by Zoey Parker
I could hear Luther in the background asking it was time to get Immortal.
“Tell the Stone it’s time to get Immortal,” I said, laughing as I said it. I didn’t like the idea of letting the guys get nasty with Sierra involved, but if the idea of breaking out some of our old tactics lit a fire underneath all of our asses, it definitely wasn’t a bad thing.
“Do we need to get some of our street members in?” Duncan asked.
“No, we should be able to handle this on our own.” I stood next to my bike while we talked.
“Look, we’re talking about Coyote. Let me get a couple of guys like Luther out here with us, okay? We might need a little more muscle, a couple of guys who don’t mind raising a little hell and hurting somebody when it needs to be done.”
“Whatever you think needs to be done, Duncan. I’m hopping on my bike right now.” I hung up the phone and stuffed it into my pocket. Other than my colors, I was still wearing the clothes I’d worn when I took the thief out to eat.
I couldn’t think of anything better to be wearing when we caught her ass and took the diamond back.
###
Sierra
Once again, I was escorted to Coyote’s office by one of her security officers. I never noticed how similar Gunner’s mansion was to hers until coming back in there after spending so much time at his. They were very similar in design, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d had the same architects and crews working on them.
She was beaming when I entered her office. She quickly waved off her guard and told him to close the door when I entered.
“Do you have it?” she asked immediately after the door closed.
“It’s right here,” I told her, pulling it out of my bag again to show her.
I held the Sun Stone up for her to see it. It was more beautiful every time I looked at it.
Some of the stories said that it was cursed because it brought greed with it everywhere it went. Anyone who possessed it faced countless troubles as greed drew people to the diamond. There were almost constant challenges to face while the Sun Stone was in someone’s possession.
I could already feel myself being drawn into it. Its story lured me in. I even caught myself admiring its beauty, and I didn’t really care much for jewelry. Cold, hard cash was much more attractive to me than sparkly gems. I could use money to get the things I wanted and needed for myself.
I supposed gems could be used in much the same way, but they had to be sold to be converted into real money, and I hated that part of the deal. I wanted the money up front, no extra steps involved. That was what I liked about working for Coyote. I got paid as soon as I turned the jewels over. I rarely had to wait.
“Can I hold it?” she asked, and I could already hear it in her voice. The diamond was already starting to work on her.
“Please do,” I told her. “Get it off my hands. I can’t hold onto it any longer.”
I passed it across the desk to her. She held both of her hands out, and I put the gem down in her palms.
Coyote held it up to the light and looked through it.
“It’s so beautiful,” she said in awe.
“It is, but I’m more intrigued by its story,” I told her.
“Yes, its story is a lot like yours, isn’t it?” She chuckled.
It shocked me that she had drawn that conclusion as well.
“Oh, don’t look so shocked, Sierra. The whole reason I sent you after it was because I knew you would be attracted to it. I knew it would call out to you, making it nearly impossible for you not to get it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Don’t lie to me. Don’t tell me you don’t feel it calling to you, even now, even with it in my hands instead of yours. You do, don’t you? It wants to tell you its story, Sierra. That’s why it keeps moving from person to person. It wants to have a bigger story than any other gem out there. That’s where its weight comes from. It’s not the size of the Sun Stone, it’s the story that it contains.”
I saw what they meant about the effect it had on people. I could see it in Coyote’s wild, obsessed eyes and hear it in her voice.
“I sent you after it because, just like you, the diamond has moved around almost non-stop for its entire existence. It never sits still for long. It has to pass to another owner. And when it doesn’t, it calls out to people like you, Sierra, people who can understand it. I can feel it.”
Her brow furrowed, and she looked at me with a strange look in her eyes. It was a troubled, concerned look.
“It wants to go back to you.”
“What the hell are you going on about, Coyote? You have the damn Sun Stone. Now pay me. I have to get out of here before this thing makes me sick,” I told her.
“No,” she said, almost dreamily. “I can’t pay you. The diamond is telling me it wants you to have it, Sierra. Can you hear what it’s telling me? Can you feel it pulling towards you?” She held the diamond out towards me as she talked.
I took a step back.
“That’s fine, Coyote. Just pay me, and I don’t care what you do with the diamond after that.”
“No, I really can’t do that, Sierra. I need to put this diamond up somewhere safe before it finds a way to end up with you again. It says that you are a kindred spirit, and that it feels like it could finally settle down if it were in your hands.”
“What the hell?” I started laughing. What she was saying made no damn sense what so ever. “Coyote, listen to yourself. You’re telling me that diamond is talking to you.”
“You know you felt it when you held it.”
What was really crazy was that I had felt it. I had felt it ever since I set my eyes on it. When I grabbed it, it felt like it was trying to thank me for finally finding it. That was one of the reasons I was ready to get rid of it.
Coyote opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a gun.
“What’s the gun for, Coyote?” I asked nervously.
“It’s to keep you from trying to get my diamond, Sierra.” She pointed the gun at me, and I found myself staring down the barrel of a revolver.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked her. “All I need you to do is pay me, and I’ll be out of your hair after that,” I told her, trying to keep my voice calm and level.
“No, Sierra, I don’t think I can do that anymore. I think what I’d rather do is eliminate you. See, now that you’ve touched the diamond, you’ve created two problems.”
“You’re holding the diamond. What problems could you possibly have right now?” I asked her.
“It’s simple, really. First, the diamond has told me it likes you better.”
Okay, I realized right about then that my boss was bat shit crazy and that all the stories about how the Sun Stone would do that to whoever held it were true. I was glad I had given it to her, but I was not glad to have a gun in my face because of what it was doing to her.
“Second, and this is actually going to be the hard one to face,” Coyote continued, “Gunner and his men are going to be after you. The diamond tells me that he’s not going to come for it. It says it knows Gunner will take the diamond back if it’s still here where he can get to it, but that he’s coming for you no matter what. I can’t have that, Sierra.”
“Coyote, listen to yourself,” I pleaded. “You’re talking about talking diamonds and the leader of a motorcycle gang who wants the diamond, not me.”
She shook her head and laughed. She had started holding the diamond up to her ear.
“The diamond says he’s in love with you, Sierra. Did you not know that?”
“So, what, it makes you clairvoyant now?” I mocked her. I knew it wasn’t a good idea, but I really didn’t think she was going to shoot me.
“No, but it sure is a talkative little thing. It’s telling me that he’s already on his way. How did you miss that he was falling for you? I mean, it had to be obvious, Sierra. Oh, wait, it also says that you’re in love with Gunner. It’s telling me that it wants you to k
now that it will be happy for you if you can at least be with Gunner, even if you can’t have the diamond. That’s sweet, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told her, holding my hands up so she could see I wasn’t doing anything.
“The diamond isn’t talking, you idiot. I had someone watching you.” Her tone suddenly sharpened, and she looked at me with her hard, focused eyes.
She pulled the hammer back and cocked the gun in my face, and suddenly, I felt like she might actually shoot me. I hoped she was right about Gunner being on his way.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I stared at Coyote’s gun. I could see the bullets in the chambers of the revolver. I could see her finger on the trigger, resting but ready to squeeze at any moment and bring our conversation to an end.
The conversation was already over in my opinion. It ended the moment she cocked the hammer back. I couldn’t believe I was being crossed by my boss like this. Regardless of whatever reason she could come up with, I felt like she had been planning this moment for a lot longer.
She stood in front of me in a dark suit jacket and skirt. Her body stood straight and narrow, stiff as a board. She looked at me with sharp, cunning eyes. She had always seemed controlling and sort of above everything around her, but in that moment, when I let my eyes drift away from the barrel to her face, I saw a cold, hard killer.
I had underestimated Coyote all these years. I knew she wasn’t afraid to make the hard decisions, the dirty decisions. She wasn’t afraid to have her people do all sorts of despicable things to her enemies. But I never imagined that she could any of them herself.
In her other hand, she held the Sun Stone. She had played on my knowledge of the diamond’s story by pretending to hear it talking. She knew I couldn’t resist the stories some of our most valuable prizes had brought with them. This diamond was no different since its stories were as grand as its price tag.
I had felt my greed awaken while I held the diamond, but it was something in me realizing what I had in my possession. It had nothing to do with the diamond itself or any magical properties some of its previous owners had attributed to it. She had probably seen the sparkle in my eyes and wanted me out of the picture before I tried to make a move to get it back.
I looked back at the gun in her hand and noticed that she held the hammer down with her thumb. She would have to release it before pulling the trigger, but the certainty of my death was no longer looming in front of me. In the placement of Coyote’s thumb, I saw the possibility of survival, but only if I could move fast enough.
“So this was the plan all along, wasn’t it?” I decided to confront her to distract her.
“No, not all along. Originally, I was going to split the money with you and encourage you to retire so you could live a normal life,” Coyote told me in an odd moment of sincerity.
“Retire? You must be joking.” I didn’t buy it, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t talking to hear what she had to say.
“I’m sorry you don’t believe me, but you need a break, and I’m going to make enough money off of this that I might even consider retiring while I’m ahead. Now that my name has been added to the list of people who have possessed the Sun Stone, it’s time to drop out before any of the bad luck that follows it knocks on my door,” she explained.
“I don’t believe you, Coyote.” I shook my head, but I kept my eye on the gun.
“You don’t have to,” she said flatly. “You won’t be around long enough for it to matter.”
I saw the muscles in her hand tighten her grip on the gun.
“So, if you were thinking about helping me get out, what changed your mind?” I tried to sound nonchalant even though I was freaking out. I didn’t want to rush my words and let her know that I was scared.
“Gunner changed my mind, but I thought we already went over this.”
She tilted her head to study my face. She knew I was about to pull something, but she was still hesitant to pull the trigger for some reason. I began to think she didn’t really want to shoot me. She was probably just looking for me to give her some undeniable reason to go ahead and off me.
That wasn’t going to happen.
“You know, Sierra,” she said thoughtfully, “I was beginning to wonder if you were even going to come through for me this time.” She looked at the diamond and turned it around in her hand to examine it.
I saw my chance in her admiration of the diamond. With her firm grip on the gun, it wasn’t a wide opening, but at least I had an opportunity to go for it. I had to be swift. I had to attack her the way I attacked my work if I wanted to survive.
I grabbed her wrist and pushed her hand up as I ducked to the side. A gunshot ripped through her otherwise silent office. It sounded like a cannon going off in that small room.
“What the hell are you doing?” she shouted at me.
“Getting out of here,” I growled as I dove across the desk with one hand on her arm and the other firmly planted under her chin.
We crashed through the window looking out onto her patio. Glass rained down around us as our bodies hit the ground. Her hand released the gun, sending it skittering across the hard tile. I held her shooting hand in place on the ground while I gripped her throat with my other hand.
Her neck was softer than I had imagined. She was such a hard bitch that I expected her neck to be made of stone, just like her heart. It was tender, though, and delicate. It begged to be kissed and protected, not to be strangled and choked, which was exactly what I planned to do. I squeezed with my left hand. As her flesh gave way under my grip, the satisfaction I felt in knowing that I was cutting off her breath made me grip her with both hands.
It felt good to stare down into her face and know that she was looking back up at me while I squeezed the life out of her. Pull a gun on me, huh? I was going to teach her a lesson, and it was going to be one she wouldn’t live long enough to forget.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her arm move. She still gripped the Sun Stone in her fingers, and she slammed it into the side of my head. My vision blurred, and I tumbled over beside her.
“Oh, you have fucked up now, Sierra,” she warned as she scrambled to her feet.
I expected her to go for her gun, but she didn’t. Instead, she walked over to me in heels that matched her suit. Her legs were toned and muscular. In that moment, she was as cold and hard as I had ever seen her. I knew I was in trouble if I didn’t act soon, but the pain in my head made it hard to concentrate on formulating the rest of my escape.
I put a hand up to the spot on my head where she’d hit me and I pulled my fingers back soaked in blood. Seeing the blood on my fingers, I realized that even though she had hesitated with the gun, I was still at her mercy. She still had the upper hand. She could still bring that diamond back down on my head again and potentially end this confrontation.
I wasn’t going to let that happen.
“No, you’re the one who fucked up,” I roared back at her, lunging from my position on my hands and knees. I rammed her right in her gut and pushed her back towards her pool.
“What the hell are you doing?” she shouted out.
“I already told you,” I answered as I let go of her, sending her hurtling back into the water.
As she sank down, ruining her suit in the ultra-chlorinated water, I stepped to the edge of the tiles running around the side of the pool and looked down on her. She splashed for a moment, trying to get her bearings in the water, and then she rose back up to the surface.
“I’m leaving,” I said again. “And you better hope you never see me again, Coyote, because if you do, I promise you I won’t be alone.”
Before I turned to leave, I watched the Sun Stone sink through the water down to the bottom of the pool. That was a shame, I thought. It would have been nice to have been able to leave her mansion, her whole operation, with that diamond in hand. She was right about how much money it could have brought in. I never would have neede
d to work another day in my life if I could have sold that fine jewel on my own.
I figured she’d probably just have one of her guards fish it out once she got out of the water. That diamond wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. But I needed to be going.
“You’re not going to get away with this,” Coyote threatened. “I will have my men after you.”
“Good luck with that,” I taunted her. “But for now I really need to get a move on.”
I started towards the house, and one of her guards stopped me at the door.
