My boss’s voice pulled me out of hiding. “You ready to make that call, or do you need a minute?”
Matter-of-fact. To the point. Unlike Zorah and Len, I had no clue what Leonides thought about the exchange he’d just witnessed.
“Yeah, no,” I said, fumbling for my phone and powering it up. “I’m good, thanks.”
The battery was down to sixteen percent, but it would be enough for what I needed. I scrolled down to Malinda’s number and called it, confident that she’d be up and about by now.
She answered on the fourth ring. “Hello?”
“Hi, Malinda, it’s Vonnie. Sorry to bother you so early, but I need a huge favor.”
The pause on the other end held an air of caution, and I couldn’t blame her for it. “What kind of favor, Vonnie?”
“I need you to let Jace come down and stay with you for a while,” I said without preamble. “Not sure how long yet, but a couple of weeks, at least.”
Another pause. “But... isn’t he in school?”
I sighed. “Yes. He is. I’ll talk to the principal and try to get his assignments so I can send them on. This is... kind of an emergency, Malinda.”
“What did Richard do?” The question sounded resigned.
I wasn’t about to give her details of what had happened last night, but I didn’t want to sugarcoat it, either. “More of the same, basically. Money troubles. Only... his decision-making skills about it were worse than usual this time.”
I heard a dry swallow from the other end of the line. “How much?”
“Honestly, that part isn’t important. I just don’t want Jace here until we get it taken care of, you know? I’m on it, Malinda—I promise. We’re just... being cautious.”
“When can you get him here?” Malinda asked, and my shoulders sagged in relief.
“I’ve got a list of possible arrival times at El Paso International,” I told her, gesturing for the laptop. “Just tell me which works best for you, and that’s what we’ll do.”
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY MINUTES later, we had the details hammered out. I ended the call with a feeling of relief, confident that Jace, at least, would be safe in the coming days.
“I can’t help noticing that the goon’s car is missing,” I said, pulling back the living room curtain to check the driveway.
“Rans took it last night when he went to babysit your apartment,” Zorah explained. “We didn’t think Len would really appreciate having a dead Russian mafia guy’s car parked in front of the house overnight. He’ll have cleaned it up so there’s no evidence and ditched it somewhere it won’t be found anytime soon.”
On the one hand, it was sobering that this almost seemed to be a normal day for them. On the other hand, they might be the ones with the mad criminal skills, but I was the one who’d somehow ended up tangling with the Russian mob. So, I probably didn’t have much ground to stand on, here.
“Okay, cool,” I said. “So... um... how are we getting to my apartment, and the airport? Bus?”
For some reason, I had a really hard time picturing Leonides flashing a bus pass. Apparently, so did he.
“I’ll go back to the club and borrow something appropriate,” he said.
“His car is tiny,” Zorah confided. “One of those cute little BMW convertibles.”
“A Z4 is not cute, Zorah,” he said, and for the first time, I could kind of see the grandfather-granddaughter thing. “It’s a sports car.”
She rolled her eyes, putting a hand up to block his view and mouthing it’s adorable at me. Something about the exchange leached a bit more of the tension from my shoulders. Despite appearances, maybe this was all going to be okay somehow?
Jace wandered back into the kitchen, yawning widely.
“Is it time to leave yet?” he asked, making it clear that Leonides’ hypnotic influence hadn’t faded. I’d have to remember to ask if it would wane over time, so I could warn Malinda if he’d be likely to raise a fuss at some point.
“Almost,” Leonides said. “The flight leaves at one-fifteen p.m. I’ll go get us a car. Zorah? Stay here and keep an eye on things, will you?”
She smiled. “Guard duty it is.”
After he left, I headed for the kitchen while Jace settled on the dilapidated sofa to watch TV. Deciding that woman could not live on coffee alone—and a woman’s teenager definitely couldn’t—I raided Len’s cupboards and silently vowed to pay him back for it later.
Zorah perched on a stool as I rummaged, eventually coming up with... a box of Pop-Tarts.
I stared at it for a long moment. “Oh my god, seriously? What’s wrong with this picture?” Looking up from the box, I met Zorah’s gaze.
She pursed her lips to hide a smile. “What’s that old saying?” Amusement threaded through the words. “The cobbler’s children have no shoes? I think Len’s a lot better at cooking for other people than he is for himself.”
I shook my head in amazement. Len had designed and implemented an upscale tapas menu at a high-end nightclub. He ran a commercial kitchen with multiple line cooks, for god’s sake. Yet he chose to survive on microwave popcorn and toaster pastries at home?
“I will never, ever let him live this down in a million years,” I said, falling into the old, familiar pattern of banter with Zorah—almost as though the last several months had never happened.
She laughed, and I felt lighter than I had in a long time. It was ridiculous—I still had a dangerous mob figure breathing down my neck. I worked at a club that had been closed down for money-laundering investigations, and god only knew what was going on with the Fae bastard who’d taken an unhealthy interest in me. Not to mention the fact that I’d basically just poured gasoline all over my co-parenting relationship with Richard and set a match to it.
At this point, however—I’d take it.
“So,” I began, falling into the welcome distraction of gossip and girl talk as cartoons blared from the television in the living room. “Looks like you weren’t kidding. Your hot British guy is definitely both British and hot—and I’d say that even if he hadn’t saved me from multiple bullet wounds yesterday. You two look happy together. Are you happy?”
Her expression softened. “He has a bit of a ‘saving people’ thing, I think—though he’d never admit it aloud. And yes, I’m happy. I’d like to think he is, too. There’s... a lot to unpack in my life these days. I lost Dad a few months ago. Though I guess you could argue I lost him a long time ago. Our relationship was never... good.”
I set the box of Pop-Tarts down. “I’m so sorry, Zorah. I had no idea.” Geez—there was so much I had no idea about, when it came to the lives of the people around me.
Her expression was sad, but at peace. “Not a lot of people do. And I guess there’s some karma in the fact that I lost a father, but found a grandfather.” She gave me a meaningful look. “He really likes you, by the way. Anything going on there that I should know about?”
I stared at her, my breakfast-making plans completely forgotten. “Uhh... what would make you say that? No offense, since I know he’s your family—but the man has roughly the same emotional range as a brick wall.”
She snorted softly. “Yeah, well, you didn’t see him when we got to your apartment and found you’d been taken. When he saw your necklace on the floor, I thought he was going to put a fist through the wall.”
It took me a moment to wrap my brain around that image, and even then I was skeptical. A few moments later, I wrestled the idea into a shape that I was prepared to deal with.
“Well, I guess he takes it kind of personally when someone goes after one of his strays,” I said lightly.
“Mm-hmm,” Zorah replied, in a tone that conveyed deep skepticism. “Sure, that must be it.”
I turned to the toaster and popped a couple of pastries in. If she was rolling her eyes at me behind my back, I didn’t want to know about it.
“Look,” Zorah continued. “He’s not exactly an easy person to get to know. Believe me, I g
et it. But... there are reasons why he’s a bit closed off. It’s not my story to tell... but it’s probably a story that needs to be told. I’m just saying—you might ask him sometime.”
I regarded her with my eyebrows drawn together in a confused frown. “Just to be clear—are you trying to set me up with your grandfather? Because it kind of sounds like you’re trying to set me up with your grandfather. Who, I might add, is also a vampire. I hope I don’t actually need to point out how weird that is.”
Because I definitely knew how weird it was that a flutter of unaccustomed warmth had kindled in my chest as I pictured my reserved boss losing his shit over the idea of me being in danger. I shook my head sharply. If he had been upset, it was no different to him being upset over Kat’s stalker ex coming for her with a knife, or over Len getting hurt.
He was my boss, damn it.
“Yeah... he’s not really that kind of grandfather,” Zorah said. “Aside from the whole supernatural lifespan thing messing with how I view people’s age these days, he’d only my granddad in the technical sense. The demon who got my grandmother pregnant stole his DNA in order to do so. Demons can’t reproduce without using humans as an intermediary, and he was just he unlucky victim in this case.”
“Oh,” I said uncertainly, still struggling with this aspect of Zorah’s alleged background. “Um... okay?”
“Honestly,” she continued, “I still think of him more as Rans’ friend, and I only found out he was related to me later. So if it helps, it’s more like I’m trying to set you up with my boyfriend’s longtime buddy.”
I gave her a flat stare. “But you are trying to set me up. With a vampire.”
She shrugged and flashed me a sunny smile. “Once you go undead, you never go back. Seriously, Von—the sex is phenomenal.”
The toaster popped up its offering of dry pastries, saving me from having to sit with the sinking feeling in my stomach for any appreciable length of time. Woo-hoo! Another reminder that everyone else in the world was having great sex, while I was a frigid loser with no love life.
“Think I’ll have to take your word on that part, hon,” I said in a light tone. “He’s still my boss.”
The look she was giving me said she saw more than I wanted her to see. I turned away and went looking for plates. When I found them, I grabbed a couple and dumped the steaming Pop-Tarts onto them.
Jace accepted his when I brought it to him in the living room, not pulling his eyes away from the TV screen. I sat next to him and nibbled on the dry, unappealing square while Zorah wandered to the front window to keep watch for Leonides’ return.
He showed up not long after. From the sofa, I caught sight of an unfamiliar black Cadillac SUV pulling into the driveway. Jace looked up at the sound of the engine.
“Time to go?” he asked.
“Looks like it,” I said, before turning to him and giving him a penetrating look. “You doing okay, kiddo?”
His smile was wan, but he met my eyes and nodded. “I’m okay. What about you?”
It was so like him to turn the question back on me that something settled inside my chest. Leonides had twisted something within my son’s mind. But he hadn’t changed who Jace was.
“Hanging in there,” I told him. “I’m going to miss you, though.”
I could see conflicting thoughts swirling behind his eyes before they settled beneath vampiric influence. “It’s just a visit, Mom. And then I’ll be back.”
“Yeah, baby,” I said—mostly to reassure myself, not him. “You’re right. It’s just for a little bit.”
Rather than fight with the broken front door, Leonides went around to the sliding glass door in back. Zorah let him in.
“Nice wheels,” she teased. “Very low-key.”
“We can wait for Len to get back and borrow the pimpmobile, if you’d rather,” he retorted.
She huffed in amusement. “That’s even less low-key. But we should still wait for him to get back. There’s time, and I’d rather not leave his house empty with the front door hanging by a splinter. It’s a quiet neighborhood, but that’s just asking for someone to come loot the place.”
Jace had followed us, and stood uncertainly in the kitchen doorway. “What happened to the door, anyway? I heard the crash... it looks like someone took a battering ram to it.”
I froze, caught out. In truth, I had no idea how to answer that question.
Zorah came to my rescue. “You know how mothers can lift a car off their child in an emergency because of the adrenaline? Your mom was pretty worried about you. I guess it was something like that.”
Jace gave me a surprised look. “Um... wow. So you’ve got, like, superpowers now? Cool.”
He was half-teasing beneath his genuine astonishment.
I grasped onto that lifeline with both hands. “And don’t you forget it—especially the next time you’re considering staying out past curfew.”
He let out a quiet breath of nervous laughter.
Zorah cocked her head. “Hey, speaking of the pimpmobile, I’d recognize the sound of that forty-year-old engine anywhere.”
Sure enough, Len pulled into the driveway a minute or so later, squeezing his chrome-wheeled land yacht into the space left next to the SUV. The trunk was gaping, full of lumber and plywood too large to fit fully inside the car. For the dozenth time, I cringed with a twisted combination of guilt and disquiet over what I’d somehow done to his—to Zorah’s—house.
Just like Leonides earlier, Len came around the back. Once he’d let himself in the patio door, he gave our boss a tight smile. “Cadillac, huh? Pretty sure my great-grandfather drove one of those.”
Leonides eyed him. “You drive a 1978 Lincoln Continental, Len.”
“My car has character, Gramps,” Len said. “That SUV doesn’t.”
“Your car has bullet holes. Bullet holes do not equal character.”
Len scoffed. “Pfft. You’re just jealous because your new ride has no soul.”
Beside me, Jace was stifling laughter. I could have hugged the two of them for that, even if the mention of bullet holes struck a bit to close to home after last night. Though apparently, according to Len, it meant I at least had character now. Or my knees did, anyway.
“We need to hit the road, Len,” Zorah said. “You okay here alone?”
Len waved her off. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll board up the door, and you can send your boyfriend over whenever to fix it properly. I think I’ve got everything he needs—just don’t expect me to pay for the labor with a pint of B-negative.”
“Hmm,” she mused, a smile tugging at her full lips. “No promises.”
I glanced at Jace surreptitiously, but the joke had gone right over his head.
“Bye, Len,” he said. “Thanks for, well, everything.”
Len smiled, though there was a bit of tightness around his eyes. “No worries, kid. Stay safe, and have a good flight. Weather’s probably a lot nicer where you’re going, if nothing else.”
I took a deep breath and glomped Len in a hug before he could see me coming and avoid it. “Bye, Len,” I whispered, echoing Jace. “Thanks. For everything. And, uh, I’m really sorry about your door.”
He patted my back a couple of times, and I let him go.
“What can I say?” he joked. “I’m surrounded by scary women who break things. You get used to it after a while.”
TWENTY-FOUR
THE FOUR OF US piled into the SUV a few minutes later, leaving Len behind. I wondered vaguely whose car this was, before deciding it hardly mattered. The interior was pristine, and I tried not to worry about leaving sweat stains or flakes of dried blood on the luxurious upholstery.
The ride was largely quiet, aside from my occasional directions to keep us on the most direct route. I wasn’t sure what to expect when we got to my apartment. What I found was a work crew industriously hammering a new doorframe into the wall, while an English vampire lounged on my couch, overseeing things.
My TV was gone.
; “Ah, hello, everyone,” Rans said, as we eased past the workmen to come inside. “I had a word with your landlord last night, Vonnie; thought you might want that door fixed as soon as possible. There seems to be quite a bit of that going around lately.”
I blushed, my pale complexion heating.
“Based on the pattern of dust on the furniture, someone nicked your telly before I got here, I’m sorry to say,” he continued, “but now that you’ve arrived, I might be able to rectify that. Stay right here—I’ll be back in a tick.”
He pushed off of the couch and slipped out, pausing only to catch Zorah in a brief, heated kiss on his way past.
I squeezed Jace’s shoulder. “Go start packing. I desperately need a shower.”
Jace pressed his lips together and wrinkled his nose, giving me a quick look up and down. “Um, yeah. You kind of do.”
“Brat,” I said without heat, giving him a little push in the direction of his room. I turned to the others, feeling suddenly exhausted. “Make yourselves at home. Sorry—it’s not much.”
Zorah stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me. “Stop apologizing. Now go take that shower—it’ll help. Promise.”
I nodded against her shoulder and straightened, just as Jace’s outraged voice called from his bedroom. “Mom! Someone took my X-Box! And my laptop!”
It was all I could do not to sag right back into Zorah’s arms. Of course someone had. I wondered what else would turn up missing.
Just then, another disturbance near the crowded front door revealed Rans returning with the aforementioned laptop held under one arm, and the X-Box under the other. Behind him, I recognized my neighbor from three doors down lugging my television into the front room. He was wearing the sort of dazed expression I was quickly coming to associate with vampire hypnosis.
“If he was trying to be stealthy, the bloke should’ve chosen a less offensive brand of cologne,” Rans said cheerfully. “Put the television back where you found it, there’s a good chap.”
Vampire Bound: Book One Page 17
