by Angel Payne
“I began picking up on her frequency while we were watching Reece and Kane’s confrontation on that rooftop.” A few emerald glints appear in her gaze as she shakes her head, betraying her perplexity about the declaration. “And oui; I definitely knew it was her.” As she closes her eyes, her forehead crinkles. “Such focused fury but joined with cold disdain. So very cold…”
“Like Reece was,” I supply. “Just before—” And redistribute my weight back to both feet, as if that’s going to bash back the memories from invading again. “Right before he was…gone,” I mutter. “That was how I knew…” A hard swallow. A slow head shake. “He’s never cold. But suddenly it was as if he were forced into a freezer.”
Angie emits a soft hum. “That makes sense. She used to never be cold either.”
“Who?” I don’t hide my glower. “You mean the ice queen on high?” And why the hell is she suddenly affording Faline even half a tone of friendliness?
“I mean Faline Nicole Garand, the girl I knew back in Catholic high school.”
“You went to Catholic school?” Bugged eyes don’t feel like enough of a reaction, but they’ll have to do. “With her?”
“Only for the final two years,” she explains. “She transferred in from Spain, where she mostly grew up after her parents divorced. That is why you hear her native language as mostly Spanish.”
“Were you friends?”
She purses her lips. “Not especially.” Then seesaws her head as a stand-in move for a gawky shrug. “I was shy, skinny, awkward. Faline was certainly not.”
Under different circumstances, I’d laugh. Though the woman does the Catherine Deneuve airs better than anyone I know, it’s clear she’s learned them recently. The vulnerability beneath her finesse makes the high school stories easy to believe—but stranger to vocalize my next point. “And yet, several years later, you readily signed on for recruitment duty with her and the Consortium.”
“I did.” Her willingness to admit it, so openly and humbly, is both satisfying and strange to observe. “But I was penniless and gullible, and by that time, Faline had learned how to work both to her advantage, dazzling me with tales of what the Consortium was doing to elevate ‘chosen’ members of the human race.”
“And you wanted to be one of the chosen ones.”
“Oui.” She pushes off the wall and starts a slow pace along the glass, gazing out at the summer sunshine as if every ray holds a shadowed memory—because it likely does. “For once in my life, I wanted to be one of the beautiful ones. But by the time I realized how huge a trap Faline had set, it was too late. At first, I was bound by financial obligations to the Consortium. They not only resolved my debts but paid for a life of luxury I had never known—as long as I repaid their investment with interest, of course. Once those debts were paid, I’d begun falling in love with Dario and would never think of leaving him in that place by himself.” Her shoulders jolt up, and she rocks her head back as if the reflected sunlight has become stabs of lightning. “Perhaps…they knew that somehow. Even back then…”
“I wouldn’t put it past Faline.” I sniff. “She might have known and then simply waited for the best moment to use it against you.”
She turns back, lifting one hand against the glass wall with enough pressure to form defined prints. “I would not put it past her, either.”
The snarl beneath her voice has me regarding the woman with distinctly new eyes. “You really do hate her as much as we all do.”
The woman doesn’t move a muscle. “Oui.”
“And you’ve hated her for a long damn time now. Even on that night when you and I first met…when you came into the Brocade and deliberately baited me about having been out with Reece earlier that night…”
Still not a single flinch. Until she finally confesses, “That week…I was not in my right mind. Faline promised me half the world if I helped her get Reece back. She was desperate and dangled the brightest rewards to gain my cooperation.” She blinks a few times. “And I just wanted to be done with all the dirty missions…”
As she tilts her head, seemingly to soothe her guilt, curiosity drives me to copy the action. “I don’t get it, though. That woman’s obsession with Reece…” I squirm from just having to voice it aloud for the first time, admitting that I’m hoping Angie will echo my puzzlement. I want to think Faline’s fixation is just a weird Svengalian thing, or perhaps an issue of pride because he escaped in the first place. But deep down, I sense it’s not. I sense it’s more. And damn it, that’s exactly what every terse line across her face confirms as well.
“Well.” Angie pulls her arms around herself, rubbing opposite shoulders. “It is most definitely an obsession.” She tips her head back the other way. “As I clearly learned when I failed the mission.”
As I fill in the inevitable, and awful, conclusion to that, it’s hard to keep looking at her—but with matching certainty, I know that Angie isn’t dredging this all up to throw it back in my face. It’s written across her face when she circles her regard back to me, her gaze glittering and her chest pumping.
“I have performed so many hideous tasks for that woman, Emma—and I am deeply sorry for all of them,” she grits out. “But right now, I am resolved to make her sorry for them too.” She drops her arms—with her hands already fisted. “More importantly, I am going to make her pay for them.”
Though I’m tempted to stumble backward, as if her declaration should make me reel, I’m not sure why. “Errrmm…excuse the freak out of me?” I face her fully, planting my feet wide with my arms at my sides. Fleetingly, I imagine Reece taking in my ready-for-anything superhero pose and then chuckling beneath his breath while ordering my clothes off with his eyes. Arrogant bastard. Beautiful soulmate. Live for my light, Reece. Hang on for me. Please hang on…
Angie indulges half a smile at my astonishment but only gives herself that one moment before going on. “I think I know where she is, Emma.”
And I reel. Oh, God…I knew it. “And it is a little closer than Barcelona?”
“Absolutement.” She squares her shoulders beneath her trendy pink blouse, wearing the frothy fabric as if it’s become battle leather. “Yesterday, as Reece and Kane were fighting, I heard her as loud as one of those helicopters circling the city.” Her confidence becomes a discernible vibe on the air. “It was her, Emmalina. I know it.”
“How?” I shake my head. “I mean, I’m not doubting that you heard something, but—”
“It sounded like a cat in heat crossed with a chainsaw.”
So much for the last drops of my skepticism. “Okay, so maybe it was her.”
“She was loud this time.” She fortifies her stance even more, banishing the last of the tears from her gaze. “And strong.” The tears vanish from her gaze, becoming the brilliant greens of Mademoiselle La Salle, world class femme fatale. “She was close, Emma—if I must be honest, closer than I wanted to admit at first.” The rest of her classic features align with the new sobriety in her stare. “But in this game, with these bastards, denial can bring disaster.”
I should probably borrow a good chunk of the woman’s gravity, but I’m too damn excited for the emo rock channel right now. I go straight for the stunned-but-excited gawk before charging, “Where? Can you home in the Angie Antenna to a more specific location than all of downtown?” Which is, according to the news updates scrolling on the muted TV I passed in the living room, still just a few red tags shy of a war zone—though to get my hands on Faline Garand, I’m more than ready for the risk.
Which is why I allow myself half a breath of relief as soon as Angie scoops her chin a little higher and gives in to half a grin. “I believe I can be very specific.”
“Okay…” I extend the second syllable, all but turning it into a full question.
Luckily, Angie doesn’t waste any more time on being coy. “Rancho Palos Verdes,” she declares.
“RPV.” I rock back on one foot while fully contemplating the answer. “Where the Consortium u
sed to own a mansion…”
“In my name,” she fills in quickly. “Though it was, according to them, sold off a long time ago.”
“But you don’t know that for certain?” I press. “And how is that even possible?” Something about her somber reaction cranks the severity of mine. “If the deed was in your name, you had to sign the sale papers. They couldn’t have just…forged…” But I stammer to a halt from the second she jumps her eyebrows. “Oh, shit. They certainly could have.”
Though she hitches a casual shrug, the serious layer of her demeanor persists—to the point that I give in to a bugged stare while she takes a second before disclosing, “They waited for a while to tell me about the sale to my face.” Another casual-not-casual shrug. “It was the moment before they informed me about having killed Dario, as well. It was all very well calculated, I am sure. Their aim was clear, after all. To prove, at the best moment possible, that they could do whatever they wanted with my existence and get away with it.”
As I release a long breath, I let my shoulders sag by an inch. “No wonder you want to kill that woman.”
Her lips are back to their tense line. “Now more than ever.”
“And you need my help to do it.”
“Now more than ever.”
“And you’re that certain I will?”
She quirks one corner of the scowl. “I am certain you would kill me if I did not ask.”
I feel myself returning the look, despite how I fight not to. Damn it, I shouldn’t be admitting that she’s right—but she is, and overwhelmingly so. She hasn’t just asked for a risk-taking favor. She’s given me an enormous gift. The sooner I admit it, the sooner I can deal with the thrill rushing my blood—on top of the guilt clutching my heart. This isn’t the sanest of plans—if Reece were close to conscious, he’d be hauling out the handcuffs from under the mattress for every reason but the fun ones—but holy shit, how many of his adventures broke the mold on crazy, electric blood or not? Nobody willingly wants to face street criminals, speeding cars, jet turbines, cartel armies, city-destroying hulks, and an induced coma, only to be rewarded for it all with their father’s betrayal and their brother’s death.
Who’s ever going to be the hero for him? And when?
My pulse speeds faster as my heart and soul scream with the answer.
It’s going to be me. And it’s going to be now.
The moment’s been handed down by fate. Though it’s had to get here because he’s lying in a coma, fighting for his sanity, I refuse to ignore the opportunity. The chance to take down the monstress at the center of so many of his nightmares. To send Faline to the hell she deserves and being there to tell her the trip is courtesy of Reece Richards’s woman. Who will always, always be there to put down scum like her on his behalf.
With that purpose straightening my stance, I meet Angie’s gaze with determination of my own. “Guess we don’t need to review how boldly I just signed on that dotted line,” I state. “But what happens if we get to that mansion and it really has been sold to someone else? Or she’s simply not there?”
She’s nodding practically before I’m done asking. “There is a way we can check. I am just not quite certain how possible…”
“Well, you’ve got to lay it on me first, lady.” I issue it while moving past her and leading the way back out into the kitchen. If we’re going to storm the evil witch’s castle, we’re going to need protein bars and water bottles. Last time I checked, neither of us was a real superhero. “You’d be amazed what a hotel front desk staff has to define as the realm of ‘possible.’”
Angelique braces a hand to the front of the refrigerator much like she just did to the atrium’s window. After an equally fortifying inhalation, she states, “The Consortium installed an elaborate backup security camera system in the mansion. It was completely undetectable to anyone in the house who did not know about it because all of the controls were virtual. The lenses were state-of-the-art, disguised as things like vent screws and switch-plate covers…”
“So they’re probably still in there and functioning?” I prompt.
“Oui.”
“You’d have to find a way to get back in and remotely access them.”
“If you mean completely hacking the system, since I have likely been removed from the users list by now, then oui.”
“Hmmm.” Though what I really mean is ugh. Because unless either of our names have been changed to Neo and we’ve been plugged into a giant intelligence-sharing device called the Matrix, I doubt either of us will suddenly become an expert security network hacker just because we stick our finger in the port and wish for it.
“Guess my timing on retrieving a team snack couldn’t have been better.”
Angie and I whip around together, nearly bonking heads, to face the source of that startling interjection—a face with a shit-eating grin we should know all too well by now but doesn’t fail to smack us both with visible surprise. Perhaps it’s because we both don’t want to admit what we already know: the truth that’s plastered plainly across Wade’s self-sure face.
Mr. Tavish has overheard every word we’ve said.
“So.” And he doesn’t hesitate to clarify it to us, even in the space of one audacious syllable. “Sounds like you ladies are in need of a tech wizard.”
I rush out a breath, returning his frank assessment. “We might be.” And I’m unwilling to commit to more than that yet…
“In order to track down the bitch who’s responsible for our squad’s misery.”
…because of exactly that.
“Wade.” I slide a hand atop the counter, guided by some strange sense that the CEO pose will lend me the same air, even in my rumpled sleep shorts and tank top. “Look, I totally value your loyalty—”
“And you clearly need my help.”
Angelique scoots forward, dipping her head to pierce a pointed stare at me. “Yes.” She squints as if I really have turned into a stuffy CEO. “We clearly need his help.”
I shoot back a narrowed glower at her. “And in return, he’s going to demand we take him along to the mansion.”
She gives me a fresh shrug. The girl is damn fond of doling them out today, along with their matching whiplash moments—gee, like this one. “And just how do we have an issue with that?”
“Says the person in the room who is thinking?” Wade quips.
“And one of the people in this room who won’t be missed right away in that room?” I jerk my head the direction of the lab. “If Angie or I don’t show up for a few hours, everyone will think we’ve gone down for naps.” I spin back to face Wade. “But unless you can convince them all that you’re going to Arizona for a snack run…”
He tenses his jaw beneath his ginger stubble—for about two seconds. “Pfffttt.” Then proves there must have been an Amazon Prime deal on shrugs I somehow missed. “I’ll think of something. One of us is always breaking away to brainstorm. When I do, I play Shadow of Mordor, and they refuse to join me.”
“And they will actually believe you would play that for several hours?” Angelique winces. “When you have Breath of the Wild and Persona 5 sitting nearby?”
Wade blink-blinks at her. Then strips off his Nerf This T-shirt, balls it in his hands, and drops to the floor at her feet, wiping the toes of her ankle boots with it. “I’ve reached nirvana—and you are the goddess at its center.”
“Wade!” The shock beneath my exclamation is eased a little by the matching look on Angie’s face—until the guy rises, tempting us to succumb to full coronaries. “Wade!”
He jogs a perplexed glance between us. “What?”
“You…you have abs.”
“And biceps,” Angelique stammers. “And triceps. And”—her jaw drops as Wade pivots, giving us both an eyeful of how well his jeans fit him in certain areas better than others—“oh, merde.”
The guy ticks up one side of his mouth, looking for all the world like the July dude for the Geeks with Guns calendar. “Hey, exercise is
good for brain cells.”
“Sure. Brain cells.” Angie murmurs, letting her head lope over to eyeball my friend’s ass like the shameless Frenchwoman she is. I’d give the moment a full giggle if my mental capacity wasn’t so focused on more vital things.
Accessing the mansion’s security cameras.
Confirming the Consortium—more specifically, their psychotic bitch of a leader—are still playing house inside that place.
And as soon as we’ve done that…
The field trip to RPV is on.
We’re so close. She’s so close.
And we’re just a few minutes away from being able to do something about it.
No point in even attempting to hide my anticipation about this convergence—a fact I expect Wade to take instant and full advantage of.
“So it’s settled? We’re a tag team on this one?”
Yyyyep. He’s right on time.
Angelique responds by assessing him again—completely north of the waistline this time. “Like the Three Musketeers then, oui?”
Wade is fast with his huff-smirk. “Or the Powerpuff Girls.”
“Oh, my God,” I mutter.
“The who?” Angie queries.
Wade winks my way. “I’ll even let you be Bubbles.”
“The what?” Angie demands.
“You can be Bubbles.” I glower at Wade while turning and making my way back down the hall toward the office. “Provided you get us into that security cam system and we confirm that Faline is still orchestrating her fuckery from that place.”
“Give me ten minutes,” he ripostes from two steps behind me.
“You have five.”
I use the three hundred seconds well: to race up to the bedroom, strip out of my pajamas faster than a pop starlet in a costume change, and then hurry into the custom black battle camos Alex designed and ordered three months ago, when Wade and Fersh suggested I have a set ready for an occasion just like this. As soon as that’s done, I punch a button to reveal our hidden bedroom safe and reach in for the sleek silver Glock that Reece bought me for Valentine’s Day. Right now, it means more to me than the diamond tennis bracelet that followed it.
