It had been nice to have Ryder there. I appreciated him showing up and offering to stay. To my surprise, I didn’t find him annoying at all anymore. Who knew why?
Standing at the French doors to my balcony, I looked down on the patio.
Everyone sat around the pool nursing drinks. They were talking in low voices and there was music piping out of the speakers. It was somber. I wondered what they were talking about.
I thought about shooting Dante a text to ask how much he was paying the guy to be my bodyguard or spy on me or whatever he was doing. But I didn’t want to have to explain to my best friend that there had been a murder. If Ryder hadn’t said something to him, I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. And I was certain Ryder hadn’t because if he had told Dante, he’d have already called.
Then I froze. Unless. Unless he had told Dante and my friend was already on his way.
Part of me wanted to fall into Dante’s arms for emotional support, and part of me wanted to do this on my own.
I’d grown a bit too dependent after years spent with Nico as my rock.
It was only in the past four years that I’d started to find my way without him again.
It’s crazy how easy it was to lean on someone else once I gave him my whole heart and soul. But now, it was back to square one.
I could only rely on myself.
Nico was the only man I’ve ever had in my life who seemed stronger than I was. Besides my dad, of course. But my mother was always the stronger of the two when I think back.
But as far as lovers, there was nobody I felt I could turn everything over to like I did Nico.
Bobby was sweet and innocent. He was someone I felt like I had to protect. I never felt like I could turn to him for help with my deepest fears and concerns. But I loved that man more than anything. James, my badass cop boyfriend, was someone I could rely on. But he never really knew me. He didn’t want to accept that I’d killed people. I always had to keep a guard up around him. I always felt that if he knew what I was really like, he’d despise me. And even so, my history, my track record as a killer and vigilante, had ultimately driven us apart.
But when I met Nico, he loved me for who I truly was. He knew I’d killed. I knew he had, as well. We met as equals and accepted each other’s flaws and shortcomings.
And at the same time, I felt like he could protect me. He was stronger than I was. At first it made me uneasy. I was used to being the strong one, independent and on my own. But over the years, I got used to it.
He always treated me as an equal, but I didn’t have to always be on guard. I didn’t have to worry about everything quite so much. I knew that Nico was there to keep our family safe.
For the most part, we were safe, hiding in Barcelona, but there was that one time…
We’d managed to keep it from Rose.
She was still a pre-teen at the time.
We’d sent her to visit Eva so she didn’t suspect anything.
Django, the best dog in the world, was still alive.
He was the one who saved our lives.
Nico and I were out on the balcony having a drink. Rose was at a sleepover at her friend’s house. It was a rare night when we had the place to ourselves.
The living room of the Gothic Quarter apartment was lit with candles, and some narcocorrido music played softly on the stereo. Nico was singing along softly, and we were both laughing, feeling giggly and in love.
Despite the late hour, the streets of the quarter were still filled with people talking and laughing. Barcelona was such a vibrant city. At the time, I remember thinking that nobody could feel lonely living there. That was before I lost Nico.
We had our feet up on the balcony railing and were talking about some of our adventures in Mexico. How so many people had tried to kill us, and we’d thought we’d have to live in hiding forever, and yet, we’d been in Barcelona for years and lived a peaceful life.
Famous last words, right?
I went back into the apartment to grab some bottled waters for us when I heard and saw something that made my blood run cold.
Django, who had gone to bed early, bereft that Rose wasn’t there, was now standing in the doorway of her room. A low, deadly growl thrummed from his throat, and his fur was standing on end. He was facing our bedroom.
A dark form materialized just as I reached off to the side and plucked a poker out of the stand near the fireplace.
Everything happened at once and seemed to be in slow motion: The figure wore a creepy, skin tight outfit from head to toe. With the exception of the two eye holes, every inch of the person’s skin was covered in black. Whoever it was lunged for me. I screamed a bloody war cry as I braced myself for the attack. At the same time, Django erupted into a bone-shattering bark as he flew through the air, fangs bared.
The three of us made contact at the same time. Django clung to the figure’s rubber-clad leg. I managed to spear the left side, but only barely as the person had dodged my thrust and come down on my shoulder with some type of heavy rod that sent me to my knees, reeling in pain. The man howled and yanked the poker out, sending it flying. It landed a few feet away, clattering to the floor.
I scrambled to my feet and jabbed my right knee into his groin. The resulting grunt confirmed my theory that I was dealing with a man.
I’d hurt him, but he still managed to pummel my head a few times with his fists.
Reeling from the blows, I tried to remain focused on my own attack.
As soon as my right foot hit the ground, I lifted my left one and smacked my heel down on the man’s ankle.
Meanwhile, Django tore at the other leg, his teeth sunk in deep. The man turned his attention away from me and toward my dog and started to rain blows down on Django’s head to loosen the dog’s death grip.
By the time my heel came down on his foot, he’d managed to strike Django’s nose hard enough for my baby to yelp and pull away. That pissed me off.
I wound up for another attack when something struck me so hard I saw stars and began to fall backward. The last thing I remember was hearing Nico roaring in rage.
When I woke, I was still on the floor. Nico was holding me in his arms.
“Look at me,” he said. I did and he held a flashlight to my eyes.
“Hmm.”
“What?”
“I’m trying to decide if you are concussed.”
I shrugged and sat up.
“How do you feel?”
“I have a headache.”
He laughed. “I bet.”
“Was I out for long?”
“No, thank God,” he said. “A few seconds.”
“Where is he?”
“Gone,” Nico said. “It was chase him or check on you.”
“You should’ve chased him.”
He didn’t answer.
“Rose?”
“She’s fine. I texted her.”
“I think we should get her. Bring her back here. If someone is after us, they might know where she is.”
Nico sighed loudly. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“Let’s go.” I stood up.
I felt a little wobbly. Nico reached for my arm.
“I will go get her. You stay here.”
I swallowed. It had to be asked.
“How did that man get in here?”
Nico led me to our bedroom. There was a rope hanging outside.
“Holy fuck.”
He’d rappelled down from the roof. Into our bedroom window.
“He won’t be back tonight,” Nico said. He pointed to the ground. There was a large pool of blood there. That’s when I noticed a thick trail of blood from the hall where we had fought to this window. I leaned out. The rope fell all the way to the street below.
It sent a shudder down my spine.
Something about the man’s rubber suit and silence gave me the fucking creeps.
I went to find my phone and dialed Eva.
“I’m on my w
ay. I’ll bring Rose back here. We’ll call it a spontaneous vacation,” she said. “But don’t freak her out by grabbing her from her sleepover. I’ll have someone over to watch that house within the hour. You guys sit tight. Nico should stay with you.”
I agreed and hung up. Eva had connections everywhere. Rose would be safe until Eva arrived.
After, when Rose and Eva left for their “vacation,” Nico and I managed to track down the attacker.
He’d had to seek treatment for the stab wound from the poker. But he had left Barcelona to do so. I had to call on an old friend to track him down.
My pal Danny in San Francisco was a world-class hacker.
He managed to narrow down exactly which hospital a man had sought treatment for a stab wound to the left side. It was across town.
Once Danny had a name, he had an address. Then he had hacked into the man’s cell phone and texted us a current location—a house outside the city.
At first, Nico told me to wait at home. I just looked at him and laughed.
We waited until he went out for the night and snuck into his apartment.
When he returned, Nico was sitting there in the dark, smoking a cigarette.
“What the fuck?” the man said.
He reached for the gun in his waistband, but I was right behind him and held my own gun to his head. “Easy now, sailor.”
It took a few hours with him tied to a chair, but he eventually confessed that he’d been hired on the dark web by someone calling themselves AnthraxKing. Our guy was only the hit man hired to kill us. His plan was to regroup and come back for us using Rose as bait. When I heard that, I wanted to kill him. Immediately.
Nico persuaded me to wait.
We needed to find out who had hired him.
Danny helped us do that. It turned out to be one of Nico’s old enemies—a cartel boss in Mexico.
Rather than have him killed, which is what we both wanted to do, we decided to reach out to an old friend of Eva’s—Detective Jay Collins in the LAPD. We gave him the cartel boss’s location. He passed that on, and Nico’s nemesis ended up in an American prison.
At the last minute, Nico decided not to maim our would-be assassin.
“Gia, we don’t need another enemy out there,” he said. “If we cut off his hands…”—which had been my idea—“he’ll spend his entire life trying to get revenge.”
I reluctantly agreed.
Instead, we paid him off. It wasn’t how I usually did business, but it would work. I had more than my own well-being to consider. I had to think of Rose.
“And now you owe me,” I told him before we left. “I may call on you one day, and I expect you to respond.”
The man had nodded. He might have been a killer, but he was also apparently a man of honor.
Other than that one attack, Nico, Rose, and I lived a relatively quiet and peaceful life in Barcelona. Until the Alzheimer’s appeared. Before long, I had to be the one to take charge again. Now, being in charge was my life.
I wondered if that assassin would still keep his promise if I needed to call him.
11
Down on the patio, Conner stood and held up his glass. Everyone grew quiet. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but I could tell he was making a speech, probably a toast to Lucas.
He stopped speaking and the rest of them raised their glasses and they all drank
Suddenly, Hannah leaped up and ran away, swiping at her face with her palms.
I knew how much she hurt. I’d lost men I’d loved. Bobby. James. And now Nico.
I was so grateful for the love I’d shared with these three men.
But I knew better than to ever expect something like that again.
Deep down inside, I’d always known my destiny was to be a lone wolf.
I swallowed a lump in my throat thinking about this.
Pulling on a hoodie and baggy sweatpants over my underwear, I headed downstairs to look for Hannah.
I found her in a small sunroom off the main living room. She was sitting on a velvet love seat in the near dark, staring out the windows at nothing. I quickly stepped inside and closed the door behind me, then made my way to an armchair I could make out in the dim light streaming in the windows from the patio lights outside.
“I lost my boyfriend when I was about your age,” I said and paused. She didn’t say anything, but the sound of her sniffling had ceased. “He was the love of my life. But I didn’t realize that until the day he was taken from me.”
“Oh,” she said in an emotionless voice.
“He was the only guy I ever imagined having kids with. But he was murdered right after I told him I loved him,” I said and paused again.
I wondered if she would say something about the word “murdered,” but she remained silent.
“And the hardest part of all was that his murder was my fault.”
“What?” She said the word in a strangled voice. Guess that got her attention.
“The killer was trying to punish me.”
“Oh,” she said again, back to that flat monotone.
I sat there in the silence, willing her to say something, anything. It worked.
“Was he a good boyfriend?” she said in a stuffed-up voice.
“In what way?”
“Did he treat you good? Was he faithful? Did he flirt with your friends?”
Her voice was angry now. It was probably good that she was upset, but I wasn’t sure.
“Yes. Yes. No.”
She clamped her lips together.
“How about you answer those same questions for me,” I said.
“No. No. Yes.”
“Hmmm,” I said.
“Right?”
“So you have mixed feelings about his death,” I said. “You cared for him. But he wasn’t necessarily the best boyfriend for you.”
“Bingo.”
I was a little surprised by this harsh side of her. It was as if the insecure, shrinking woman I’d seen the night before was gone.
“That makes his loss even tougher.”
She burst into tears.
I threw my arms around her and let her sob into my embrace.
We both jumped at the sound of the door opening.
It was Conner.
“Sorry,” he said in a gruff voice. “Sabine was looking for you, Hannah.”
She jumped up. “Where is she?”
“In her bedroom.”
Then Hannah was gone.
I stood there and let out a loud sigh.
“This must be so hard on all of you,” I said.
He gave a wry grin. He had a whisky bottle in his hand. He took a slug of it and then handed it to me. I grabbed it and took my own long drink.
“Must suck for you to have all this fall into your lap.”
I shrugged. I opened my mouth to speak and then shut it again. I wanted to say, what else is fucking new? But I immediately realized that it would make it seem like his friend’s murder was my fault.
What I really wanted to know was who the fuck killed him? I had an idea but didn’t think it was possible. I thought about the conversation I’d overheard. Was Amanda really capable of murder or was it bluster?
Conner moved closer to me. His fingers lingered on mine as he took the bottle away. His head dipped, and his mouth, hot and urgent was on mine. His body pressed against me, and I responded without thinking. It had been a long, long time since I’d felt this way.
Thank God my cell phone rang right then. We both jumped.
It was Ryder.
“Just checking on you.”
“I’m fine,” I’m sure I sounded annoyed.
But I was partly relieved. I didn’t want to sleep with Conner. Not really.
Sabine walked in. She had on high heels and a bodycon white dress.
“We need to get out. Hannah needs to get out of this house. We’re all going into town. You guys want to come?”
I paused. Yes. I needed to get out of there. I needed so
me air.
“I’m in,” I said and walked past her. “Give me ten minutes to change.”
I heard Conner behind me. “Me, too.”
Downtown was hopping. The film festival kicked off the next day.
I’d nearly forgotten.
Conner, who had come with me in the Jeep, reminded me as we pulled into town behind the other vehicle with his friends in it. I sort of hated that he rode with me. It made it seem like we were a couple. Not interested.
After we parked, we walked along the promenade, scouting out clubs we might want to hit. I could have cared less, but Amanda said you couldn’t be seen at the wrong club in Cannes or it might mark you for life, especially if the paparazzi caught you there and immortalized it with a photograph.
I was too stunned to respond. How could she even think this way less than twenty-four hours after her friend was murdered? Conner took my arm. “Amanda will never change. When her brother died in a car crash in high school, she still went to prom that weekend. I think it’s how she protects herself. She turns her emotions on and off.”
“It’s pretty fucked up,” I said.
He didn’t respond.
Meanwhile, Hannah was decidedly not turning her emotions off. She trailed behind the group with tears streaming down her face. Sabine held her hand. That was a true friend. Not the unfeeling bitch she’d known since kindergarten. Again, I reminded myself it was none of my business.
We sat down at a sidewalk café for a quick drink “to fortify ourselves” as Owen put it. I was surprised that the three women sat together. I sat with Conner and Owen and Clint.
After a few minutes, two handsome dark-skinned men dressed in Armani and Gucci stopped at the girls’ table. The men leaned over and spoke in low voices. I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Sabine shook her head, but Amanda smiled brightly. Then she must’ve said something about us because the men stood up to full height again and took us in. Then the taller one, who had a goatee and wore sunglasses even though it was night, nodded.
Dark Shadows (Gia Santella Crime Thrillers Book 11) Page 7
