Gluttony

by Lana Pecherczyk

  He sheathed it, then slung it over his back and synced the sword to stick to his suit. While he did that, Parker eyed some magnetic grappling hook guns.

  Tony raised an eyebrow. There was only one thing they needed those for. Climbing tall buildings and roof hopping. Thinking the same thing, Parker’s lips curved on one side. He tossed Tony a mischievous look.

  “Did I mention the new wing-suit capabilities?”

  “Fuck off, you didn’t.”

  Parker glued his legs together, and pinned his arms to his side, and then asked AIMI to activate the wing suit. He threw his arms and legs wide in a star-jump. A fine webbing appeared between his legs, and between his body and arms.

  “You did!” Amazed, Tony crouched low and inspected the tensile fabric, poking it with a finger. “Where does it go when deactivated?”

  Parker pointed at the inner seams, almost invisible. “Similar mechanism to the flexible computer screen on the wrist. Slides in and out when needed. There’s a parachute between the shoulders. Automatically retracts after use.”

  “Shit, Parker.” Tony gawped. “If you weren’t using your big brain to help us come up with tech like this, you’d be making billions.”

  His brother deactivated the wing-suit and shrugged. “How do you think I finance our operation?”

  “True. Shall we go?”

  Excitement zipped up Tony’s spine. It had been a while since they’d had some fun… maybe they would catch a plant-monster while they were at it.

  Twenty-Six

  It was six p.m. by the time Bailey walked through the front door to Nightingale. Damien and Tomas were lounging at their desks, throwing paperclips at each other. They were most likely just finishing up from a day assignment or waiting to head off for a night gig. Or there was nothing on the roster. Max had been a little preoccupied lately.

  Bailey put her overnight bag on her desk. “What are you two doing here?”

  Tomas scratched his shaved head. “Max called a meeting. Didn’t you get the memo?”

  Max called a meeting without her?

  “No.”

  “Then why are you here?” Tomas’s gaze turned sharp. “I would have thought you’d still be at Mr. Perfect’s place getting jiggy with it.”

  Her two co-workers shared a knowing smirk.

  “Oh, shut it,” she snapped. “Yes, I’m dating Tony Lazarus. You probably saw it splashed all over the tabloids.”

  Tomas laughed. “Is there something in the water here? How many Lazaruses are left single?”

  “Dibs on Liza,” Damien laughed, scratching his beard in contemplation.

  “Who does that leave me with? Parker?” Tomas snorted. “I think I’m a bit little for him.”

  It was true, Tomas was under six foot. But what he lacked for in height, he made up for in speed and intimidation. Tattoos covered most of his body, and he had a way of looking at you that made you balk. He was an asset to the team.

  Bailey’s brows raised as high as they could go. “He’d crush you between his thighs like a walnut.”

  “Yeah. Hate to burst your bubble, mate, but as far as I know, he’s not gay.” Damien added, continuing with his tease.

  “That hair, man,” Tomas added. “I’m jealous.”

  Damien twisted on his chair to focus on Bailey. “If you’re not here for the meeting, then why are you here?”

  “I—” Damn. She didn’t know how much she could tell them about yesterday. She hated lying. “I lost my firearm. I need a new one.”

  Fortunately, Max entered from the street, saving her need to defend her rookie mistake. Losing your firearm was a big no-no.

  Max’s perceptive brown eyes landed on her, skipped over her uniform, and narrowed. “I thought you wouldn’t be in for a few days.”

  “I need something to do.”

  “And what does Tony think about that?”

  “He doesn’t control me.”

  “You know what I mean.” Max slid his jacket off. “After our conversation with the family last night, I don’t think it’s safe for you to be out on jobs. You’re a target now.”

  Aw, hell no. She was not going to lock herself away like a princess in a tower.

  “You’re a target too,” she pointed out. “Does that mean you’re going to take a back seat on jobs?”

  A loud masculine clearing of the throat brought both their attentions to where Damien and Tomas glared with shrewd eyes that missed nothing.

  Tomas’s features slackened. “What aren’t you two telling us?”

  Damien added to the tension with his own flat lips and clenched jaw. He folded his immense arms and lifted his brows. “What’s going on?”

  Max sighed and walked over to their desks. His was at a quarter angle to theirs. He placed his jacket on the back of the wheelie chair and then braced himself on the desk, two hands flexing on the laminate. After a deep exhale, he shot Bailey a glance. “I just came from speaking with Parker. Since they’re low on resources, and two of us know already and are trusted, they want the rest of the team to come on board.”

  “Do you think that’s wise? I mean, they’re not protected by another identity.” She tapped her finger on her lip. “I suppose you and I aren’t either.”

  “Exactly why Parker’s considering expanding.”

  “Ah-hum.” Tomas once again cleared his throat.

  “Yeah, dudes. We’re still here,” Damien added.

  “Sorry.” Max gestured for Bailey to stand next to him, then he turned to his crew and said, “The Lazarus family are the Deadly Seven.”

  Tomas and Damien stared blankly, blinking. After a full thirty seconds, they shared a confused glance, and then Damien said, “We know.”

  “You know?” Max frowned.

  “Yeah, well, it was a bit obvious.” Tomas pushed back on his chair to wheel across the floor. He stopped at the bar fridge near the games area, retrieved a can of beer, and rolled back. “About time you admitted it.”

  “How long have you known?” Bailey asked.

  Damien glared at Tomas for not bringing him a beer, then waved offhandedly at Max. “Since you were kidnapped.”

  Tomas snorted incredulously. “I mean, come on, mate. You were rescued by a bunch of bloody hooded ninjas. The one who carried you, and who had the genius tech-mind needed to hack the bomb, was a woman. It didn’t take us long to work out which woman you know, who’s good with computers, and has a bunch of built siblings, who needed bodyguards for their partners, was.”

  Max ran a hand down his face in a trying way.

  “Hold up.” Bailey placed her hands on her hips. “Do you mean to tell me that everyone in this team knew for the past two months and no one had the decency to tell me? Even when I was so worked up with the Lazarus family for keeping secrets?”

  Damien unfolded his big body out of his office chair, collected his own beer from the bar fridge, and returned with a lift of his shoulder. “We assumed you already knew because of your Spook-shit, and you were using your powers of misdirection to throw us off the scent. Don’t you guys know everything?”

  “How many times do I have to tell you all, I don’t work there anymore? I don’t speak with anyone from there.”

  “Actually, you’ve never told us that. You’re very secretive.” Tomas raised his can, pointing at her.

  That was hard to argue with.

  “There’s more you should know.” Max headed toward the bar fridge. “May as well get comfortable and grab a brewski. You want one Bailey?”

  She shook her head. Still not quite confident to go there.

  “Let’s sit in the games room,” Max added. “This is going to take a while.”

  Next to a pool table, there were two leather couches. They angled toward a big flat screen hooked up to a gaming console. Two of them sat on each couch.

  Max cracked his beer. “It’s time to tell you everything.”

  By the time Max had finished explaining the Syndicate, the experiments that created the Seven, thei
r reasons for needing a balanced mate, and the new replicate clones the Syndicate made today, it had been two hours. Tomas and Damien took it all in stride and were grateful to finally understand the context: they were needed to provide security to the wives and girlfriends of the family. They knew now where the danger lie, and that a war was on the horizon. Nobody wanted that.

  Max left them with a decision to make. Things had changed since he’d ask them to travel across oceans to start a private security firm. It was up to them if they wanted to stay and join the new fight or leave and find something else to do. Both had agreed almost immediately that they weren’t going anywhere. They were with Max all the way.

  Bailey left them not long after ten. It took them a while to decide that even though she was a Lazarus WAG, she’d be okay protecting herself because she had plenty of experience. Tony may beg to differ later, but Bailey would deal with that then. She said goodbye to her crew and stepped outside. Lazarus House was just across the street.

  She’d promised to be back when Tony finished patrolling and didn’t expect that to be for some time, but weariness dragged her down. Tony’s big bed called to her, and she wouldn’t mind taking a nice long hot bath. On second thought, maybe a shower. Bathing on her own in a tub was still giving her the heebie-jeebies. She’d tackle that fear again when Tony was there. He made everything seem less daunting.

  Hoisting her overnight bag over her shoulder, she smiled to herself. Returning to Tony, to the comfort of his arms was something to look forward to. Ready to cross the street, she stopped when a familiar voice called her name.

  “Bailey Haze, is that you?”

  Bailey turned and lowered her bag with a sense of dread. The man standing five feet away was someone she’d hoped to never see again.

  Tall, dark-skinned and sophisticated, Iman Campbell was a CIA operative perfect for undercover work in the Middle East. He knew three Saudi dialects, not only to understand, but to speak them fluently. She almost didn’t recognize him without his long beard, but the distinguishable scar over his eyebrow was hard to miss. And those dark eyes and long lashes… she’d once drowned in them.

  “It’s been too long.” He leaned in to brush his lips over hers, as though they’d never ended their relationship.

  She stiffened but tried not to make a scene. Iman was always quick to rile. It was better to ignore it, give him what he wanted, and move on.

  She smiled. “I didn’t know you were in town.” Translation: What the hell are you doing in my city?

  He switched to French. “J’ai besoin de te parler.”

  Crap. He wanted to talk with her. The language shift obviously meant he was on agency time, and he didn’t want anyone to overhear them. She glanced through the glass doors of Nightingale to where Damien and Tom-Tom continued to talk with each other. Now? “Maintenant?”

  “Oui.”

  She gave a curt nod. She supposed even if she was done with the agency, this could be a blessing in disguise. Perhaps she could use her personal history with the man to garner some inside information about whether the Deadly Seven or the Syndicate were on their radar.

  The moment she thought it, she realized they already knew. That’s why Iman was here.

  He gave her a disarming smile, picked up her bag with one hand, and placed his other at the small of her back. Body language was clear: She didn’t have a choice, anyway.

  Twenty-Seven

  Tony inhaled the night air, closed his eyes and crouched low on the top of the Lazarus House roof. Above him the starry sky provided both the cover and the light for their shadow activities. Below, the always noisy city street gave him a soundtrack. The rev of cars, the angry shout of a pedestrian clashing with a cyclist, the distant siren of an ambulance.

  “Music to my ears,” Parker mumbled beside him, scarf and hood down like Tony.

  Tony grunted in amusement.

  In the dark, the gray of their suits made them virtually invisible to the naked eye. Lazarus House with only a dozen floors wasn’t the tallest building in the neighborhood, but it was their building and made for an excellent starting point. From their radius, the architecture grew from brick historical to slick and tall. Tony edged closer to the rim of the building and looked down. A whoosh of air rushed to greet his face, and he inhaled again, savoring the feeling of coming home. Or it could be the garlic from the restaurant that watered his tongue. Hungry already.

  Heaven’s patrons left the establishment with full bellies, while Hell’s anorexic and jewel encrusted desperados lined the sidewalk, milling like bugs. Across the street, the Nightingale Securities building squatted between two taller buildings. The city council trees looked like cheerleader pom-poms. The people walking under the street lights had no clue they were being watched.

  Tony could crouch there for hours just watching the world go by, studying the unguarded actions of people. His gaze shifted to movement in front of Nightingale, and he tensed, eyes narrowing.

  “Is that Bailey?” Parker mumbled, catching the same thing.

  “She’s meant to be home,” Tony grumbled. He went to lift his hood to bring the internal speaker close to his ear, intending to ask AIMI to give her a message but then stilled. “Who the hell is that?”

  A handsome stranger dressed in a slick designer suit kissed her on the mouth. A low growl rumbled from the base of Tony’s throat. He could do nothing but watch as the bastard put a proprietary hand on Bailey’s lower back. Tony stared as the stranger picked up her bag as though he had the right to care for her, and then he took her away. And Bailey let him. What was she thinking? She didn’t appear coerced or uncomfortable. She looked social, chummy, intimate. Anger bubbled in his blood. What the fuck?

  He stood swiftly, tugged his scarf up and lifted his hood, then he light-footed across the roof, trailing her. His eyes never left the couple still so connected, their bodies touching as they walked.

  “Tony,” Parker warned. “Leave her.”

  Prickles attacked his neck. He shook his head. No fucking way.

  Tony leaped silently from his roof to the next building, firing the grappling hook mid flight. It connected with the brickwork, a dozen levels up and then retracted, pulling Tony’s weight high on the lead. He zipped passed residential windows, catching glimpses of families at their couches, faces flickering with light reflected from television screens. Like a ghost, he kept going. Cresting the top, he detached the grappling hook and scooted to the ledge of the flat roof, one eye on the street below, tracking Bailey.

  Two more building hops, and fifty floors up, he almost lost sight of her with the distance making her small, but he couldn’t risk sticking to the side of the building. That’s when people saw you. With his lungs halting, he watched as his mate stopped at a black shiny sedan. She spoke with the man briefly and then she got into the car.

  Friend, lover, colleague... all?

  The implications whirled in his mind. Tony’s breath heated against his face-scarf and dragged into his lungs. His heart pounded in his chest. City sounds morphed into a roaring crescendo, as cold as the air buffeting his face. He froze, limbs locked, as the car drove away, taking with it his rock-solid faith in his woman.

  Parker, having come up next to him, stood stoically now that it was clear Tony didn’t intend to continue following her. He couldn’t track her without her cell phone, and he’d seen enough.

  “I’m sure she has a good reason. He’s probably just a friend,” Parker suggested.

  Bailey had no friends except for the Nightingale team. That man had kissed her like an old lover.

  Parker must have caught the twitch in Tony’s eye because when their gazes clashed over their scarfs, his brother’s eyes crinkled around the edges, and he said, “You need to bring the pain?”

  Tony gave a sharp nod. Hell yeah.

  Parker responded with a sweep of the city horizon. “Which way?”

  Focusing inward on his sixth sense, he zoned in on the direction with the strongest concentration of
sin—the south. Whether that was the creature, or some poor bastard who’d beat on his wife because she’d told him he’d had enough for one night. There were a few things people got wrong about lust and gluttony. Lust was when you wanted the person, before you had them. Gluttony was when you couldn’t stop. For too long the citizens of Cardinal City had been serving up deadly amounts of gluttony, with no recompense for their actions. He flexed his fists, feeling the heat respond to his mood.

  “AIMI,” he said. “Activate wing suit.”

  And then he jumped.

  Wind rushed his face, his stomach dropped as the ground rose up to meet him, and then he spread his wings and flew.

  Twenty-Eight

  Bailey woke in Tony’s bed to complete darkness. But something was off. There was a feeling, an intuition riding her system. It was more than the echo of a disturbing dream, or the sense of being out of her comfort zone. Movement at the window drew her attention, and she went on high alert.

  Curtains billowed when the window should have been shut. She was yet to replace her firearm, and she had no weapon, so picked up the closed hardcover copy of her crossword omnibus and gripped it at the ready. Her vision strained in the dark.

  “Tony?” she hissed. “Is that you?”

  No answer. The air rippled to her right, lifting the hairs on her arms. She spun around.

  The looming shadow of a broad-shouldered man was five feet from her bed, resting against the wall, watching her. For a moment, she tensed, ready to hurl the book, but then a bright luminescent blue glittered in his eyes, and she exhaled.

  “Christ, boy. You scared me. What are you doing creeping around in here?” She put the book down, but Tony didn’t move.

  And then she noticed the other things. Blood spatter on his gray uniform, on his clenched fists. The fabric of his face mask sucking in and out at his mouth, his chest heaving and his muscles trembling as though he’d run a marathon—or been in a fight. He blinked, and the blue light winked out, but she felt him, still watching her.