Gabe and his buddies didn’t get up from where I’d laid them out. My brothers and their friends weren’t all that brave. They only took on people they thought they could hurt easily. People they thought they would have no problem controlling. In other words, they didn’t like strong women.
Tank walked with me down the street two blocks before he spoke.
“That really you, Phoenix?”
I gave him a sharp nod. “I’d rather no one knew I was back in town yet.”
“Well, shit, you could have just told me it was you!”
I turned to him. “If you’d been the one to do the job in Wyoming, you wouldn’t be alive right now.”
He blinked his tiny eyes at me. “Who’d they whack?”
I debated lying to him, debated if it mattered. Tank was . . . in his own way, dependable. “My son. He was ten.”
“Fuck me sideways. Tried to get you and got the boy instead?”
I didn’t correct him. Enough that he knew why I was here. “You going after the guy who did the brakes, going after Stephen?”
“To start. Unless you know why the job was called in, whose name is at the top of the sheet?” I glanced at him when we got to a corner, the lights red for crossing. This time of night, the human traffic was slower, more drunken, but otherwise oblivious to the world and to Tank and me standing on the corner talking about a hit job.
He shook his head and looked me right in the eye. “Your father keeps tabs on Mr. Mancini and what he does better than we do ourselves.”
I nodded. “That’s my next stop if Stephen doesn’t know anything.”
He frowned. “Why are you telling me all this?”
I laughed at him as I hailed a cab. “Who is going to believe you, Tank the gossip boy, that I showed back up? Anyone? How many sightings has my father gotten over the years about me?”
His tiny eyes blinked rapidly. “Lots, from all over the city here.”
“And how many panned out?” I opened the cab door.
“None.”
“Exactly. He won’t have to know I was here. I’m not looking to reconcile.”
Tank grunted. “Gabe didn’t even recognize you.”
I slid into the cab. “If I hear that he suddenly thinks of me, Tank, I’ll know who to thank for it. If Stephen is warned, I’ll know who to thank for it. You don’t want my gratitude.”
He shut the door for me and gave me a mock salute. “You would have made a wicked-ass wife for Mancini’s boy Bruce. You should have taken him up on his offer.”
Another burst of laughter slid out of me. “I’d have killed him in his sleep and fed him to the dogs, then blamed it on his girlfriend he was fucking on the side.”
Tank didn’t laugh. He knew as well as anyone those words were no joke.
Chapter Thirteen
Avalanche was indeed an upscale bar, one that had music pounding out of it so loud, the neighboring shop windows rattled and thumped in time with the bass.
Stephen Demetris, Tank’s protégé, was not only easy to find, but his friends at the door pointed him out to me.
“That big bastard in the corner there, surrounded by his guys.”
He was young, maybe in his mid-twenties at best. Obviously he worked out, by the way his high-end suit fit, and he’d not been drinking all night if the way his eyes scanned the room was any indication. His hair was buzzed short, so I was guessing brown, and I couldn’t see his eye color. The details always mattered; you never knew when you might need them.
It was his size, though, that made me stare. He was the same height as the Santa that had loitered outside the Christmas party. He turned to the side, took a step, and his body swayed the same way even, as though he still held the Santa’s sack on his back.
As a ghoster, he could have slipped in and out without being caught. Ghosters were able to bend light around them, creating the illusion they were just gone. Shadows and light were their tools. It made sense to me now that he had been there that night. Ghosters were one of the hardest abnormals to find.
But not tonight.
My heart rate slipped up a notch. A real fight, then, if his ability to stay sober when his friends were plying him with drinks was any indication. He was keeping his head on straight in case of business. Smart. Which meant this was going to be interesting if what I saw in his body position was correct. He had his back to the wall, watching everyone who came through the door, and I was no exception. I paused, twisting my body as I undid the straps of the coat. The thick leather strap belt around my waist and the short dress peeked out.
I wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the room, but I knew how to use what I had to my advantage. And the short skirt, tall boots and leather straps accentuated what I had. A body made to be stared at and hair to be grabbed in the throes of passion.
I took long strides across the room, going straight up to him without any hesitation because there would be no subtlety here. If I were too cautious, he’d be gone before I could get near him.
I slid my hand around his upper thigh to the inside of his leg and then cupped his package.
“I hear you like a good time. Tank sent me over as a thank you.” I purred the words into his ear, made myself bite the lobe and tug him from the bar. His friends hooted and hollered and Stephen let me lead him away, his eyes already fogged with lust.
Disappointment whispered through me. Perhaps he wasn’t the fight I’d hoped for. He might not be drunk, but he wasn’t any smarter than Tank as he followed me into one of the private back rooms.
As soon as the door was shut, he pushed me against the wall and kissed me hard. I let him get into it before I put my hands on his chest and put some space between us. His mouth tasted like rum and coke.
He stared down at me. “I don’t know you, do I?”
I looked up at him from under my eyelashes. “Oh, we know each other, intimately, you might say.”
He frowned a little. “We do?”
“We had a close call in Jackson Hole when you were there on business.” I had my hand in the right pocket of my trench. I flipped open the box and slid one of the darts out, feeling the edge of it. Truth serum.
He tipped his head to the side and I slammed the dart into his neck.
His hand slapped at the dart, his eyes went to me and he slowly slid to his knees. “What?”
I didn’t waste time. While he moaned on the floor, I slid the thick strapped belt off my waist, and separated the strands of the leather. I flipped him over, tied his hands behind his back and then tied that to his feet.
I dragged him to the door and propped him on his knees, with his back against the faux wood. I lowered myself in front of him with my knees together. He slowly came around, and by the time he did, I had two of my knives out of their sheaths on my upper thighs.
I tapped the edge of one to the side of his head. “Jackson Hole. You were there, you tampered with some brakes, shot out a few tires. Pretended to be Santa to get close to your mark. Who was the mark?” I knew the answer to the question, but this was the way to get him spilling his secrets and making sure I was getting truth.
He groaned and shook his head. “What the hell are you talking about, you crazy bitch?”
“Stephen, Stephen, can I call you Steve?” I leaned in and laid the flat of my knife to the soft skin at the top of his cheek, pressing the razor edge into his lower eyelid and the point into the corner of his eye. The truth serum needed a little more time, but I wanted my answers now.
At least tied up, he couldn’t ghost away from me.
“I suggest you don’t so much as squeeze out a silent fart, Steve. In fact, I suggest you don’t speak unless I give you the okay. One twitch, and you could lose an eye. Terrible thing, losing an eye. Can you imagine being a ghoster that is blind in one eye? Would you lose business? I’m thinking so.”
His breathing slowed as he stared up at me. I smiled back. “These are the questions you’re going to answer, slowly, one at a time. Who was the mark in J
ackson?”
His mouth barely moved as he spoke, his eyes finally showing me the truth serum was kicking in as they dilated.
“Justin Stark.”
“Why?”
He shifted as if he were going to shake his head, and I tssked at him. “No moving.”
“Don’t know,” Stephen whispered. “Just a job.”
Just a job.
“Who called it in?”
“Don’t know, it came through the usual means.”
“Which is?”
“Email. On my phone.”
“You still got the email on your phone?”
His throat bobbed. “Yes.”
I smiled. “That’s very good news for you.”
I pulled a pair of latex gloves from a pocket, then reached to his side, and checked his pockets until I found the right one with his phone. I slid my finger over it. “Code?”
“776521,” he whispered.
With one eye on him, I put the numbers into the phone and pulled up the email.
I scanned the page.
RE: Wyoming Business Visit
Justin Stark is your contact there. Please be advised that his friend Noah Lancaster will not be in town until later that week. Do not forget to contact Mr. Lancaster as well. We will be disappointed if both men do not understand the depth of our concern for the current business situation.
Herrington Group
“Who is the Herrington Group?”
“They . . . work for Mancini. They are a contractor.” His words were soft, slurring.
I pressed the tip of the blade into the corner of his eye until a prick of blood welled up. He whimpered, and there was a sudden tang of urine in the air. I raised an eyebrow. “Already?”
A tear slid down his face, over the edge of the blade.
I let out a sigh, but didn’t ease back on the knife tip. “A little boy died that night in Wyoming. You killed a child. The mother has hired me to find out who did it.”
He closed his eyes. “Didn’t know.”
I didn’t doubt that. “But you still pulled the trigger, didn’t you? You put the holes in the lines and you were one of the shooters. Who set the death myst magic on the truck?”
“Peters. He’s dead. Died last week.”
I frowned. “The other shooter died last week? How?”
“Gunshot. Long distance hit.”
If I could have frowned harder I would have. Someone else had killed Peters.
I changed directions. “You knew Stark had a family?”
There was a long pause before he answered. “Yes.”
“Didn’t you take that into account when you set up the hit?”
I knew the answer to this. Of course, Stephen had considered that Justin had a family. The reality was, it didn’t matter to him as long as his mark was dead and he got a paycheck for it. Collateral damage was a hard truth in this world, and a large part of why I’d left it.
I shifted my weight and removed the knife from his face. He let out an audible sigh. Before he could so much as squeak out a word, I grabbed the last strip of my leather belts and a wad of cloth, shoved the cloth inside his mouth and wrapped the leather around his face. He bucked and fought.
“No use now. You see, I can’t have you going back to your boss and telling him the questions I asked, can I? That would ruin the surprises I have planned.” I patted his cheek as I pulled Dinah from the now-uncovered holster in my lower back. She gave a shimmy in my hands.
“Oh, he’s handsome. You sure you want to shoot him?” she asked.
I stood, checked the chamber, and flicked off the safety. From my outer thigh at the top of my boot, I took the silencer and attached it to the tip of Dinah’s muzzle.
“I hate this,” she muttered, her words muting as I twisted the silencer on.
Stephen whimpered and shook his head, tears leaking from his eyes. He tried to drag himself away from me. I grabbed him by the foot and pulled him to the center of the room. I leaned down and put my mouth to his ear.
“You killed my son. You killed him knowing he was in the truck and you are going to get a far cleaner death than you deserve only because you weren’t the one who called it in. This is the price you pay for being here, for being a killer.”
I had learned from Mary-Ellen. No giving them a chance.
I leaned away, put the gun to his temple, and pulled the trigger. The reverberation of the shot up my arm created a rush of adrenaline.
His body jumped and spasmed as the nerve endings fired one last time. I took the silencer off, wiped the tip of it on his coat, and then put it back in its pocket. I put Dinah back into her holster as she sighed with what could only be described as pleasure.
Blood pooled around Stephen’s head as I leaned down and went through his pockets. I took his phone again and popped out the SIM card and dropped the phone onto his chest. He had no other information on him, no cards, some cash, a silver chromed lighter, and that was it. I took the cash. Not because I needed it, but it would allow whoever investigated to think this was a simple robbery gone wrong. Or at the very least, it would give them pause.
I stood and stepped over his body, careful not to step in the blood as I peeled the gloves off and tucked them back into my coat pocket.
From there, I wrapped myself in my trench coat and slipped out the door. I paused, thinking about the club, and the people in it. A lot of Mancini’s crew, men and abnormals who’d killed and hurt so many families, who thought nothing of violence and the ripple effect it caused.
I shook my head against the altruistic thought. I was not here to make things right for anyone but Bear. That didn’t mean I couldn’t do a little extra damage, though. Mancini was somehow involved in this, of that much I was sure. At the very least it would piss him off, and that made me smile.
I stepped back into the room with Stephen’s cooling body, and the blood pooling around him. Putting my back to the door, I bent once more to Stephen and took the lighter from his pocket. I flicked it open, and set it against the line of blood on the floor closest to me. The flames licked up immediately, red, blue and green as they spread across the room, the ghoster’s blood setting the room on fire in rapid time.
I tucked the lighter into my pocket and stepped out of the room and shut the door tight. I leaned against it for a moment, taking stock of where I was in the building.
To the left would take me through the front of the club with all those bodies and eyes watching. Stephen’s friends would recognize me, of that I had no doubt. I turned to the right and made my way deeper into the back of the club. There was the sound of laughter from many of the closed doors, and even the grunt of bodies fucking hard if the sounds were any indication.
A low voice barked at me. “Hey, you aren’t supposed to be back here.”
I didn’t turn around, just kept walking as if I’d heard nothing.
“Get back to the front of the club, bitch!” A hand dropped onto my shoulder and I spun, driving the heel of my hand into his solar plexus, stopping him in his tracks. He gaped at me like a fish on the line, his mouth flapping open and shut as he struggled to breathe.
The silence was broken by the sudden scream of fire alarms bursting around us along with the spray of water from the sprinkler system. Water would not help cool the magically induced flames.
I turned from the would-be bouncer as he fought for air, and jogged down the hall. At the next intersection, the exit sign was clearly marked above a broad steel door. Behind me, the clatter of people climbed over the sound of the alarms, as those gambling and fucking scrambled to get out of the now-burning building. I smiled to myself as I hit the bar of the emergency exit door and let myself out into the alley behind the club. Straightening my coat, I settled into a ground-eating stride, not quite a run, as I headed for an open street where I could get a cab.
Sirens erupted in the distance and I didn’t change my pace. The worst thing besides being seen at the scene of a crime was to be seen fleeing the scene of
a crime. Something all those Mancini men from the back rooms would be doing, whether they realized it or not.
Four blocks over, I hailed a cab and had him take me to a diner that was a ten-minute walk from the motel room I’d rented.
More than that, though, was the mobile store next to the diner. I went in, bought a cheap phone that had been unlocked and slipped the SIM card into it, using Steven’s cash to pay for it. I didn’t turn the phone on, just slipped it into my pocket, then headed into the diner.
I ordered two large steak and eggs, french fries and a double slice of apple pie with the last of his money which made me smile. The cashier taking my order looked me over. “Wish I could get away eating like that and looking like you.”
I smiled. “This is for my man, Abe. He’s a big boy and can pack away all of this and then some.”
She laughed and gave me an exaggerated wink. “Is he any fun in the bedroom? That’s the most important part.”
“He’s got a toe fetish.” I smiled again and she looked away, flushing all the way to the roots of her hair. So much for making friends. Anyway, it was true. Abe had a thing for licking toes, which was why I always kept my socks on.
I took my order and walked back to the motel. I paused outside, checking the tells I’d set in place. A few trip wires, a small amount of sand set on the door step that was still smooth. No one had followed me home, and no one had touched the back door that led up the stairs to the room. I let myself in, and headed up the stairs, two at a time. I paused again at my door listening.
“Abe?” I whispered his name and he was at the door, digging to get out. I opened the door and he shoved his nose against the plastic bags holding all the food.
We ate, and I changed out of my club clothes so I could take him for a walk out back to do his business.
Once more inside, I lay on the bed and looked at the only pictures I had left of Bear. Of him and Justin in the newspaper clipping that talked about their deaths and the accident. My name was mentioned, but otherwise there was no picture of me. No pictures of Bear and me together.
Fury of a Phoenix (The Nix Series Book 1) Page 15
