“And what if he asks you if you know me?”
“Then I will say, ‘Damian Blackwood is a friend who trusts me,’” she answered simply. “And he will either be intrigued enough it will distract him, or he’ll try violence against me and regret it.” She lifted her chin and challenged each of the men in turn. “Just because I can’t lift a bus like all of you doesn’t mean I’m helpless, gentlemen.”
Damian nodded. “All right.”
“What?” Jamison protested. “Mills…no.”
“It’s not your choice, Jamison,” she said, pressing one of her hands against his metal hand lightly before turning to Damian. “When would you like me to go out?”
“The earlier, the better,” Damian told her. “Rax probably closes instead of opens. I want you out of there before he gets up.”
* * *
The skinless hound chased Andi down endless corridors again, and this time when she woke up, it looked like something was about to jump at her….
“Oh, God,” she gasped until she found her bearings. She was at her uncle’s. She was safe here. The thing jumping was just Uncle Lee’s stupid stuffed fox. She rose up in bed and reached for her phone.
It seemed to take an eon to turn on, but when it was done, she’d only missed one text and no calls.
Damian? She hopped into her messages, not sure if she should hope, but no, it was a number her phone hadn’t seen before.
I’m a friend of Julian’s. I heard you were looking for someone. I can help for a price.
Andi blinked at the screen and then looked at the time. It was just seven p.m. Not late enough to go out after David—aka Argento—yet. But she was willing to bet that Julian had a big mouth and that he’d talked. She got up and got dressed and tried to find her uncle.
He wasn’t in any of the rooms she checked, and eventually, she found herself inside his kitchen, where his chef was working.
“Hello?” Andi asked, knocking at the open door so as not to startle them.
The person in front of the stovetop whirled, a butcher knife at the ready, and Andi found herself looking at the tall blonde woman who’d come to collect her personally for dinner last weekend. “Elsa?”
“The same,” the woman said, frowning. She returned to whatever she was cutting with the knife.
“Where’s my uncle?”
“Out,” she said curtly.
Andi sidled around the room. “Have you been his chef this whole time?”
The Nordic-looking woman reached into the cabinet above her and grabbed a bowl, ladling something for Andi from a murky pot. “Yes,” she said. “Eat up.”
It smelled good, but Andi was too nervous to eat. “I’m good.”
“You need your strength,” she pressed, and Andi was more determined than ever not to eat any.
“My uncle…where is he?”
Elsa rolled her eyes. “Haven’t you learned by now? The less you know, the better.”
It did seem everyone else thought that, yes. But she knew in her gut that wasn’t true. Andi looked at her phone, where she’d gotten that mysterious text. “I’m going back to bed. Wake me up when it’s time to go.”
Elsa grunted at Andi as she walked back down the hall the way she’d come, texting: Yes. Where?
* * *
All of Damian’s crew was geared up and in the SUV three blocks from the corner where the Lynx was. Mills was alone outside, walking up.
Damian looked at his phone, where he still hadn’t responded to the text from Andi. He wasn’t sure what to tell her—that Julian had died, taking along one of the Hunters, and that the other Hunter was now being “interrogated” in a crazy werewolf’s lair?
It wasn’t the kind of thing you could text to someone. Or even explain to their face. Like so much else in his world, it was just inexplicable. So, maybe all of Andi’s instincts about staying away from him were right.
But, if so, why did all of him yearn for her so badly? Why did their distance favor her and torture him?
She is your mate, his dragon reminded him.
He didn’t know if his dragon was right anymore. He wanted it to be, but after everything he’d put her through, and all the bullshit that traveled around him any time he was near, maybe it was better if that part of him died. If he could cut it out and throw it away from himself, to protect her.
She is your meant-to-be and always-is, his dragon went on as if calling their connection something else would make it harder for him to find and then remove it.
That is not helpful in the least right now, he told it.
It doesn’t matter what you want. His dragon twisted around inside of him, causing him physical pain before it settled back in place. Regardless of your desires, she is your destiny.
“Damian, ready?” Mills asked him from where she waited outside the Lynx and back a block.
“Yes,” he said, putting his phone away, focusing entirely on the mission. He held a piece of metal on his lap like a tablet screen.
“I’ve hacked all of their cameras. I’ll be keeping my eyes on you,” Jamison told her.
“I know you will,” Mills told him. “I’m going dark,” she announced, then took her earpiece offline.
Chapter 16
Oddly enough, the stranger wanted to meet her at the Lynx, the same club where Julian and her brother had both worked. With the exception of her prior visit to talk to Julian, Andi had never gone there before, and she only knew it as a dance club.
Going in blind felt frustrating. Any time she and Danny had hustled in the past, they’d always done due diligence—one or the other of them cruising through the joint beforehand to figure out an exit strategy and seeing if there were even any potential marks. Danny’d told her once that his boss there was ruthless and guarded his reputation at all costs. Danny told her a lot of things, and not all of them were true. But she couldn’t not go if the man had information about Danny that might help her uncle now.
She caught an Uber back to her apartment. Her uncle’s rental had seemed strangely empty except for Elsa and all the taxidermy, and no one had come to stop her. She texted him a line once she was safe at her apartment’s door. Just grabbing a few things. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be right back! and then darted quickly inside.
She was hoping beyond hope to get away without running into Sammy, but there was no such luck.
“Andi?” Sammy guessed, peeking out from her bathroom down the hall. She had her hair pinned up and one set of eyelashes on. “I thought you weren’t coming back today!”
“They cancel the overtime people first, alas,” Andi lied, sweeping through their kitchen for a bag of chips to stuff her face with. She was starving, now that cruel Nordic women weren’t going to watch her eat. “Where are you going?” she shouted.
“Out with Tasha!” Sammy shouted back. “I would’ve invited you, only I thought that you were busy.”
Andi walked down the hall and looked in. “All this for a weeknight?” Sammy was in a light gray dress that made the blue of her eyes pop and the red of her hair look fantastic as she took the rollers out.
“Tasha’s brother’s gonna be there,” Sammy said, shimmying her skirt down.
“That lunkhead?”
“Shhhhhh,” Sammy said, giving Andi a sly look. “I don’t need him to talk.”
Andi snickered and offered the chips out to her. Sammy waved them away. “Can’t mess up my makeup. Plus, this dress is so tight it’ll show the outline of anything I eat—which is why tonight’s gonna be a liquid diet night.”
“Vodka tonics?” Andi guessed.
“With cranberry,” Sammy said, teasing out her hair perfectly. “I’m not an animal. Plus, I like to preload on vitamin C. Keeps away the UTIs.”
“Vitamin cock is more like it,” Andi teasingly muttered, knowing Sammy would still hear her. Her best friend cackled.
“Let’s hope. I don’t know what the recommended daily dose is, but I’m sure I’m under.” She turned to present herself to An
di. “Yes?”
Andi made a show of checking her out, but as usual, Going Out Sammy was flawless. “Yes. One hundred percent. What time will you be home?” she felt compelled to ask, even if she herself might not be.
“I’ll be home by midnight or ten a.m. tomorrow, no in-betweens,” Sammy said with a wolfish grin. “So don’t wait up.”
“I wouldn’t dare. But what if you’re feeling rambunctious?” Andi teased, using her own former safe-friend-word.
“Always,” Sammy leered at her, and then picked her purse up from the bathroom counter to head for the door. “Also, you got a package. I tossed it on your bed, bye!” she called back, and closed the door behind her.
With Sammy gone, Andi rushed to her room. How much money was this mysterious stranger going to ask for tonight? She still had the envelope of cash from working for Damian. She was glad she hadn’t spent it on Danny’s bail bond yet. She ripped it open and put half of it—a wad of hundreds—into her smallest purse.
And then she noticed the box on the bed. There was no return address, so technically, it could’ve been a bomb.
But whatever David wanted her brother for, even if it was just to hold them for ransom or hostage against her uncle or whatever, Andi had a feeling that he wanted them alive. So, she sat down on the edge of the bed and opened it, finding it full of soft tissue paper, even softer black silk, and a note that said: Not from your Uncle – D.
Andi pulled the familiar dress out and held it to her chest. Even just a week and a half ago seemed so far away, like it was a simpler time. She let the dress unfurl onto her bed and pet it gently, letting the sensation of the silk against her bring back visceral memories of who she’d been when she’d last been wearing a dress just like it—fearless and strong. Of a man who couldn’t get enough of her and who wanted her to be his—no matter the cost. What was it Eumie’d said, that relationships took work?
And a relationship with a man who had a dragon inside him, maybe doubly so.
She’d worn a dress just like this one for a recently important part of her past. Maybe she should wear it again—like a talisman—for a hopefully important part of her future.
The part where she got her brother back.
Andi stood up quickly and disrobed.
* * *
Damian couldn’t hear what Mills was saying as she navigated through Rax’s club, but he could see her spending money. She was wearing a small shiny disc on a choker around her neck, and Damian was channeling whatever reflected on it to show on the piece of mirror that he held.
In general, men were thrilled to meet her—and who wouldn’t be? Mills’s age hadn’t dulled her beauty. If anything, it’d made her half-smiles and knowing glances more teasingly wise and temptingly sly. He knew she seemed sophisticated, and she definitely had cash to spend. And when she leaned in to whisper to one of them—he could tell that’s what was happening, as they visualized a close-up of the man’s collar—Jamison physically tensed.
“Easy,” Damian counseled. “She’s got to make her way to the back.” Mills didn’t have the connections to just show up there; she’d have to work her way into Rax’s casino over the course of the evening.
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Jamison muttered. “Good thing I’ve got eyes on her.” He was watching a screen on his lap, having infiltrated Rax’s security system, and he had a camera over the mirror Damian held, picking up everything Mills saw in the reflection. Cables from Jamison’s wrist were plugged into a processor at his feet, so it could work as fast as his thoughts did, and Damian knew everything was linked to a satellite up above. “But…she’s walking down the hall…no cameras. Fuck! I’m going to lose visual.”
“I’ve got her,” Damian said. Mills twisted sideways, sure to give them a clear view of the man she was standing beside—the ruggedly unshaven type—before turning back to face an unmarked door that had a small black-glass window. The man raised his hand within view of Mills’s collar, rapped on the door, and then placed his hand atop the pad.
Jamison communed with his electronics. “Damian, that guy’s got warrants in three separate states.”
“If they wanted her dead, she would be already; they just want to take her for her cash.”
“Fuck me,” Jamison muttered, sounding pained, as the door on Damian’s metal plate opened to reveal a shorter hallway with a flight of stairs.
“Airlock system, makes sense, hold the course,” he muttered to Mills, even though she couldn’t hear him and his men.
And then the second set of doors opened to reveal Rax’s casino. Mills took a long pan around, twisting herself with deliberate slowness for their sake, like she was taking it all in.
Rax’s basement was seven times the size of the club upstairs and would’ve looked perfectly in place in any upscale location in Vegas. It had dark wood paneling and soft ambient light. There was a pit with tables running in the center. Damian could make out craps and roulette and card games which were probably blackjack or poker. Slot machines were lined up across two walls, while the other walls had alcoves in them for socializing or private games. There was a gloriously stocked bar in a corner of the room, and scantily clad women delivering liquor from it—and even a shirtless man or two, for equal opportunity eye-candy.
Two men—with shirts on—came up to Mills and patted her down. Damian’s mirror clearly showed their hands roving over her as Jamison sputtered.
“She’s got this,” Damian said, to calm him. “She’ll follow the plan.” The plan was for her to play a game, walk a bit, then play another. Staying natural, nothing dangerous, just keeping an eye out as she made the perimeter of the room, taking in the locations of any doors or exits, and anyone guarding them. Rax’s mirror wouldn’t be on the casino floor; it was too valuable an item. But if they could find out what doors had armed guards—presumably the important, mirror hiding ones—and which doors additional armed guards might come out of ahead of time, everyone on his crew would be much safer.
Mills settled herself down at a poker table after making a slow partial walk, waiting to be dealt cards. She made small talk with the people beside her, and a waiter brought up a drink she hadn’t ordered that she didn’t sip. Mills’s collar focused on the dealer, and the camera over Damian’s mirror reported information to Jamison.
“Facial recognition—that dealer’s wanted in three states; the woman beside her runs drugs through an international shipping conglomerate, and the man past her is a were-tiger wanted for art theft.” Jamison’s human hand kept clenching and unclenching repeatedly.
“Well, it is an underground gambling ring, so, color me surprised,” Austin said. “When do we go in?”
“We might not tonight,” Damian said, standing down. Mills was doing her part, but even this early in the evening, there were too many bystanders. Rax’s people knew they’d signed on for occasional violence, but the other gamblers in the casino hadn’t—wanted or not.
And then Mills swiveled suddenly as if surprised.
“If someone grabbed her ass, I swear,” Jamison growled, but then the reason Mills had twisted became clear as a face familiar to Damian resolved in the mirror.
“Oh, fuck,” Austin whispered.
It was Andi. In the same dress that he’d had Mills buy her, standing by the airlock door. She was accompanied by a strange man, but it didn’t appear they were together. From the way her head was scanning the room, it appeared like she was looking for someone.
Damian started forward without thinking, and Jamison pulled him back. “What the fuck!” he complained, ready to take Jamison’s metal arm off.
“Oh, so, it’s different now when it’s your girl?” Jamison said, still blocking him.
“My girl—if Andi can be called that—is one hundred percent human and doesn’t have any backup.”
“Yeah, she does,” Jamison said. “Mills is smart. Hold off.”
Damian snarled but rocked back, unable to take his eyes off the mirror.
Mills
did an excellent job of rearranging herself to keep Andi in her line of sight.
Damian forgot what seeing her did to him. In between sightings, his memories were bad enough, but in the flesh—even once removed by her reflection—she was so beautiful, and she was so in danger. Anything could come through Rax’s portal-mirror at any time if he allowed it, or if in the intervening years since he’d been out of the Realms, his magic had gotten shaky.
As if sensing Damian’s discontent, Mills finished her hand of poker, losing cheerfully, judging by her tablemate’s expressions and walked over to Andi to strike up a conversation.
For her part, Andi seemed relieved to have someone to talk to, even if the answers Damian could lip-read all were short. She hadn’t been here before—which Damian found incredibly relieving and was waiting for a friend—which he did not. Mills did her best to keep her talking and stay nearby.
Until Rax’s arrival interrupted them. He introduced himself to Mills first and then to Andi—and then escorted Andi away with a knowing wink.
“That’s it,” Damian said, hitting the roof of their ride. “Drive,” he told Austin.
“He was just winking at her,” Jamison said, willing himself to believe.
“The fuck he was,” Damian growled. “He was winking at us—she’s compromised.” He hit the roof again. “Go!”
* * *
Andi was so happy to have another normal person to talk to. The slightly older woman beside her was dressed sophisticatedly but seemed very down to earth, and it was apparently the first time inside the underground casino for both of them.
“Are you a gambler?” Andi asked her.
The woman nodded. “Oh, yes. It’s why I’m here. But I’m finding it hard to settle in.”
“What do you play?” Andi asked. Anything to keep the conversation going.
“Poker, although I can’t claim to be any good at it. Yourself?”
Dragon Destined: Billionaire Dragon Shifter Romance (Prince of the Other Worlds) Page 18
