Cash in Hand

by TA Moore

  “Well, we’ve all got regrets,” he said dryly. “Is that why you’re being so nice to me? So the moment when you slide the knife home is more satisfying?”

  Donna laughed. The genial, practiced murmur from the other wedding guests stopped for a heartbeat and then carefully, politely picked up again.

  “Oh, the moment you feel that last beat is always satisfying,” she said. “Never trust anyone who loses track of the simple joys in life, Caspari. No, letting you live was the right decision. Shanko might be a traitor, but he was never a fool.”

  She sounded fond. Proud, even. Cash wondered if Shanko understood that, in her way, her weird, gross, definitely bloody way, Donna had loved him. But monsters loved like children picked off scabs—there was pleasure in the rip.

  “Are you going to tell me why you’re being nice to me?” he asked.

  “Can’t I just be glad to see you?” she asked. “Happy that you’re here, because you make my son happy?”

  Cash snorted out a laugh. “It doesn’t sound like you, madam.”

  She smiled, sly and cool. “No. It doesn’t, does it?”

  Speakers mounted high in the arched glass roof scratched to life as they started to play the wedding march. The sound dripped down through the high, misty windows until the whole place seemed ready to vibrate. It made Donna glance around at the doors and move her hand. Cash followed suit to watch Arkady walk Yana through the door. She was slim and pretty in gold, the bruises from last night hidden under thickly applied powder, and he looked elegant and cold in shades of gray that didn’t suit him.

  Everyone stood up. Cash offered Donna his arm, but she looked daggers at him and stood up under her own steam, giving her dress a disdainful swipe of her palms to straighten out the wrinkles.

  It was a much more subdued wedding than the last one Cash had gone to. Not that Jerome, at the front of the crowd, seemed to care. From the dazzled look on his face, he might as well have been at the most elaborate wedding in the world. It wouldn’t last. No one could live with monsters and hang on to that odd, bloody-handed innocence, but Cash could see why Yana wanted to keep it close for a while.

  Cash tried to keep his eyes trained on Yana as she paced down the aisle, but his gaze flicked back to the door every few steps. If it was him, with a camera and one chance to get the best shot, he’d wait for the music to hit the last few bars.

  Da da da DAAAA da da da, da… and now… da dah

  A beat after Cash would have done it—with Jerome and Yana already hand in hand—the doors flung open and Harry burst in.

  “Stop!” he said, his voice loud as it bounced back and forth off the windows. People gasped on cue, and a few leaped to their feet with indignant rumblings. “I’m here to stop this wedding, on the authority granted to me by the Catholic Church and the Washington See.”

  Someone fainted.

  That was not scripted. Cash jumped to his feet and ran down to block Harry’s path forward, his arms out.

  “Damn it,” he hissed. “Didn’t you get my email? You’ve been played.”

  Something made Harry give Cash a look with a lot more suspicion than Cash expected. He clenched his teeth and didn’t flinch, even as his monster cringed down nervously into his gut.

  “My apologies, but I don’t think I’ll take your word for that,” Harry said. He turned his camera around in his hand to face him and narrated his decision as he walked forward. “No one’s wedding ceremony should ever be disrupted, but this was an unholy union.”

  Yana laughed and nudged Jerome in the ribs. “Told you,” she said. He looked uncomfortable. Apparently, Jerome wasn’t much of an actor.

  Back at the doors, Abigail slid in, still in her uniform, and filmed the audience as they reacted to Harry’s presence. Perfect.

  “We don’t know yet whether Ilyana Abascal was seduced or deceived,” Harry said as he reached the end of the aisle and reached into his pocket. “But we know her bridegroom is a… monster.”

  He pulled out a bottle and dashed holy water, seasoned with salt and blessings, in Jerome’s face. It would never have had much effect on him—still human in all but his ambitions—but the spray that caught Yana would have pocked and stained her skin.

  If Cash hadn’t swapped it out last night with plain tap water, that was.

  Yana still squealed in a facsimile of girlie surprise and clung closer to Jerome.

  “That’s a lie!”

  Arkady wiped water off his sleeve and glared at Abigail. “You,” he said, his voice tight with anger. “Are you behind this, Amy? You’ve gone too far now. This was my sister’s wedding.”

  “W… what?” Abigail spluttered as she nearly dropped her camera. “This isn’t… I’m… I don’t know what you’re talking about. I… I don’t know you.”

  Arkady rolled his eyes in slightly over-the-top disgust, but for a bad liar he was doing well.

  “That’s right,” he said bitingly. “You don’t, and no matter what you think? You don’t know my sister either. I let you keep your job last time because Yana should have known better, but not interested is not interested.”

  That was the cue, and Cash’s contribution to the plan. Abigail looked around nervously and then focused on Harry.

  “Don’t listen to them,” she said loudly. “He’s a monster. You can’t let them get married. It’s a travesty. I told you that, Yana. I told you it wouldn’t happen.”

  Well, they’d originally hired her to serve wine. It would have been too much to expect her to be a good actor too.

  Harry closed his eyes for a second. Then he threw water on Jerome again—who spluttered in surprise—before he turned to glare at Abigail. “What did you do?”

  “What had to be done!” she said. “This marriage is wrong. It won’t happen while there’s breath in my body!”

  Luckily the collapse of Harry’s hopes and dreams for his career blurred his judgment enough he didn’t question the drama of that. He lowered the camera and glanced at Arkady.

  “I can explain.”

  Epilogue

  “YOU’RE LETTING him live?” Kohary asked with a hint of surprise as Shanko delivered a cup of tea to Donna, still in her human wedding drag. She took it from him, sipped neatly, and left a bright red smudge on the china.

  “He wants to die,” she said. “And I’m in no mood to indulge him. If he wants death, he needs to earn his bonus, and this year’s is already down the drain.”

  Kohary considered that and then nodded. He stood up and fastidiously straightened his cuffs. “Fair enough,” he said. “The Worm thought you’d forgiven him.”

  “Then he’s delusional with regrowth,” Donna said. “I’ve never forgiven a debt in my life. Caspari, show the Left Hand to the door?”

  Cash considered arguing but pushed himself up out of the chair instead. He opened the door for Kohary and politely ushered him out. They walked in tight, wary silence through the halls, until Kohary broke it.

  “How is she?” he asked with an odd hunger in his voice. Then, to remind himself, “Your daughter.”

  “Ellie,” Cash said. “And she’s okay. She liked camp, as it turns out. She said it was like twenty-four seven ice hockey. Only everyone is the goon. If she’d ended up your ward, she’d have probably thrived.”

  Kohary nodded stiffly. “I am glad she didn’t,” he said. “It’s no life for a child… or a partner. Your Left Hand isn’t expected to want something the Council doesn’t.”

  It was a very old secret, and it felt insane to talk about it like this, even veiled as it was.

  “She’s my kid,” he said. “Humanity suits her.”

  “I know,” Kohary said. “One day, something else might too. If you need… anything? I owe you, for Shanko. You saved me a chase.”

  That wasn’t it, of course. Cash had, but that wasn’t the marker he could lay down in front of the Left Hand if he ever had the balls for it.

  “I won’t,” he said. It sounded cruel, felt cruel in his throat, so he softe
ned it. “But if she does, she’ll know who to ask for.”

  Cash walked Kohary into the aboveground hotel and through the mortal guests. The indentured servants that Donna had pressed into nice suits and the role of partygoers mingled discreetly. A night and a day up here was their bonus for the year.

  In reception, Arkady waited in one of the big wing-backed leather chairs. He didn’t bother to come over to say goodbye to Kohary. They just traded nods and a hard look. Then Kohary took his leave.

  Cash supposed he could too as he watched Kohary go. His job here was technically done, although it was a shame to miss the wedding feast.

  “You gave me the weekend,” Arkady said. His fingers touched the back of Cash’s neck in a featherlight caress that tickled. Then he hooked them in his collar and pulled him back a step, out of the sun. He’d lost a whole layer of skin to Shanko’s attack. “And I have plans for it.”

  Cash turned into his arms and looked up at him. He didn’t know how much Arkady had heard at the trailer park or what he wanted him to have heard.

  “Still want to rub Yana’s nose in me?” he asked.

  Arkady kissed him, sweet and so desperate it knocked Cash off balance again. “I nearly lost you, idiot,” Arkady said. “Shanko could have killed you. All I want is you, alive and where I can touch you when I want.”

  “For the weekend. Until things go back to normal,” Cash said. It would hurt, but less than if he fooled himself.

  “Idiot,” Arkady said in exasperation. “You know better than to make a deal with me without parsing it thoroughly. Do you know why I kept that outfit, the one you wore to my first wedding?”

  “Because I was hot, still?”

  Arkady swallowed. “Because the first time you wore it, I couldn’t even look at you or I wouldn’t have been able to go through with my vows. You were so beautiful, and all I could think about was what it would have been like to marry you.”

  Cash drew back slightly. “Are you asking me to—”

  “No,” Arkady said. He twisted his fingers through Cash’s hair and tugged affectionately. “Not yet, anyhow. But you? You’re my normal. So, this? After this weekend, this is going to be your new normal too.”

  He ducked his head for another kiss, careless of their audience. Cash didn’t care either. He doubted any of the parents from Ellie’s school would be here to make a complaint. He curled his hand around the back of Arkady’s neck and leaned in.

  DONNA ACCEPTED a glass of mushroom gin from a servant—just because she’d let them aboveground didn’t mean she’d given them the night off—and watched her son and his lover. Love would die eventually, of course. Even the most smitten of lovebirds would peck the other to death one day. It was still sweet, and more importantly, it got her what she wanted.

  Her son, happy, and her granddaughter under her roof—where she belonged.

  She savored the mealy taste of her drink.

  And Cash thought that none of them were good liars.

  More from TA Moore

  When the kids are away, the monsters will play.

  School’s out for summer, and these dads are ready to ship their kids off to camp. Not just because their kids are monsters—whose aren’t?—but because they’re ready for some alone time to let their hair down and their fangs out. You see, not only are the kids monsters—their dads are too.

  Even the most dangerous of creatures has a soft spot. These bad, dangerous dads love their kids to death, but they need romance.

  Every year, for a few short weeks, these hot men with a little extra in their blood get to be who they truly are. And this year, life has a surprise for them. Whether they be mage, shifter, vampire, or changeling, these heartbreakingly handsome dads might be looking to tear up the town… but they’ll end up falling in love. All it takes is the right man to bring them to their knees.

  A Blood and Bone Novel

  Agent Luke Bennett proved that humans could rise just as high in the ranks as their vampire colleagues—until a kidnapper held him captive for a year and turned him without his consent.

  Now he’s Took: a reluctant monster afraid to bite anyone, broke, and about to be discharged from his elite BITERs unit.

  When an old colleague suggests he consult on a BITERs case, Took has little to lose. The case is open and shut… but nothing is ever that easy. As he digs deeper, he discovers a lot more than one cold case is at stake, and if he wants to solve this one, he’ll need the help of the BITERs team. Even if that brings his old commander, Madoc, back into his life.

  Lost and Found

  Fifteen years ago Sammy Calloway disappeared on his way home from school. Now he’s back… or is he?

  Boyd Maccabbee has spent his life second-guessing his actions on that fateful day. What if he’d done something differently? Maybe Sammy would have made it home safe and never become Cutters Gap’s most tragic famous son. Or would it have been Boyd who was never seen again? When the police find new evidence on the disappearance, Boyd hopes to finally get some answers.

  The last thing Morgan Graves needs is to be dragged into some old case about a missing kid. He doesn’t know why police hit on his DNA, but he’s not Sammy Calloway. He thinks he’d remember being kidnapped.

  He knows he’d remember firefighter Boyd.

  Drawn into the complex web of suspicion, grief, and anger that has knit Cutters Gap together in the years since Sammy’s disappearance, Morgan struggles to hang on to himself when everyone already assumes they know him.

  And somewhere, the truth about Sammy Calloway is waiting.

  A Story from Plenty, California

  As one of the top trauma surgeons in Plenty’s ER, Dr. Taggart Hayes knows how to fix broken things—fractured legs, ruptured spleens, allergies, and traumatic brain injuries. He can put them back together good as new.

  A broken heart, though? That’s a bit trickier. Especially when it’s his own.

  When Tag swipes on the photo of the hot man in the dating app, he just wants a distraction from the wreck that used to be his life. A one-night stand with a safely inappropriate stranger, no names, no feelings, and no complications.

  But the headless photo on the app belongs to a man who isn’t so easy to forget the next day… or the next week. And it becomes increasingly clear that Bass is neither safe nor uncomplicated. Drawn into the dark, criminal underworld his lover inhabits, Tag has to decide if the cure for his broken heart is worse than the disease.

  You don’t end up an ex-car thief and ex-con because you’re good at resisting temptation… and Cal Tate’s rich new boss is very tempting.

  Cal has always been the bad boy lovers don’t bring home to Mom, but now he’d like someone other than a debt collector waiting for him at home. He has a legit job as a driver with his brother’s company, he’s got a doctor on the hook, and he still can’t help crawling into bed with Joseph Bailey.

  Joe has never met anyone as easy in their own skin as his new driver. Or as ridiculously beautiful. He’s in London to downsize the family business… and to investigate the abusive emails that imply a dark secret around his mother’s death. But unpicking the lies he’s been told makes Joe realize he isn’t sure who is without them.

  When his life falls apart, the only person he can be himself with is Cal. But with the anonymous stalker’s threats increasing, Joe worries that someone will finish the job they started over two decades ago—and end any chance for a happy future between him and Cal.

  TA MOORE is a Northern Irish writer of romantic suspense, urban fantasy, and contemporary romance novels. A childhood in a rural seaside town fostered a suspicious nature, a love of mystery, and a streak of black humour a mile wide. As her grandmother always said, “She’d laugh at a bad thing, that one,” mind you, that was the pot calling the kettle black. TA studied history, Irish mythology, and English at University, mostly because she has always loved a good story. She has worked as a journalist, a finance manager, and in the arts sectors before she finally gave in to a lifelong desi
re to write.

  Coffee, Doc Marten boots, and good friends are the essential things in life. Spiders, mayo, and heels are to be avoided.

  Website: www.nevertobetold.co.uk

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/TA.Moores

  Twitter: @tammy_moore

  By TA Moore

  Bad, Dad, and Dangerous Anthology

  Cash in Hand

  Every Other Weekend

  Ghostwriter of Christmas Past

  Liar, Liar

  Take the Edge Off

  BLOOD AND BONE

  Dead Man Stalking

  DIGGING UP BONES

  Bone to Pick

  Skin and Bone

  ISLAND CLASSIFIEDS

  Wanted – Bad Boyfriend

  LOST AND FOUND

  Prodigal

  PLENTY, CALIFORNIA

  Swipe

  Bone to Pick

  Skin and Bone

  WOLF WINTER

  Dog Days

  Stone the Crows

  Wolf at the Door

  Published by DSP Publications

  Collared

  Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS

  www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  Published by

  DREAMSPINNER PRESS

  5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA

  www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.