She blinked, berating herself as her vision went blurry, tears defying her, pushing to the surface while she tried to hold them back. Tania wiped beneath her eyes. Well, snap...so much for her mascara. Not that she cared about the way she looked at the moment. A case of raccoon eyes, after all, was the least of her worries.
Myst was still missing.
Gone, kidnapped, dead, Tania didn’t know. Her best friend could be in the hands of a serial killer or worse—although, come to think of it...a psycho killer was the absolute worst she could, or wanted, to imagine—and what were those bonehead cops doing?
Nothing. Not a damned thing.
Certainly not returning her calls. Big surprise there. She figured they’d call her back just to get rid of her...particularly since she overloaded their in-boxes with messages every day. But neither Keen nor MacCord had responded. Worse than that, though? Tania suspected the detectives had gone missing too. And she should know. She’d been forced into stalker mode, trying to get a line on them.
So far, though, she’d come up with exactly nothing. A big fat zero on the information front. Which pushed all the wrong buttons on her internal PlayStation and Tania into a pile of trouble. Case in point? Her decision to team up with a reporter, a man-eater with no moral fiber and too much ambition. Now she was the star interviewee in an ongoing exposé about police incompetence in the cover-up of missing Seattle women.
She cringed, her hand tightening around the gearshift. Not her proudest moment. But with Myst’s life at stake, getting down and dirty to light a fire under the cops’ butts seemed like the best option.
Spotting her turnoff ahead, Tania swiped at another tear and braked, slowing down to wheel her Mini into the driveway. The short lane dumped her into a huge parking lot. Maneuvering like a pro in the tight space, she turned into the first aisle and scanned the row of vehicles, searching for a spot. Saturdays were always busy at the Washington State Correction Center for Women, a popular time for family and friends to visit those locked behind bars and barbed wire. Her sight line even with back bumpers and all-terrain tires, she trolled for a minute, looking for—
Red taillights flashed up ahead.
An early bird. Thank God. She didn’t have time to muck around. Not with an hour left of visiting time. By now, J.J. would be climbing the walls. Which, yeah, was a pretty good analogy considering the size of the double-occupancy prison cells.
Awful in every way. But if you did the crime, you did the time.
Her sister was no exception.
The five years her sister had been incarcerated, though, hadn’t made visiting J.J. any easier. Tania missed her little sister more with each passing day. The absence left a hole in the center of her life, the place where family lived, and ever since losing their mom to cancer, she—
Tania shook her head. Nope. No way she was going there. The loss was still too painful, the memories more than she could bear on a good day. And today didn’t qualify as one of those.
Braking to a stop in the middle of the lane, Tania flipped on her turn signal and waited for the early bird to pull out. The Chevy’s V-8 rumbled, cracking through the quiet as the driver drove away. Tania put her foot down and zipped into the empty space, enjoying the maneuverability of her Mini. Red with white racing stripes, her girl was a classic. A throwback to a simpler time and place, one without active park assist, GPS chips, and built-in cell phones.
Fine by her. She didn’t need all the bells and whistles, just a performance engine and a whole lot of open road.
Shifting her baby into park, Tania cranked the emergency brake and reached for the oversize handbag sitting on the passenger seat. After tossing her keys inside, she plopped it in her lap and, with quick hands, found a hair elastic in one of the side pockets. Raking her thick strands back in a hurry, she ran through her usual checklist. Ponytail? Check. Wallet with ID and keys? Double check. No personal items and...
Oops. Her iPad had to go. No sense bringing it inside and giving Officer Griggs (aka the weasel) any more ammunition. The oily prison guard always worked Saturdays—oh joy, lucky her—and never missed an opportunity to go through her stuff with a fine-tooth comb.
And getting frisked by the weasel? Oh so not on her list of things to do...ever.
With a grimace, she tucked her favorite gadget into the workbag sitting on the floor in the backseat, between the stack of dog-eared architectural/landscape plans and client files. All right. Good to go. No contraband. Nothing too personal in her purse. She was ready to face Griggs and his barrage of crude innuendos.
Taking a fortifying breath, Tania popped the door open and slid out. Treetops swayed against the darkening sky, skeletal limbs rising above the SUV parked in front of her. As she watched the shadowed redwoods dance in the autumn breeze, she palmed the top of the car door and, with a flick, slammed the—
“Ouch!” she yelped as the sharp door edge clipped her. Pain streaked up her thigh. Tania dropped her purse. Holding the side of her knee, she hopped around on one foot. “Oh shit...oh shit, shit, shit.”
Man, that stung. She gave the sore spot another rub. “Frickin’-frack, that’s gonna leave a mark.”
Gritting her teeth, she snagged her handbag off the wet pavement. Time to go. Her sister was waiting, but as she hurried across the parking lot, dread welled in the pit of her stomach. Visiting J.J. always hit her the same way...like a sucker punch. She loved her sister but didn’t like coming here. Hated seeing the toll prison took on her sibling. Hated the steel doors, barbed wire fences, and stark, businesslike hallways. But most of all, Tania hated knowing there was nothing she could do to help.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make it better.
Heavy heart weighing on her, Tania jogged up the front steps, her focus now on the entrance. Flanked on one side by a monstrous green wall, the glass doors weren’t much to look at, and yet every time she saw them she wondered the same thing. How could the entryway to a prison look so ordinary? So run-of-the-mill? So office building pleasant? The effect—or camouflage...whatever—seemed a sort of sacrilege. As though the perfectly manicured flower beds with their red chrysanthemums and sculpted shrubbery belied the true nature of the place. Hid the ugliness that went on beyond the tailored front entrance day in and day out.
Mounting the last step, Tania walked across the landing and swung one door wide. The hinges hissed behind her, the sound soft and familiar as she crossed the small entryway and into the hallway beyond. The fast clip of her boot heels echoed along the empty corridor, joining the harsh buzz of fluorescent lights overhead.
Silence prevailed, no murmur of voices or clang of reinforced steel bars. Odd, really. She usually arrived with the late afternoon rush—amid the chatter of an excited crowd as each person waited to be allowed in to visit loved ones. But now? The absence of sound struck her as eerie. And for some reason...dangerous. A kind of calm before the storm reserved for horror movies...you know, the moment right before the psycho jumped out and massacred somebody.
Rubbing her upper arms to chase away the chill, Tania kept herself moving. Her wet soles squeaked against the floor tiles, cranking her tighter as she turned the corner into the—
“Ah, Ms. Solares. There you are.”
The voice slithered from the far side of the room. Tania went rigid. White-knuckling her purse strap, she scanned the glass booth in front of the door to the visitor area. Nothing. No Griggs. The weasel wasn’t in his usual spot. She looked to her left. Ah, crap. He was unleashed, out roaming the waiting area instead of caged behind the command center. But even worse than that bit of bad news? The second guard that usually worked the evening shift wasn’t with him.
Terrific. No go-between, which meant no buffer to keep him in line.
Raising a brow, he tossed the magazine he held onto a scarred side table. Leather steel-toes creaking, he stepped around a double row of chairs in the middle of the room. As he walked toward her, Tania made a beeline for the front counter.
; “You’re late, Solares. What gives?”
She shrugged. “Car trouble.”
“Really,” he said, tone edged with sarcasm. He didn’t believe her. Tania didn’t blame him. She never told him the truth. About anything. The weasel was a chronic snoop: calling her at home, contacting her boss under the guise of completing prison records, digging into her background until he unearthed the fact her good-for-nothing father had walked out on her mother, abandoning Tania a week before her second birthday. Which, of course, he used to belittle her every chance he got, poking at the open wound the way a sadist taunted a cornered animal with a sharp stick. “I could help with that if you’d—”
“Nothing my mechanic couldn’t handle,” she said, her tone so sweet it made her teeth ache.
“So disappointing.” He hooked his thumbs on his leather utility belt, drawing attention to the gun holstered at his hip. “Why not be nice to me, Solares? Give your sister a few perks on the inside?”
Tania’s stomach rolled. The greasy jerk.
Ignoring his creep factor, she stopped at the high counter. The overhead lights reflected in the glass that rose from counter to ceiling. She kept her eyes forward but her peripheral vision sharp as Griggs came alongside her. If he so much as touched her, she’d—
The weasel flicked at the end of her ponytail with his fingertip.
She shifted sideways, hating his proximity, and planted herself in front of the rectangular opening in the glass partition. Her chin level, she met his gaze head-on, then glanced toward the wall-mounted camera at the rear of the booth. “Smile, you’re on camera.”
His gaze followed her sight line. Tania swallowed the urge to crow in triumph. She’d outflanked him. Standing where she was, the security camera was all seeing. One wrong move, and the warden would have a bird’s-eye view.
“Smart girl,” he murmured loud enough for her to hear. Her stomach churned as he brushed by her. Anger perfuming the air around him, he opened the door into the command booth and stepped inside. His back to the camera, he leered at her. “Let’s see how well you do on the way out. I’m off at seven, sweetheart, and got nothing to do but wait.”
Until visiting hours were over.
He didn’t say the words. He didn’t need to. Tania knew what he meant. The bastard was escalating, moving past veiled threats to outright intimidation. Though what Griggs thought he could do in a parking lot monitored by security equipment, she didn’t know. Follow her maybe? Figure out where she’d booked her hotel room for the night? Well, she wished him luck with that one. She drove like a speed demon, better than most race car drivers. He’d never catch her once she hit the blacktop stretching between the prison and Gig Harbor. She and her Mini would be long gone before the jerk clued in and put his 4x4 in drive.
Thank God for high-powered performance engines. Oh how she loved her wicked smart mechanic.
Clearing her throat, Tania put the kibosh on her amusement. Laughing at him would only make Griggs meaner, and cranking him up another notch? Not a good idea.
Wasn’t power grand?
And here—inside the prison walls—Griggs possessed the ultimate leverage, every bit of authority. But no matter how many times he insinuated that her sister’s chances at parole would increase one hundredfold if Tania decided to be “nice” to him, she refused to play that game. J.J. would kill her, for one thing. And for another? She didn’t sleep around—or trade sexual favors.
Ever.
Now all she needed to do was get through the security check. Without kicking Griggs in the balls with her fancy new boots. If she didn’t, J.J. would suffer the consequences. No way Tania would allow that to happen. Or give in and let the scum-sucking weasel win.
Chapter Three
Nightfall couldn’t come fast enough. Ivar wanted out of 28 Walton Street and the confining spaces inside the Razorback lair. And away from the thoughts banging around inside his head. He needed the rush and chill of winter against his scales. Yearned to shift into dragon form, stretch his wings, and soar above the cityscape. To hunt the female down before he lost his mind.
He was dangerously close to the edge already. Way off base with no hope of pulling back to the saner side of safe anytime soon.
Sitting on the edge of his bed, Ivar hung his head. He cupped the back of his neck and pressed down. Discomfort nagged at him. He pulled harder, stretching tense muscles, distracting himself with physical pain as an ache of another sort expanded inside his chest. Like a surgeon with rib spreaders, the sorrow cracked him wide open, engulfing his chest cavity, devouring what little remained of his heart. He closed his eyes, combating the mind-fuck of unimaginable loss.
Or at least, it had been...until three weeks ago. Until his warriors had returned and delivered the terrible news.
Lothair—his best friend and XO—was gone. Dead. Murdered by his enemies.
Now he choked on the grief. And didn’t know how to handle the pain. He’d never been one for sentiment or brotherly love. Emotional excess belonged to other males—weaker ones with attachment issues—not him. Never him. Death, after all, happened more often than not. Was as inevitable as the rise and setting of the sun in the war he fought against the Nightfuries and the Dragonkind males that supported his enemies’ cause.
But losing Lothair...
Fuck him, that hurt. More than he’d thought possible.
Planting his elbows on his knees, Ivar raised his head and stared at the wall opposite him. With all the lights off, the row of plasma TVs should’ve faded into the darkness, leaving the flat screens indistinguishable from the wall. But he saw everything in high-definition. Even from behind the dark lenses of his Oakleys, his night vision was pinpoint sharp, throwing each detail into stark relief: the textured surface of sea grass wallpaper, the fine grain in the bamboo floorboards, the crystal glass and empty bottle of Jim Beam sitting on the marble-topped bar.
Sucking back the JB hadn’t helped. Hadn’t put a dent in the pain or given him the oblivion he craved. Nothing ever did. Clarity was his cross to bear—always sticking with him, laying out the best course of action like playing cards in a poker game. Logical. Straightforward. Precise. His mind never failed to see all the angles, which meant he needed to get off his ass. Go hunting. Set the wheels of plan A in motion and avenge his friend.
Too bad daylight was screwing with his flow.
His brows drawn, Ivar pinched the bridge of his nose and took off his wraparounds. Fingering the twin arms, he twirled the sunglasses between the spread of his thighs. The pair were his favorites, something he always wore in human form, but things changed. He was done with the bullshit. Done lying to himself. Done apologizing for the flaw in his chromosomal DNA...for the bright pink eyes he’d been born with and ridiculed for all his life.
“Weak,” his sire had said. A color worn by newborn babies and little girls, not warriors.
Well, fuck that. Eye color was the least of who he was...or what he’d become, a powerful male in command of the Razorback nation. Throw in his scientific expertise and...shit. What the hell was he doing living in the past and hiding behind dark lenses? His pansy-ass pink irises meant next to nothing in the scheme of things. Lothair hadn’t given a rat’s ass about his genetic shortcoming, so why the hell should he?
Pushing to his feet, Ivar dropped the Oakleys. The pair landed with a clatter on the hardwood. His eyes narrowed on the black frames, he lifted his foot and crushed them beneath his boot heel, enjoying the snap-crackle’n-pop as he ground them into the floor and—
“Hey, boss man.” The German accent drifted through the closed door behind him. “Need a word.”
With a mental click, Ivar flipped the dead bolt with his mind and swung the door wide. Well-oiled hinges sighed as light from the corridor spilled over the threshold, illuminating the darkness. Squinting against the glare, Ivar tilted his head, inviting Denzeil into his domain. “What did you find?”
A determined glint in his eyes, Denzeil crossed the threshold, long legs eati
ng up the space between them. He stopped on the other side of the bed, a pale manila folder in his hand. “The female isn’t home.”
“Where is she?”
“I got nothing on her car. It’s an older model...no GPS to track.”
“But?” Ivar said, waiting for the punch line. Denzeil wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t show up—put himself on Ivar’s radar or in the line of fire—unless he had intel to share.
D smiled, but his dark gaze remained flat. No echo of humor. No spark of pleasure. And rightly so. Lothair’s murder had hit all the Razorbacks hard. No one would be laughing for a while. And if his warrior felt so inclined? Ivar would work the male out so hard it would take him weeks to recover from the beat down. “Her credit card was used at a hotel in Gig Harbor.”
Ivar’s brows collided. “Where the fuck is that?”
“A couple of hours south...near Tacoma, off I-95.”
“We leave at sunset. Inform the others.”
“Ten four.” With a nod, Denzeil tossed the folder onto the king-size bed. As the file’s contents spilled onto the duvet, the male said, “One more thing, boss.”
Ivar tipped his chin, asking without words.
“Rodin called from Prague an hour ago. He’s looking for—”
“Fuck.” Just what he didn’t need...Rodin, leader of the Archguard, snooping around.
Lothair’s sire was a pain in the ass. More so in recent days. But money talked, so Ivar couldn’t afford to walk. Not yet. Not until he received another infusion of cash. The breeding program and his supervirus experiments were barely off the ground. Add in the fact the new lair needed additional work to take the construction from half-done to complete, and having a wealthy patron with deep pockets was priority number one.
Funding. Soldiers. Intel about the political climate within Dragonkind ranks. You name it, Rodin provided it.
Too bad the male couldn’t keep his yap shut. The aristocratic know-it-all liked to be kept in the loop, which was annoying as hell, but having an influential member of the Archguard—head of one of the dynastic families that ruled Dragonkind—under his thumb furthered the Razorback cause. So, yeah...keeping Rodin happy ranked as important.
Fury of Seduction Page 2
