by Hart, Callie
“I don’t make a secret of it.”
“And if he shows up?”
“He dies. He, and anyone else he brings here. There are charges in the stairwells. The roof’s covered in trip-wires. And…” I waved my hand at the building. “There are no fire escapes for people to scale, either.”
He smirked. “You got all the angles covered. Place is a fortress.”
Zeth and I weren’t just cut from the same cloth. We’d been cast from the same mold, and that mold had cracked asunder and broken once it had finishing forging the two of us. We were the last of a dying breed—not only strong, not only fiercely loyal, but quick-witted and calculating, too. We were as smart as we were lethal with our fists, and that combination made us a force to be reckoned with. I skirted the vehicle and punched in the access code to the door, every part of me wary, my focus homed in on the man standing behind me as I pulled back the slab of steel and stepped to one side, making way for him.
“We’re going all the way up,” I said.
“Of course we are.” He prowled inside. I was following right behind him when the cell in my back pocket began to buzz. I drew out the device and was seconds away from hitting the ‘decline call’ button when I saw the image on the screen: Bugs Bunny, holding a half-gnawed carrot up to his grinning mouth as if it were a cigar.
“Take it if you need to. Loony Tunes characters get a little crazy when you ignore them,” Zeth jibed.
“Yeah. And this particular rabbit’s already fucking insane as it is.” I exhaled a hard, displeased sigh down my nose. “Wait for me at the very top floor. I won’t be a second.”
Zeth’s boots made light scraping, scuffing sounds as he climbed ahead without me, the black duffel bag he was carrying in his right hand swinging as he reached the top of the first flight and turned the corner, disappearing out of sight.
I clenched my jaw, stabbing at the green ‘accept call’ button, and then I held the cell to my ear. “What is it?” I snarled.
Rabbit’s irritatingly smug voice buzzed against my ear drum. “That’s no way to greet a friend.”
“We’re not—” I stopped myself, biting back the words. Somewhere along the road, Rabbit had gotten it into his head that we were going to be best pals. More than anything, I wanted to burst the guy’s bubble, but that would be counterproductive. Once he had the thumb drive and he’d told us who Carver hired to pick up Sera’s job, I’d be putting him over my knee and tanning his ass like the little punk ass piece of shit that he was. Until then, I had to play nice.
“As I’m sure you can imagine, it’s been a really long night, Rabbit. How can I help you?” It almost caused me physical pain to be polite. He had no idea the trouble he’d caused over at The Barrows. He could have just accepted the money and kept things neat and tidy, but no. He’d had to fuck with me and make absurd demands. See, this was the problem with love. It weakened a man. Made him vulnerable. Had him agreeing to stupid requests he would otherwise normally have laughed at.
“Just wanted to make sure you’d survived the night,” Rabbit mused. “Heard reports that there was some crazy shit going down at The Barrows. Apparently, someone riled Oscar Finch so bad, he personally shoved two of his best body guards off the roof. Brothers, I think.”
I almost snorted. Oscar had been boiling mad when Zeth and I walked away from the rooftop like we owned the damn place. No one had been standing watch by the front door—I’d made a mental note of that when we’d jogged across the road and jumped into the Camaro. Sounded like Falco and Foster had borne the brunt of Finch’s notorious wrath. I allowed myself the brief luxury of wondering if their heads had exploded like watermelons as they’d hit the sidewalk. Served ’em right, the bastards.
“I’m just fine. Thanks for checking in,” I drawled. The truth was even the roots of my hair were aching, and every time I tried to draw in a deep breath, it felt like someone was stabbing a rusty screwdriver between my ribs, but I wasn’t going to tell fucking Rabbit that. As far as he was concerned, I hadn’t even broken a sweat while obtaining the thumb drive, and it was staying that way.
“Glad to hear it.” There was a repetitive sound in the background, as if Rabbit was clicking a pen. “So, where are you? What are you doing right now?”
I scowled. The kid was like a needy fucking girlfriend. “I’m home. I actually just found out about this revolutionary thing called sleep. Heard of it? I thought I might try it out for a couple of hours, see what happened.”
Rabbit’s high-pitched, unbalanced rattle of laughter set my teeth on edge. “Ah, yeah. Sleep. I wouldn’t recommend it. You know what happens when men sleep, Fix? The world has this annoying habit of continuing to spin on its axis, hurtling around the sun with complete disregard for the fact that us dreamers are no longer paying any attention. Problems develop. Assassins find their marks. People end up getting killed…”
My hand tightened around the cell. “What are you saying? Is Carver’s guy close?” I’d figured I’d trade off the drive for the information later in the afternoon, once I’d had time to check in with Sera and make sure she was okay. Weirdly, Rabbit hadn’t even asked about the drive. He’d held up his end of the bargain, though. He knew something about Carver. He wouldn’t bait me with such poorly veiled comments, otherwise.
“Yeah. I’d say Carver’s guy’s a lot closer than you think,” Rabbit said, his tone a little too high pitched. “I heard you made yourself a friend at the fights last night? Someone…from out of town?”
A powerful, bleak wave of fear slammed into me, pushing against my chest, refusing to let me breathe.
Oh god.
Oh my fucking god.
Was he serious? He sounded fucking serious.
My head whipped around, my eyes moving up the stairs after Zeth. After the man I’d just allowed access into the Eddison Gas and Electrical Works. Who wouldn’t have been able to get in here otherwise. No. No fucking way…
My heart stood still, but I did not.
I dropped the phone.
I didn’t hear it hit the ground.
I didn’t hear my own ragged breath as I threw myself up the stairs after him.
I didn’t hear a thing, because it was too late.
My ears were ringing with the sound of shotgun a blast.
FOUR
FIX
She was dead. She was fucking dead, and I’d just let it fucking happen. As I raced upward, around and around, taking the stairs four at a time, my head was turning itself inside out. How was I going to face the sight of her lying on the floor, arms and legs at strange angles, those beautiful eyes of hers staring blankly into nothingness? It was going to break me. Kill me. The universe would cease to exist. Everything would end. Only one thing would matter: my need to exact revenge upon the man who had snatched the sun right out of the sky and blown it out as if it were nothing more than a candle flame.
I could barely see straight as I barreled up the last flight of steps, my throat swelling closed as I raced toward the open door to the penthouse. And then, inside…
I stopped dead.
What…the…fuck?
My imagination had painted a horrific picture of Sera’s death. It could never have conjured up the image that faced me instead. Sera wasn’t lying dead on the floor after all. She was standing in the middle of the living room with my M4 butted up against her shoulder, and she was pointing the business end right between Zeth Mayfair’s eyes.
“Aim was a little off with that first shot,” she said calmly. “I won’t miss again, though.” Her gaze flickered to the right, toward me. “Jesus, Fix. Are you okay? You look like you’re about to drop down dead.”
What in the actual fuck was going on? I’d thought the back of her skull had just been blown out, but she was the one who’d fired the gun? I glanced around, disbelief slapping me in the face when I saw the huge, smoking hole in the wall behind me, a foot to the left of the front door. She must have barely missed his head.
Zeth slowly turned a
nd faced me, holding his hand out in front of him so I could see them. He should have been afraid, but he wasn’t. His dark eyes were alive with what looked like intrigue. “Wanna call off your body guard?” he asked.
I squared my shoulders, then strode across the room, slamming my hands into his chest and grabbing the fucker by the shirt. “You’re not from New York,” I snapped, shoving my face into his. “Where did you come from? And why?”
He didn’t flinch. “I came from Seattle. I’m here because my boss told me to come.”
Seattle? Well that was no fucking coincidence. No way in hell a guy like Zeth, a guy from Seattle, the city where Sera lived, would just suddenly appear in New York. Not for a goddamn thumb drive. There was no such thing as chance. If there was one thing I’d learned over the years, putting people down, cleaning up other people’s messes, it was that everything happened for a reason.
“Why?” I pushed him, slamming his back into the wall. It had to have hurt. Zeth blew down his nose—a wild animal, outraged by the fact that it had been cornered.
“You already know why,” he said sharply. He locked eyes with me, and I saw into the bottomless depths of his soul. He was a raging tempest, but then again…so was I. I pulled my arm back, then drove a savage right hook at his head, intent on forcing my entire fist through both his skull and the wall behind it. He wasn’t having her. He wasn’t fucking taking her life. If he thought for one second that I’d allow him to even disturb a—
A hand clamped around my arm, pulling me away. The force of her grip was nowhere near enough to hold me back, not even close, but her touch alone stopped me in my tracks. I’d never risk hurting her. Sera adjusted the assault rifle, hitching it up so she had a better purchase on it. “Brawling isn’t going to solve this,” she hissed. “You’re bleeding everywhere. If he’s…” She risked a sidelong glance in Zeth’s direction. “If he’s the one Carver sent, we should just hand him over to the cops. They might be able to find out who paid him. They can arrest Carver and we can fucking move on with our lives.”
Zeth began to laugh. In his position, I’d have done the same thing. He rocked his head back, resting it against the wall. “Your boyfriend isn’t gonna hand me over to the cops. He’s a stone-cold killer. And even if he wasn’t, he knows better than to think they’ll do anything about this. They’ll let me go inside of an hour. I’ll be gone. You’ll never see me again. Until I’m slitting your throat in your bed,” he added. Turning his attention to me, he flared his nostrils, his mouth forming a tight smile. “If I were you, I’d let your girl press that thing up against my head and pull the trigger. Be the easiest way to solve this.”
It would. It really would. Sera had tried to do it moments before I charged into the penthouse, too, so it wasn’t as if she wasn’t capable, but…
If Zeth died, Carver would just send someone else, and someone else, and someone else after that, and Mayfair fucking knew it. There was only one way to end this permanently, and that was to convince Carver that Sera had been taken care of. At least that way, we’d buy ourselves some time. We’d be able to find out who Carver was and where. Then I could roll up on him in the middle of the night and peel his fucking flesh from his goddamn body.
Zeth’s eyes flashed as he nodded at me—the motherfucker knew what I was thinking, and he’d already realized I wasn’t going to kill him. I closed my hand around his neck, and the man did absolutely nothing to stop me.
“Let’s start with your boss, shall we?” I growled. “Give me a name.”
Zeth didn’t hesitate. “I work for a very angry, very mad Englishman. Goes by the name of Charlie Holsan. And whoever this Carver guy is, he paid Charlie directly. I don’t have a fucking clue who he is, so I wouldn’t waste your breath trying to beat it out of me. It won’t get you anywhere. Trust me.”
I’d already made the mistake of trusting this asshole and it hadn’t ended well. I tightened my grip around his throat. “Did you even need the thumb drive?”
Slowly, Zeth shook his head. “Your little hacker friend told me where you’d be tonight. He’s quite the double agent. All bent out of shape about you not meeting him for coffee or some shit.”
Sera took a step back, clearing her throat. “Oh my god. I don’t know what’s going on, but I swear I’m going to kill Rabbit myself.”
Ha. She was a fucking spitfire when she was riled. My beautiful, fearless, brave Angel. She’d kill Rabbit, I had no doubt, but I wasn’t going to let her. Selfishly, I wanted the honor of that task all to myself, and I didn’t plan on sharing. I was going to relish every last second as I destroyed Rabbit piece by piece. He was going to suffer for fucking with me like this, and I didn’t care what it did to me. I’d give away the very last gentle, good part of my tattered soul if it meant he paid for endangering Sera’s life. He’d known Zeth would come back here with me. He’d known all too well that Zeth would never make it inside the Gas and Electrical Works unless I let him in. So he’d orchestrated this entire night—the fight at The Barrows; Zeth and I having to work together; having to leave together once we’d taken the thumb drive. He’d already planned all of this out as he’d sat in that booth and smiled congenially at Sera, complimenting her on how beautiful she looked.
He was scum. He was a lying, backstabbing fucking monster. But most importantly, he was so fucking dead.
“So. Where we going from here?” Zeth asked. He didn’t seem remotely bothered by the fact that I had him by the neck. Honestly, we were so evenly matched, he probably could have broken free. He could have tackled me, and we would have found ourselves locked in another fight, trading blow for blow until one of us eventually fucked up and the other took advantage. But he was obviously good at reading people, just like I was, and he’d made a firm judgment where Sera was concerned. He’d taken her measure. He knew she’d fucking shoot him if he so much as sneezed right now, and he was biding his time, waiting to see what would happen.
“We don’t go anywhere,” I snapped. “We’re going to figure out our next move, and you…you’re going in the bathtub.”
A cold, hard light burned in Zeth’s pupils. “Better tie me up good, Priest. I’m not known for being a well behaved captive.”
“Don’t worry. I got you covered.” I flashed my teeth at him. “I learned all of my knots at motherfucking church camp.”
FIVE
SERA
It was two in the afternoon and Fix was making grilled cheese sandwiches in the kitchen. I’d fired an M4 assault rifle just a couple of hours ago, and there was a hitman trussed up in the clawfoot bathtub two rooms away. All in all, it was a perfectly normal Saturday.
Fix faced the stove, his back to me, wearing just his jeans. He’d kicked off his shoes and pulled his shirt over his head the moment he’d walked out of the bathroom, slamming the door closed on the huge, dark-haired guy who’d shown up here to murder me. If I hadn’t had that rifle in my hands…
I shivered out of the thought, unwilling to even consider what would have happened.
Fix was angry. I could feel it radiating off him like waves of heat boiling off a stretch of blacktop on a summer’s day, and every time I thought about going to him, speaking to him, those waves of anger seemed to intensify to searing levels. He wanted to be alone, I knew it, but every time I tried to slink off back into the living room, he came and took me by the hand, firmly leading me back into the kitchen. He was still covered in blood. His torso was streaked with it, his skin marred with countless cuts and scrapes, and the bruises… fuck, the bruises were beginning to deepen, developing into dark, malevolent stains beneath his skin. It was a miracle he was still standing, and yet somehow he was stomping around the kitchen like a man possessed. His hair was falling into his face, and his brows were banked into one dark, furious straight line, his jaw clenched and set. There was a deep cut underneath his left eye, and his bottom lip was split, but neither appeared to be causing him distress.
His eyes had been swollen and puffy when he’d rushed into t
he penthouse, but amazingly the swelling was now almost gone. It was as if he’d bullied his body into submission, refusing to allow himself to be hurt through sheer force of will alone.
He slashed at the bread with a butter-loaded knife, greasing it before he thrust it into the hot frying pan.
“I’m sorry about the wall,” I said. “You don’t need to worry about it. I’ll get it fixed.”
“I’m not worried about the fucking wall.”
“Then I’m sorry about…shit, I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry I brought this crazy bullshit to your doorstep. I’m sorry you had to deal with Rabbit. I’m sorry you have a guy tied up in your bathroom. I’m sorry I—”
I stopped short, my head jerking back as I realized what was happening. What the fuck? What was I doing? I was apologizing? No. No, no, no. Just hell no.
“You know what? None of this would actually be happening if you hadn’t agreed to take money from someone to fucking kill me. You wouldn’t be dealing with the inconvenience of having to protect me at all if you hadn’t accepted forty thousand dollars from a complete stranger in return for ending my life.” My cheeks were on fire, flames licking up the skin of my throat. He was in a shitty mood with me? What the fuck was wrong with him?
Without turning around, Fix said, “Twenty thousand.”
“Excuse me?”
“I only got paid twenty grand. We take half up front and then the other half once the job is done. So, I only took twenty thousand dollars to kill you.”
I let my mouth hang open. “Oh, well that changes everything.”
Fix stopped what he was doing. The spatula he’d been holding in his hand clattered on the countertop as Fix leaned forward, palms planted on the granite work, and he braced himself. “You’re right,” he said quietly. “You shouldn’t be apologizing to me. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
