by Nancy Gideon
“Hey there, sugar pie. I’m looking for someone named Lee. I guess he kinda runs this place. He told me to look him up was I ever in his part of the Wild, Wild West.” A breathy giggle. “Well, here I am.”
Eyes glazing as if in a diabetic coma from her faux accent, the bartender stammered, “He’s in his office upstairs, umm, in a meeting. If you’ll give me your name, I’ll let him know you’re here.”
She tapped his mouth playfully. “And spoil the surprise? No, darlin’, don’t do that. I’ll just sneak on up.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He pointed off to the left, glassy eyes fixed upon the plump lips she sensually wetted. “Go right up those stairs. Tell the fellow in the hall Rondell said it was okay.”
She pressed fingers to her mouth then his, whispering huskily, “You are a doll, Ronnie. How can I ever thank you?” then turned away before he could slurp up his drool.
As they crossed the crowded floor, Turow grumbled, “I may have to rip out those buggy eyeballs before we leave.”
“Oh, that is sooo sweet!”
“Just a romantic at heart.”
Lee Terriot was too preoccupied by the female kneeling before his desk chair with her face buried in his lap to look up as the door opened and shut. Eyes dazed with drink and pleasure eventually lifted then widened in shock. He drew a breath as the curl of Turow’s forearm about his bobbing Adam’s apple pinched off his shout of alarm.
Sylvia gripped the equally wide-eyed employee by the elbow to help her to her feet, smiling as she said, “Thanks, but we’ll be finishing him for you.”
A large denomination slipped to her by Max with a request that she keep the details between them earned a hurried nod and her quick exit.
Turow’s vice grip loosened enough for his brother to grab a noisy breath and awkwardly close his trousers before looking up at him in dismay. “Row! How’d you find me?”
“You’ve never been all that clever, or you’d know I was Jamie’s guest downstairs in the back not so long ago. And now you’re ours. If you want your experience to end better than mine, I suggest you start talking.”
“About what? What do you want to know?”
“Where’s our father?”
Color drained as Lee whispered, “He’ll kill me if I say.”
A quick flex of Row’s bicep had his brother gasping. “I’ll kill you right now if you don’t.”
Lee didn’t need extra convincing. “He’s in Louisiana. Him and Stephen.”
Max’s chest tightened. “Who’s he meeting there?”
Lee’s bulging eyes flashed to him, growing even wider as he guessed his identity. “Don’t know. They never told me nothing ’bout their plans, just to wait for word.”
Green eyes flashed silver as Max leaned in closer. “Oh, I think you can come up with something worth your miserable life.”
The harsh stink of urine was followed by a babbled, “If I knew, I’d tell you. Don’t kill me!”
“If he doesn’t know anything, he’s not worth keeping alive.”
When Row’s arm jerked tight, Lee gasped, “I know where the money is!” He wheezed noisily when the pressure lessened. “It’s in my safe.” He pointed to a credenza. “I took it after Kip started sniffing around in the accounts. It’s all there, mostly. I only took what I needed.”
“What you needed for your hookers and blow?” Sylvia sneered. “Where’s your family, Lee?”
“In Reno. I made sure May and the girls were kept away from all this. They don’t know what we’ve done. They’re not to blame for any of it. Don’t hurt them!”
“We’re not in the business of hurting innocent families, you shit,” Turow growled, “the way you did when you burned Kip’s and Colin’s alive.”
Real tears streaming, Lee shook his head. “I didn’t know, not until after it was too late. I never . . . I never . . .”
Turow shoved away from him. “Write down the combination and how we can reach May.”
While Lee scribbled, Max studied a small portrait of a softly pretty female embracing young girls. Lee Terriot’s family. When the trembling prince pushed the information to Turow, Max tossed him the photo.
“Nice family. What would they think of what you’ve become?”
Lee had no answer.
After Sylvia used the numbers to open the safe and began shoving cash and bonds into a quickly-emptied briefcase, Lee sniveled, “W-what happens to me?”
Row glared down at his anxious brother. “You’ll go with us. Cale’ll want to hear what you have to say before he decides what to do with you.”
Lee studied the picture for a long moment before whispering, “And you’ll make sure no harm comes to them.”
Features softening briefly, Sylvia vowed, “They’ll be safe. That’s a promise I’d never break.”
Expelling a shaky breath, Lee nodded. “Thank you.” To his brother, he asked, “Can I clean myself up first? I got a change of clothes in the bathroom.”
Turow gestured toward the en-suite. “Go ahead. Leave the door open.”
Lee set the photo atop his desk with a careful reverence before rising on unsteady legs. “I’m sorry,” he offered weakly before stumbling into the bathroom and switching on the light.
When they heard water running, Max gestured to the desk Lee vacated. “Worth a looksee.”
Together, he and Turow tossed the drawers, gathering up anything of potential interest to take with them until Sylvia checked her watch and proclaimed, “We need to move.”
Nodded at that wisdom, Turow strode to the bath, calling, “Time’s up. Let’s go.” Then his sharp explicative had the other two crowding behind him to stand in the overflow from the sink.
Lee Terriot sat wide-eyed, pale, and lifeless on the closed toilet lid, slumped against the vanity where water sluiced over the clawed hand that had torn open his jugular.
“Gotta go.” Sylvia tugged on her mate’s arm to break his shock. “Leave him.”
“I can’t,” Turow argued softly. “He’s my brother. I need to send him on his way.”
Sylvia cast a hopeful glance at Max who shrugged. Terriot religious practices were out of his jurisdiction. She cursed softly and stalked back into the office to snatch a bottle of expensive cognac off the bar cart, upended the contents over the body.
“There. Send him and let’s get out of here.” She stuffed a book of the casino’s complimentary matches into her mate’s hand. “But we’re not staying long enough to release his ashes. He doesn’t deserve that after what he helped them do to our home and our people.”
Turow nodded. He’d done what he could for that weak soul, enough to ease his brothers’ sorrow when he brought home the news. He struck the first match. As flames ignited, he returned to the office, retrieved his brother’s laptop from the desk and headed for the door. Sylvia backed out of the bathroom and shut the door to contain the blaze before hurrying after her mate. Max closed the room’s door behind them and followed down the stairs.
The shriek of the fire alarm followed them out of the building.
– – –
Under St. Bartholomew’s high-pitched ceiling, Michael Furness went about his rituals beneath the agonized gazes from the Stations of the Cross as if all the objectives in the life he’d made for himself in New Orleans hadn’t crumbled.
In the absence of Mary Kate Malone, and even mild janitor, Benjamin Spratt, he’d stopped trying to convince himself that he wasn’t living a lie, one begun in another time, in another world, with goals as far apart as the cold purpose of his people and the simple cloth that had begun to chafe his skin and conscience.
As he moved slowly through the empty Nave toward ghostly shrines, beckoning altar and tabernacle, an elemental truth pierced to the heart of him.
He’d forgotten who and what he was.
Was he Father Furness, dedicated priest, healer of sins, crusader for the unfortunate and unforgivable? Or Michael, avenging right hand of the Chosen, in New Orleans to pave the way for conquest o
f the very people he now protected? His fingertips caressed the gleaming wood of the pew rows on either side of him.
Even knowing the end was almost at hand, he longed to stay within the role that had become his life. When had he begun to love those he’d come to conquer? Was it pride or weakness torturing his will? Safety was embracing that sterile purpose he’d once espoused as gospel, that evil he’d invited back into his life and feared he couldn’t control.
An evil that whispered in his ear.
“Hello, Michael. Friends again?”
He turned to face the lovely creature he’d once admired when having a soul was a deficit and cold cunning his highest objective.
“We’ve never been friends, Genevieve. You use that word as if you know what it means.”
A slow, mocking smile. “I know. I just don’t care. I’ve no use for things that get in the way of what I want. Have you remembered what those things are? Or have you called me here for a different purpose?”
She was so beautiful. It was difficult to believe such evil thrived beneath that glamorous façade. Tall, fashionably garbed, flawlessly pale, dark in hair and soul, that lovely surface covered the blackest heart. Her blasphemous similarity to her sister Marie went only skin-deep. Genevieve craved power the way Marie had sought the love that ultimately destroyed her.
Furness had no illusions about himself. He’d once been a powerful Chosen leader in the North, as greedy and immoral as his onetime partner. He’d ruthlessly supported her plan to hide the genetic truth of their species to retain power and control. Until he’d been charmed by the gentle purity of her younger sister. To have her, he’d have sacrificed anything—riches, power, influence—but those offerings couldn’t rival her love for that scoundrel, Rollo Moytes.
Tired of Genevieve’s jealousy and broken by Maria’s preference for another, the one-time co-leader of that plan for conquest surrendered his responsibilities for the raw outpost of New Orleans, where he’d set up a pseudo-shelter for children to farm their DNA. The turning point in his purpose.
And that discovery of conscience refused to allow Michael Furness to fall in with her again even as she sweetly threatened, “Give me a reason that would allow you to live beyond the moment of this reunion.”
“Rollo’s letters,” he dangled like poisoned bait. “His confessions of conscience.”
Features as still and lovely as those carved into a graveyard statue, Genevieve whispered, “Letters? More than one? To whom? Who has them?” Breaths burst in and out, threatening to fracture that rigid stone.
“Savoie does.”
“Where did he get them?”
“The old woman across from where they hid from you. Marie was already dead, and Max taken by Legere. But the neighbor didn’t know that. She thought they might come back for their belongings. Apparently, Rollo left the letters with her, and she gave them to Max when he returned.”
The marble cracked. Features twisting in rage and dismay, Genevieve began a fierce pacing. “Has he read them?”
For his own benefit rather than hers, he forced calming words. “The first was to your sister, an apology from what I gather. The other was to Max, whose existence he’d just discovered. I don’t know if he’s opened it. Let me see what I can find out.”
She snapped at that, as he knew she would. “I’ll handle it myself, Michael.” Whatever she feared the missive contained apparently made her direct involvement worth the risk.
He shrugged as if her decision was of no consequence to him. “Stay if you must, but don’t reveal that you’re in the city. These are dangerous times.”
“And about to become more so,” was her cold promise. Then a puff of regret. “But you’re right, as always.” She brightened, becoming almost angelically beautiful. “Once I get the letters, we’ll return home together. You’re compromised and in danger. You serve no useful purpose here. I need you at my side, Michael. Right where you belong.”
Tone grim, he argued, “We’ve had this discussion, Gen. I won’t take an active role in what you plan. I’ve lost my taste for devouring the souls of others.”
“Fine. You can stand at my side,” she concluded with a toothsome smile, “while I consume them all.”
– – –
The past reached out to tap the youngest Terriot prince on the shoulder.
“Hello, Chris.”
Startled by a voice he hadn’t expected to hear again, Kip jerked upright, banging the back of his head. Ducking under the raised tailgate of his new SUV, he struggled in his surprise not to drop the groceries filling his arms.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Olivia Brady’s smile could have been meekly apologetic. But then again, it could have meant she was planning to stuff a live grenade in his pants while his hands were full. Her appearance, that of harmless, fluffy-headed dyed blonde rich girl wearing a necklace with real sparklers and snug designer jeans, no longer fooled him. Not after he’d seen her kill with savage enjoyment.
“What are you doing here? How are you here?”
She chuckled, lively blue eyes dancing with mischief. Or maliciousness. One never knew with his mate’s sister. “You didn’t think I knew about this place? C’mon! Phe’s never been able to keep a secret from me. I couldn’t be in town and not see her. Or you. Can I come in?” When he didn’t move, she added with extra sincerity, “Please? I’d like to meet your family.”
“Why?” Her smile wavered at the harshness of his tone, but that didn’t stop him from adding, “My family has never benefited from the attention of yours.”
She reached out but stilled the movement when he edged back, rigid and defensive. Eyes going shiny, she whispered, “Maybe she could just come out here then.” When he didn’t respond or lessen his combative pose, her shoulders slumped. “Would you at least tell her that I love her and miss her?”
“Sure. After you’re gone.”
A nod and a bracing breath before meeting his unblinking stare. “I’m not evil, Chris. I’m just trying to find my way.”
“We all are Olivia. Don’t make it harder for us.”
The door leading into the house from the garage opened. For a moment, a very surprised Ophelia Brady Terriot just stared at the two of them in the drive. Her first words were cautious.
“Is everything all right, Christopher?”
Both sisters called him by his given name, the one he’d used to infiltrate their father’s household.
Before he could speak, Olivia started to back down the drive. “Sorry. Bad idea. I won’t bother you again. And I won’t say a word about where you are. I promise.”
When Phe’s expressive eyes met her love’s, against his will he caved, muttering, “Why don’t you come in and say hello to everyone?”
Lips quivering, Olivia choked out, “Thanks. I’d like that.”
Instead of hugging the half-sister who’d stepped out of her life to follow Genevieve Savorie to Chicago, Phe took the bags from Kip, letting him guide their unexpected guest inside. The couple’s wariness telegraphed to the group ranging from senior grandmother to the seven-year old youngest of six who’d gathered in the palatial kitchen area for a buffet-style lunch. All froze, staring in silence at the stranger. When Kip introduced her, little Lydia’s brow furrowed, gaze going from elegant blonde to earthy, dark-haired Ophelia.
“You don’t look anything alike.” Then the child’s expression lit up as she grasped upon another thought. “Does that mean we have a new sister?”
Instead of answering, Kip instructed, “Finish your lunch. We’ve got some things to take care of.” As the youngsters groaned but did as told, Kip shot his grandmother a quick look with a single, silent message. Keep them here.
She may have fooled him once with her helpless, innocent act, but Olivia Brady was dangerously unstable and, in a word, just plain dangerous. The two sisters weren’t opposite sides of the same coin, they were an entirely different currency. Ophelia was tender of heart, giving of self, touched by gi
fts of prophesy, whereas Olivia, her supposed twin, was black of heart, self-centered and touched by madness. He couldn’t force a swallow past the noose of apprehension tightening around his throat.
Olivia gazed about the spacious front foyer with its free-standing staircase and grand piano, exclaiming, “This is really something. No wonder Mama held onto it. Who knew she was one for secrets?” She nodded to Phe. “You should be safe here, out of Daddy’s reach.”
But she’d managed to get inside their tight security without a problem. Not reassured, Kip led her up the stairs of the massive plantation-style home he feared was no longer their refuge. There, they could speak privately in the room their once believed grandfather had used as an office.
Phe turned on their unexpected guest with a fierce, “Does he know you’re here?”
Dark brows rose to blonde fringe. “He, meaning our father? No. I haven’t seen him or talked to him.”
Kip cut in. “Does she know?”
Eyes narrowing at his tone, she answered quietly. “No. She’s not here for you.”
“Would you tell us if she was?”
“I like your family,” Olivia announced casually, turning from them as she did the conversation, fingertips browsing the leather-bound spines of an extensive legal library on one of the bookshelves. “They’re nice, normal, like you, Chris.”
Enough with the nice. “Who had their mother and father murdered at your father’s direction. I won’t let you bring more tragedy into their lives.”
She didn’t flinch beneath that harshly growled warning. “I’m better now. I’m learning to control the things that go on in my head.”
“To her purposes? How is that better?”
Ophelia squeezed her mate’s arm gently. Not discouraged by the jerk of resistant muscle, she skipped over his terse remarks to ask, “Are you happy, Liv?”
The artfully styled blonde head tipped as she considered the question for a measured beat. “Happy? How could I be happy without my other half? I miss you, PhePhe. I have no one there who cares about me, the real me. But that’s my fault. I behaved badly. I did awful things that put you and Chris in danger.”
