice croaked, and I needed a drink of water something terrible. “Got anything to drink?”
“Want a beer?”
“Bring me one and I’ll kiss you.”
He headed for a refrigerator and pulled out three beers, and kept his distance from me as he gave me mine. “I don’t kiss guys,” he said.
I popped the top off of the bottle and took a long drink. “I’ll try to remember that.”
Iliana turned back with a needle and surgical thread in her hands, her sapphire eyes amused. “As you’ve clearly been through this before, I guess you can take it without flinching.”
“I might whine, though.”
She pursed those luscious lips in an air kiss. “Big bad lion actually whines?” she asked, her voice innocent. “Don’t tell me.”
I managed not to either flinch nor whine as her light touch sewed me back up, only the sting of the needle piercing my flesh was annoying rather than aggravating. “You have only a few deep ones,” she murmured to me as she sutured. “The rest will heal just fine, but will need to be watched for infection.”
“I tend to heal fast,” I replied, taking another swig of my beer as Hyde flipped sizzling burgers, bacon, and onions on the grill, then dropped a fryer full of fries into the vat of now hot oil.
“Hurry up, Iliana,” he said. “I’m almost done here.”
“Just one more stitch.”
A few moments later, I sat at the table, munching on the burger and smoking hot fries, clad only in my jeans and boots. Iliana ate with an appetite that rivaled mine while Hyde ate his own and spoke of his business, and losing Iliana’s mother and younger brother.
“They got caught in the crossfire of a shootout almost ten years ago,” he said, then took a drink of his third beer. “As you might have guessed, I’m seriously overprotective now. Iliana never goes anywhere except home and here. It’s hardly fair to her, but you now see why.”
“I do.” I munched fries and drank from my second bottle. “I’ll
display the corpse over there as a warning. Maybe that’ll deter other attempts to hassle you, Iliana.”
She grimaced in distaste at my suggestion. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Yeah, I do. I need to send a warning to any others who might want to do you harm.”
“If you don’t mind,” Hyde said, his expression slightly anxious for the first time that night, “not in front of my place. Okay?”
“I reckon the corpse of a lion out front might spoil folks’ appetites.” I grinned. “We’ll hang it across the street. How’s that? There’s nothing in those shops.”
“If we can get it out of my place,” Hyde said thoughtfully, “we can use my truck to haul it up on a rope.”
Iliana made a face of disgust and pushed her plate away. “Must you?”
“It’s barbaric,” I replied, watching her, “but a very public warning to my enforcers. Once they see that and know he acted against my direct orders, I daresay you can walk the city without a single one bothering you.”
“I like that idea,” Hyde said, smirking.
The dead lion was heavy and difficult to drag out of the restaurant and into the alley. Hyde and I both panted with the effort, while I hoped I hadn’t popped any stitches. “I have a rope,” he said, “downstairs.”
“I came in through the grate down there,” I told him as he headed for the door I busted.
He waved his hand over his head in acknowledgment while Iliana used a big black pen on a large piece of cardboard. Walking to her, I saw her sketching large words.
Penalty for disobeying Griffin’s orders, I read. “Good,” I commented. “I don’t think I want your name on it. An enforcer may want revenge for this fool, and I’d rather it be directed at me than you.”
“You know,” she said slowly, gazing up at me. “You can be a really nice guy.”
“Don’t spread that around,” I snapped, urgent. “I survive by my reputation, you know.”
Iliana laughed and reached up to pat my cheek. “I won’t say a word.”
Using the rope and Hyde’s truck, we dragged the corpse across the street, and then Hyde threw the rope over a lamp post. Tying the end to his bumper again, he slowly lifted the corpse into the air, the enforcer’s head hanging toward the ground.
“Ho,” I called, stopping him. “It’ll take both of us to hold it in place. Iliana, can you tie the end of the rope to that post there by the building?”
“Yeah.”
As both Hyde and I took the dead weight over our shoulders to prevent the enforcer from falling, Iliana untied the rope from the bumper and wound it several times around the metal post sunk deep into the concrete. She took up most of the slack, leaving us to rub our sore shoulders.
Hyde tested the rope and her handiwork while I said, “I’ll order it disposed of in a day or two. Before it really starts to stink.”
Iliana put the cardboard message on the corpse, and stared at it for a long time. “He would have killed me,” she whispered. “Raped me first, then killed me. You can let him hang there until he rots.”
Hyde and I exchanged a glance. “I don’t want to drive business away from your restaurant,” I replied. “He’ll stay just long enough to get the point across.”
Iliana shrugged. “I’m going inside to clean up the mess.”
She walked back across the street and vanished into the alley. “You better stay with her,” I told Hyde. “Packs might be around.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll head back to my place, I guess.”
“I can give you a ride.”
Even people in cars were vulnerable to the night stalkers. “I’ll be fine. Get Iliana home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“All right.”
I shifted forms and stood as he drove the truck back to the alley and cut the engine. Striding into the shadows, I watched from the darkness for the next hour until I heard the engine start up again. The truck pulled out of the alley and drove away, no headlights pushing back the night. After I could no longer hear it, I ventured out and headed back across town.
Chapter Four
I slept well enough with the help of a couple of pain pills I took when I returned to the penthouse and woke when the clock said it was half-past noon. Sitting up with a yawn, I blinked sleepily and examined the wounds on my upper arms, the only ones I could see.
They looked red and inflamed, and I decided some antibiotics I had stashed away might come in handy. I got up from the bed just as the bell rang that announced someone requested entry into my suite. But they couldn’t, as I had locked the elevator.
I shoved my legs into my jeans and zipped them up, then padded barefoot and shirtless into the huge sitting room and across to the foyer. I unlocked the elevator and pushed the intercom button. “Brand? That you?”
“Yeah, can I come up?’
“It’s open.”
I heard the car start its upward climb as I went to the kitchen and peered into the refrigerator. I needed something to drink and decided on a cold soda. I popped the top and leaned against the counter as the doors hissed open, then took several swallows. Brand struck his head in.
“What happened?” he asked, his eyes widening as he saw the welts on my arms.
“I’ve got an enforcer hanging on Market Street,” I said casually, watching his eyes. “He disobeyed my orders.”
His pale eyes never flickered. “You killed him? Good. He’ll serve as a warning to others.”
“I’d like him identified if possible. And he stays there until at least tomorrow.”
“After sunset,” Brand said, his voice level, “I’ll have him cut down and thrown into the quarry outside the city.”
“Perfect. Send as many enforcers as possible down there to see him with their own eyes, and it’s for my curiosity only that I want his name.”
“I’ll guess that he went for the girl you’re protecting?” He didn’t even blink.
“He did. I want the crews to know exactly what he did and that I personally killed him.”
“You got it, boss. I’ll see to it.”
“Was there another reason you needed to see me?”
Now his expression changed to annoyance. “Griffin, you know that leaving without your guards upsets them to no end. I hate to complain about it, but I’m the one who listens to their gripes.”
I grinned. “I reckon I’ll have to up your pay if I insist on skipping out on them.”
“You pay them to protect you, dammit. So, let them do their jobs.”
As this was the first time, he showed any concern at all for my welfare, if that’s what it truly was, I almost opened up to him about my need to run free. I stared down at the can in my hand instead. “I’ll try.”
“Good. Do you want me to send food up to you?”
“No. I’m going to get cleaned up, then head out. I want to see the effect the corpse is having on those the message is meant for.”
And I’ll watch from the Headmaster while I keep an eye on Iliana.
“I can’t blame you there,” Brand said, then headed for the elevator. “I passed your orders along as you told me to,” he said as he went. “The word is spreading, and now will go like wildfire.”
“How’s it going on the drug thing?”
He pushed the button, and the doors hissed open. “Still working on it.”
Then he got in and was gone, leaving me to wonder if I could ever trust him, and wished that I could.
I had ordered my guards to park a block away from the Devil’s Headmaster, as I didn’t want flocks of people seeing my vehicle and running away in horror of my presence among them. I wanted to see for myself the reaction the corpse got from the enforcers without them knowing I was watching.
Hiding behind a big pair of sunglasses, I strolled casually toward the Headmaster among the flow of citizens going about their business, and no one seemed to know it was me. There were no gawks or stares, and no one ran in panic into structures for cover. My four guard
s ambled along with no rifles in their hands, while the others, with rifles, spread out in a wide ring around me.
I discovered that a crowd had gathered around the corpse that still hung upside down, his limp tongue oozing from his parted jaws. Liking that scene, I ambled up behind the crowd as though transfixed by the sight.
“He disobeyed Griffin’s orders,” an old woman in front of me murmured to her companion. “Was he a gangster?”
“I bet he was,” the other answered. “Who else would disobey him?”
“I wouldn’t dare,” said a youngster nearby. “He’s a mean one, that Griffin. I heard he eats little kids for breakfast.”
My belly flip-flopped at the thought of eating a kid, and I almost retorted that I’d never do that.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the old woman snapped. “Of course, he wouldn’t do that.”
“He hung this guy here, didn’t he?” the youth complained, angry. “Who knows what he’d do.”
“I heard he placed Hyde’s daughter under his protection,” said another to my left. “Maybe this guy tried to molest her or something.”
“Anyone know who this guy is?” asked another further away.
“He’s an enforcer,” came a reply. “That much I know.”
“If he’s willing to kill his own to protect a little girl,” the old woman stated, “then he’s all right in my book.”
She hobbled away, her companion following and hissing recriminations in her ear. The talk about me killing one of my own to send a message continued as people came and went around the body. Too hungry to stand around any longer, and knowing an enforcer might show up to give my game away, I drifted across the street to the Headmaster, my guards following me.
I caught Hyde’s eye as he worked at the counter, and he dipped his chin once in a quick nod. Luck was with me, for I found a table that overlooked the street and the dead lion hanging there. Maybe no one wanted to eat while staring at a corpse, and I chuckled to myself as I sat down.
“You did that?” a guard asked me in a low voice, jerking his thumb at the body.