by Angel Payne
“So where does that leave us?” I charge through gritted teeth. When Reece surges forward, his expression the same, at least I can get a breath in. Though his empathy doesn’t sweep me with vindication, I don’t feel so crazy about my frustration.
“Well, certainly not to a party-wide Wi-Fi breach,” Wade assures, even if he is vocalizing the shittiest essence of my nightmare. “The activity we tracked wasn’t usual, from a lot of standpoints.”
Reece uses his free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Explain.”
Wade nods with matching concision. “This user was smart,” he states. “Didn’t fuck around. Knew exactly where he was going and how to get there. More specifically, he also knew how to cover his tracks. Extremely well.”
Reece leans forward, head tipping to indicate his deeper thought. “What are you saying?”
“That we can tell you someone was using that bandwidth, but we can’t prove it.”
“Huh?”
“Exactly what we are saying,” Fershan adds. “That—That we were both looking at it, but then we weren’t.”
Then maybe not.
Reece emits a long growl while grabbing my hand and squeezing—probably to give comfort to himself as much as me. “Tavish, don’t assume for one second that I’m following this.”
“You think we fully do?” Wade flattens his lips. “No Easter eggs buried this time, boss. It means what it means.”
“Okay. You detected a weird Wi-Fi login, but then—what—you just didn’t?”
“That’d would be a wonkin’ yes.”
“Explain.” His repetition doubles the terseness of the first. And so does Wade’s response.
“We agreed that it was weird,” the guy states before wheeling around, leading the action with his dipped head. “But as soon as we investigated the logs, from our scanners as well as the ranch’s backlogs, the entire address vanished.”
“It is as he said,” Fershan confirms. “Exactly. We saw the information across our scanner log, but then we didn’t.”
Wade kicks at the edge of the dance floor. “We can show you the places where we’ve checked, including our tracking logs and the ranch’s Wi-Fi router.” He stops mid-kick and straightens, pulling back his shoulders, which seem even more broad and muscular than a couple of months ago, when he volunteered to help me go after Faline Garand in the middle of the Consortium’s Southern California nest. He’d been vital to helping Angelique and me break into that huge mansion in Palos Verdes—and I know he’d be an even more awesome asset now if the circumstances were different. If all this required was cracking a few gate security codes and busting into the city planner’s files for this place’s blueprints.
But we’re not breaking open iron locks or finding a magical map.
We’re trying to figure out what—or who—we’re dealing with here.
A woman who, as of this moment, still has no viable identity or name.
A fact turning my bloodstream to barbed wire and fraying my nerves like rusty rebar.
Damn it.
With any luck, all we have to do is rope the wench down to whomever she’s working for—and if it doesn’t start with “Con” and end in “sortium,” I’ll mark it as a win. The ranch’s security guys already know the regulars from the rinky-dink tabloids, and they promised us those twerps don’t try to get in anymore, which means the mystery chica-poo has to be with a higher-paying magazine or blog.
If we’re lucky.
If we’re very, very lucky.
“Fuck a goddamned duck,” Wade grates, though corrects himself at once with a violent head shake. “Shit. I’m sorry, Emma. You don’t deserve sailor filth any more than this disruption to your day.”
“He’s right.” Fersh jams a hand into one of his pockets, only to withdraw a paper clip that he twists like taffy. “We do not expect you to believe all this. We know logins don’t disappear from logs as if a sorcerer just erased them.”
While he’s speaking, Reece and I exchange a knowing glance. I soak up the loving affirmation in his eyes and use it to strengthen the patience of my reply. “A being who can totally erase things off the air? Now that, my friend, I do believe.”
Just like I believe that, once directly confronted, our little wedding crasher friend is going to respond exactly like Wade and Fersh do right now.
With a shit ton of astonishment.
With a little more what-the-hell surprise.
And with a lot more you-got-me capitulation.
Yes, even as I spin to march across the grass and through all the dinner tables, not veering in my focused advance on the woman. When I’m a few feet away from the table, I jerk my head over at Alex, communicating my silent command to him at once.
Get up. This wench is all mine now.
He complies without hesitation—which is more than I can say for the sudden revolt from the synapses in my brain and the muscles in my legs. They all seize up as soon as I execute the swift pivot to fully face our audacious intruder—
And the world becomes an explosion.
Not literally. Okay, not yet. No way would I commit myself to that promise in writing right now, no more than I’d sign off on the state of my own senses, overloaded by a collision worse than a multicar pileup on the 405.
The semi truck at the front of the crash: Reece’s bellow, whomping me with the same force as his electric presence at full blast. He storms into my pores and tears open my mind.
But why?
Words. He’s yelling words at me.
But what?
I don’t understand him.
No. I can’t understand him.
The force of him on the air, filled with such a surge of dread and boom of fear, is like a flood of static over my ears. He’s totally drowned out.
No. That’s not it either.
The static is all…me.
My system, floundering in so much aversion and rage and disbelief, causes the ground to tilt beneath me.
If “me” is even that anymore.
I’ve mentally broken outside myself, ripping free from the moorings of my body in order to save it from this clamor of insanity.
But even that might not be possible.
Because I’ve stomped over here to kick out an invader from my space…
Only to learn she’s the bitch who’s already been inside it already.
All of it.
To stand here, with the ground rocking and the air screaming and my sanity in rebellion, as the stylish piranha in front of me starts turning her face up at me…
And smiles.
Not just any friendly and serene smile.
Her expression is slow. Planned. Poised. A feline extending its claws, preparing to snag a mouse’s tail. A courtesan, ready to remove her mask for her lover.
Or a Consortium bitch on high, letting that mask peel away on its own—just like I saw once before, when Tyce exposed himself to us in Paris. Only then, the unmasking was a painful experience: Reece’s brother taking the massive risk of showing us his superpower. This time, the effect is wielded by a preening witch, curling her blood-red fingernails to strip away the last of the morph layer. A kitty cleaning off her cream. A Hela turned into a Maleficent. A vulture spreading her full wings.
A demoness revealing her true ugliness.
The monstress that’s turning my wedding day into a nightmare.
“You.”
I suddenly hate that word more than any other. I hate the serene skank it represents now, and I hate that she’s made it the only word I’m capable of choking out. But worse, I hate that on the day Reece and I should be filled with celebration and love, all I can feel now is filthy hate. In every burning corner of my being. In every searing inch of my soul. In every scalding tear joining the static in my senses, dripping into the gash into which this day has just become.
“You.” It tumbles from me again, a pathetic sob this time. I’m the bride, damn it! Where’s my badass Tarantino one-liner? For that matter, where’s m
y fucking katana? Why don’t I get to have this bitch’s kidneys at my feet and her heart in my palm? Why do I have to stand here as Faline daintily slides her folded napkin to the table and then rises with matching composure, silken and sure in how she’s stripped away every ounce of mine?
In how she’s stripped away every good thing about this day?
In how she smiles, so clearly knowing that too, as she leans in and dares to kiss the air on either side of my seething face. “Well, hola, Emmalina. And so many congratulations to two of my most favorite people. Why so surprised, amiga? You surely did not think I would miss this occasion, did you?”
Chapter Six
Reece
Come back here!
Jesus, Emmalina, come back.
That bitch isn’t an ex. Or a reporter. Or a crasher.
But my silent protest is too little, too late. I see the horror crash across Emma’s face even before Faline fully morphs to her true self. I see the fury flush her cheeks and the fire invade her eyes even before Faline rises to meet her for their direct glare-off.
And despite knowing my wife is capable of holding her own, I growl as dismally as a fucked newb in Pelican Bay.
Hating myself for not putting the pieces together before now. For not knowing the bitch would try something like this. For wanting so badly to cling to my lovesick new groom status for just a little while longer, I ignored all the signs that supplied this truth already. The high-end internet shenanigans. The slinky red dress. The over-the-top accessories. Most glaringly, the electric needles in my bloodstream that started as soon as Alex and Neeta sought me out at the ranch house, the voltage intensifying with every step we took back to the party.
I’d written off my blistering Bolty senses to an index of other causes—my post-lovemaking high, my nearly empty stomach, the security of our A-lister guests…hell, even the full moon—but nowhere in the mix had I gone near this possibility. This goddamned atrocity. The concept that Faline Garand, having already shown us her fascination with accessing the Consortium’s intel for herself, would plug into the face-morphing ability for which we got a front-row seat courtesy of my brother, Tyce—also known to the Consortium as their special agent Dario.
But Tyce had ultimately paid for his power with his life. Faline is standing there next to my wife, freshly morphed from the sleek Queen of Pretend Hell into the living sovereign of the real version. And that’s not the most gut-twisting part of the sight. That aspect comes courtesy of my woman, a lace-clad Ripley ready to tear the head off the alien intruder on her spaceship. And Christ help me, looking like she’s ready to turn into a walking solar flare to do it.
“Cake tiiiiime!”
And Christ really help me, making it necessary for me to glue a plastic smile on my lips for my new mother-in-law. “Laurel, the cake is stunning. But I’m afraid we’re in hold mode for just a few—”
“Uh-uh.” The woman barks it so adamantly, I wonder if I’ll be ordered to drop and give her fifty as penitence for my bride’s disappearance. “No more ‘hold modes.’ This is happening now, and—”
“It’s really not.” There’s no more time for tactful regret. Not when Emma shifts another step into Faline’s personal space, cocking her elbows back. “You need to excuse me.”
“And you and my daughter need to get your damn backsides across this dance floor, over to that cake table, and—oh, holy crap!”
As thoroughly as I’ve just made the woman stun herself, with her syntax and her shriek, I’m sure I’m more shocked by the massive pulse I’ve just slammed into the ground beneath me, allowing me to leapfrog half the dance floor and six banquet tables, to land in a semi-crouch in the don’t-fuck-with-us danger zone my bride and my nemesis have subconsciously bubbled around themselves.
“Ah! Hola, Mr. Richards. What a very nice surprise!”
Unlike the last time I was subjected to those words in Faline’s insidious purr, she’s being facetious about them now. Clearly my arrival fits right into her plan.
But what plan?
I can’t shove my mind past that question mark. I’m too obsessed with watching every physical move the woman makes, let alone attempting a breach of her mental end game. Focus like this has a tendency to get narrowed that way once a guy finds the woman he worships within choking or stabbing distance of a harpy lunatic shrew.
“What the hell do you want, Faline?”
The woman jogs up her chin as if I’ve just asked if she wants to call heads or tails for a touch football game in the park. “What? No I’ve-missed-you kiss? Not even a hug?”
“You heard him.” Emma presses forward again, bright amber light flashing from every part of her gaze. She parts her lips, baring a determined snarl. “What the hell do you want?”
As soon as she finishes it with a golden pulse coming from much more than her eyes, I shift over to take her hand. To all the wedding guests, it’s simply a romantic gesture; Emma’s sharp grunt is the only betrayal that it’s more. A symbol of restraint. If I don’t make her aware of how close she is to exposing herself…in ways that would be more detrimental than just falling out of her bodice…
“Oh, now look at that.” Faline drops her gaze and pushes out a mocking cluck of enchantment. “Still so affectionate after all these hours. And who says love is not everlasting?”
“And hate.”
I spit it while pushing in closer to Emma—needing to know that if pressed, I’ll be able to grab my wife and pulse us both away from the bitch. But the factor I can’t control here, just as stressful, are all the innocent souls still positioned too damn close. Alex, Neeta, Foley, and Lydia are doing their best to clear our immediate area, but I didn’t help the situation by playing the Bolt version of a three-point swish. But for now, we have the harpy talking instead of acting out. It’s a win for as long as it lasts.
“Hate?” Faline eyes me with a tilted glance and another pronounced tsk. “Oh, no, no, no; let us not resort to such gloomy thoughts on such a beautiful night. How does the saying go? ‘Eat, drink, be merry?’ Absoluto, sí? Who said that? The Greeks? The Romans?”
“The Bible,” Emma snaps.
“Fine, then.” I curl my hands into fists, knowing it does nothing for the bright-blue sparks making like snake tongues from between my tight fingers. But this way, I’ll at least prevent the grass from getting singed. “To put it in non-gloomy terms, how about the ecstasy of contemplating how to snap someone’s neck while making it look like they simply gagged on the ugliness of their own choker?”
Emma keeps her answering laugh contained to a tighter hand squeeze. I want to kiss her for the restraint, but every electron of my concentration stays riveted on Faline. The bitch still hasn’t exposed her higher purpose. We have no idea why she’s here. We don’t even know how she’s here. She’s staying zealous about not providing a shred of illumination, either.
“How did I forget how amusing you are, Reece Richards?” Her regard slides across the lower half of my face, making me want to scrub it free from her oily influence. “Such a clever man, even when you’re in the heights of…explosive torment.”
Shit. Damn. Shit.
Her attempt at being sultry and subtle isn’t either, evidenced by the heightened color in my wife’s cheeks. I’m not talking about a rosy flush of fury. Emmalina’s skin tone is jaundiced yellow, rapidly approaching the realm of a rich marigold. One more shove, despite all my efforts at keeping her grounded, and the woman is going to go full solar panel.
“Oh, yawn.” I go for glib despite the snap-crackle-pop continuing from my palms and fingers. “This act is tired even for you, Fa-Fa-Smurfie.” I delve on, incited by the burst of ire in her gaze. “You didn’t go to all this trouble, wearing that secondhand rag and even raiding the rejected jewelry pile on the Fox backlot, to show up and compliment my wit and staying power. So what gives?”
I’m not sure what part of my diatribe unleashes the woman’s vicious hiss, nor do I really care. Every word was designed to get her to t
his. Breaking her control. Demolishing her serenity. Exposing the vile hag she really is and now unleashes in full, spitting force. “What gives, mi amigo? What gives?”
“Oh, I’m not your amigo, Fa-Fa.”
“And I’m not your Fa-Fa!” With a glare that’s turned vampiric, the woman lurches at me. “I am the goddess who made you, Reece Richards. I created you. Improved you. Elevated you!” She whips toward Emma, letting her lips fall back to bare her full snarl and cocking her elbows up with her fists locked against her ribcage. “And you too!”
My wife’s full-throated laugh causes everyone to jump back by a foot. “That’s the story we’re going with, Queen Fa-Fa? Really? Because when did you hear me ever thanking you for that torture?”
“Torture?”
The echo has all three of us spinning—to the source of the horrified choke, gaping at Emma with the cake cutters dangling from her limp grip.
“Emmalina?” Laurel stammers. “Wh-What are you t-t-talking about?”
“Oh, God.” Emma’s fingers tighten against mine. “Mother. Please. This is a private conversation.”
“Here? Now? In the middle of your wedding reception?”
“Listen to your sweet mother, darling.” Faline rocks back on a heel, the action doing dangerous things to the front of her dress. “It is your big day, after all.” Another contemptuous tsk. “It would be such a shame to let anyone or anything ruin a sparkling moment of it.”
Laurel strengthens her grip on the cake cutters. Actually palms one as if considering whether it slices through more than cake. “Who the hell are you?”
Faline glowers. “And since when do you care, Laurel Crist?”
I don’t know my mother-in-law that well, but I’ve learned enough to determine she’s a confused person in a demanding micro-verse, where likes and followers translate directly into social status and prestige. But that’s the Baccarat-crystal-clear part of the question. The other part, I’ve never been entirely sure of.
“Since I am her mother, you rude cow—and it doesn’t make me ‘sparkly’ to hear someone’s tortured her in any form of the word.”
