I locked my eyes on the computer screen and began to scan through the file as fast as I could. I needed to find the sub-list of contractors and jobs they were put out on. That should give me both the guy with the lisp looking for me, and the person who called in the hit on Justin.
Looking over the top of the computer, I kept half my attention on Gabe. He had two black eyes he’d tried to cover with a shitty makeup job, and his nose still looked more than a little swollen. I had to bite the inside of my mouth to keep from smiling.
“When my father gets here, tell him I’m in his office.” He barked the words with barely a glance in my direction.
It took all I had not to point out that the entire front of his father’s office was glass, and unless he planned on hiding behind the desk, his father would see him clearly the moment he walked off the elevator.
“Of course, sir” is what I managed to answer with.
Gabe paused at the edge of my desk. “Your voice is very familiar. Have we met?”
Shit, fuck, damn.
I shook my head and made sure to keep my eyes lowered. I made sure my tones were crisp and clipped, as different from the Southern charm I’d affected the other night as possible.
“I’ve worked in other parts of the building, sir. Perhaps you heard me speaking then?”
He didn’t answer, just started once more for our father’s office, dismissing me without another thought. Or so I thought.
“I changed my mind. We’ll need you to take notes, so you should come with me.” Gabe snapped his fingers at me. Snapped his fucking fingers like I was a dog that needed to heel to his side.
I swallowed the anger that coated my mouth, and made myself open the desk drawer. I found a folder with some blank sheets in it, a pen, and followed him into the glass office.
“Something very familiar about you,” Gabe said again. “I’ll figure it out soon enough.”
“I think I’d remember a man like you, if we’d met before.” I was careful with my wording. The last thing I wanted was for him to try and kiss me, or worse.
He picked up a small remote from the desk and hit a button. The glass walls darkened until . . . shit, two-way glass. My heart rate jacked up more than a few notches.
“I can wait outside until your father—”
“No, I think you can wait here with me. If you like your job, that is.” His tone implied more than waiting.
I didn’t have a choice. I lifted my eyes to his and glared. “I am not that kind of woman, sir. And if you think I won’t report you, you will be sorely mistaken.”
“You’ll lose your job.” He smiled as he closed the distance between us.
Shit.
“There are other jobs.” I backed away from him around the big desk. I knew that even if the glass was visible so other people could see what was happening, they wouldn’t believe it. The Romano family was far too well connected for anyone to believe ill of them. Even when it was right in front of their faces. Or maybe they also knew that their jobs were on the line. People tended to let things slide.
“Mr. Romano, I suggest you back the fuck off.” I snapped the words, hoping to get through to him.
“Oh, there’s a spit-fire in there. I like it.” He took a few quick steps, his hands outstretched and—
The door opened and our father stepped through. “Gabe, stop bothering her.” My father, Luca Romano, glanced over me. “Who is she, your new secretary?”
My father hadn’t aged a day since I’d left. Jet-black hair and matching eyes, skin that looked perpetually tanned and a mouth that was often drawn in a hard frown just like now. The flicker of an aura around him made me suck a sharp breath. The ruby ring on his middle finger drew my eyes. Which one of the guardians would he call if he knew it was me here, standing in front of him?
“No, she’s yours.” Gabe straightened his suit and gave me a wink that made me want to vomit.
I clutched the notepad to my chest as I fought the feeling of being a teenager again, of being the little girl who wanted her father to love her the best. To be the golden child for a little while. Of course, I knew now it would never happen. Not only was I born from the second wife, I was a girl. Two strikes, and I was out of the running for the golden child.
“The temp agency sent me in. They said your secretary quit.” I kept the words low.
He grunted, and his eyes flicked over me. “Too bad, she was good and just ugly enough to keep me from being interested. You’re going to be a problem for me.”
He had no idea just how true that statement was going to be. Just not the way he thought.
Gabe laughed and I said nothing.
“Gabe, I assume you have a strong reason for being here this early in the morning.” Luca glanced over at him as he took the remote away and hit the button that cleared the glass once more. I was thinking the same thing about them both. My father looked like he had not gone to bed the night before, so something was up.
No one on the outside of the office even looked up as the glass cleared.
“Fannin is causing problems again out in LA. And the merger with the Yaku—Japanese and Mancini has a hitch,” Gabe said. “Killian Fannin is trying to cut into our profits by undercutting us on the . . . products. I don’t know where he’s getting his base ingredients, but they are higher quality than ours at half the cost.”
“And distribution?” Luca looked straight at Gabe, ignoring me. “Who are they using?”
“Bellamy.”
“Fuck.”
Ingredients, distribution, and Bellamy, a known abnormal who also happened to run a trucking company . . . I had a feeling they weren’t talking about a new food product. The longer I was in the room with them, the better chance my cover would be blown, but also the better chance I could learn something useful. My father, though stupid in some ways, was dangerously smart in others. He’d paid for all my training, brought in Zee, had even overseen some of my disguises. I needed to get out of here now and back to the desk and the file I’d come for. I opened my mouth to speak but my father beat me to it.
“Mancini believes he’s running the show, correct?” My father stared hard at Gabe, and tapped that ruby ring of his which made sweat bead up all the way down my spine.
Gabe nodded. “Of course. I made sure of it. He won’t see the blindside coming.”
I cleared my throat. “Should I be taking notes?”
My father glanced at me, then at Gabe. “No, go back to your desk. Clear my schedule for the morning.”
I bobbed my head and did a half-curtsy, then hurried out of the office.
“She’s cute, and she’s got a mouth on her,” Gabe said as I shut the door.
“She’s my secretary. You don’t get first dibs, I do,” my father said.
I leaned against the door breathing hard; not from fear, but revulsion as I fought the urge to vomit where I stood.
Back at my desk once more, I opened the Bullet Point file and continued to skim through it. Nowhere could I find the list of contacts and their current jobs.
My cursor froze over a name I knew all too well.
Justin Stark. Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
What . . . was Justin doing in my father’s files? This wasn’t just a job on Justin, but a whole file. Had he found me after all? I opened the file and hit print as I began to read. Beside me the printer started spitting out papers.
Working for the mob.
Double crossing.
Informant.
Working with the FBI.
The words began to blur.
I let my mind go back to what Gabe and my father had been talking about. The merger would bring Mancini, the Yakuza, and the Romano families together, but then Mancini was being blindsided, but how? Damn . . . that was some powerful shit.
The door to the office opened. I heard it but couldn’t respond fast enough. “What are you doing?” Gabe growled, the sound of papers being crinkled up in his hands.
I looked up. He was right at the pr
inter and held all the papers I’d just printed out. I had no choice now, I had to run.
He tapped his ruby ring and it glittered to life.
Oh shit, this was going down faster than an avalanche.
My hand was still on the folder I’d taken into the office with me. I tightened my hold on it and bolted around the desk, kicking my heels off as I went. I ran past the elevator doors to the emergency exit that led into the stairwell.
“Stop her!”
There was a cracking noise like logs being shattered by a cold so deep it exploded the wood. That was the noise of the Stick Man coming to life.
Fear chased me, herding me more than anything else could have.
Gabe was behind me, his long legs eating up the distance between us, second after second. I hit the stairwell door hard, threw it open, and took the first step down the stairs.
I was grabbed from behind, just my one arm, and jerked to a sudden stop.
Gabe still had the papers in one hand. “Who the fuck are you?”
The Stick Man filled up the space behind him and all I could do was stare.
Arms, legs, and body made of thin, dark brown sticks, right down to his grasping fingers, the Stick Man was one of the three guardians my father had been given. Bullets did not hurt the Stick Man.
Which was a raw deal for me.
I used the momentum of my body to twist around and slam my knee into Gabe’s belly. A whoosh of air flew out of him and I grabbed at the papers in his hands, yanking them away before I bolted once more, this time down the stairs.
The Stick Man clattered after me, using the railing to pull himself along at top speed.
I didn’t waste time on words, though a steady stream of profanities raced through my mind.
This scene was going to go badly, if I didn’t make it to at least the second floor before Gabe called the front desk on me. I tried not to think about what would happen if the Stick Man caught me and hauled me back up to my father.
I raced down the stairwell, the claws of the Stick Man snatching at my wig.
I all but skidded onto the landing for the twentieth floor. I shoved my way out of the stairwell and threw the lock on it for what it was worth. Last time I was here there had been bathrooms close to the emergency exit and the stairwell and I was hoping that hadn’t changed. Damn it, I should have checked the building layout again.
The Stick Man slammed into the door, rattling it. I had minutes, maybe less.
A few people stared at me. I smiled back.
“I wouldn’t open that if I were you. Abnormal gone nuts.” I huffed out the words.
The two women covered their mouths and the fat older man grunted at me.
“The women’s toilets?” I tried to straighten my hair, feeling the wig coming loose.
One of the women pointed down the hall. “To the left, around the corner.”
I nodded my thanks and hurried down to the bathroom. I let myself in, ran past the mirrors to the stall at the far end.
The Stick Man had no sense of smell, but he’d start checking rooms. If nothing else, he was thorough.
I put the folder and the papers I’d taken from Gabe on the back of the toilet, and pulled off the wig as soon as the door was shut. This was going to get dicey. I had a camisole under the demure white button-down shirt. I yanked the shirt off, and tied it around my waist. I was still barefoot, nothing I could do about that. I pulled one of my knives out and put a slit up either side of the skirt, and then took the blade to the hem. I cut the skirt so it almost skimmed the knife sheath on my thigh. I grabbed the stack of papers, stuffing them all into the folder.
That was going to have to be good enough. I left the wig behind the toilet and let myself out. I threw the glasses into the garbage and leaned into the mirror to pop the contacts out. I looked more like me, and that wasn’t a good thing either, but the short blonde pixie cut was nothing like the big curly wig, and the dark eyes were the opposite of the green contacts.
A deep breath and I headed to the elevators once more. I walked on with a bunch of women just as the Stick Man burst out of the stairwell. They all screamed, and I added my voice to theirs as I hammered the close door button.
The Stick Man’s head swept side to side. I wouldn’t say he had eyes, but he was looking for me with whatever senses the guardian had. He let out a crackling growl and started toward the elevator.
The women screamed and shrank from him and I continued to hammer the button. “Come on, come on!”
The doors slid shut, slow as molasses in February, but they were closing.
Until the Stick Man got his fingers through. I grabbed my knife and swept it up, driving it into his hand. Sap oozed out and he let out a god-awful screech that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I tried to get my knife back for another blow but it stuck in a knot of wood. The claws raked at me, driving splinters into my skin, deep and with a violence that would make them hard—if not impossible—to get out. They moved under my skin like worms.
That could not be good.
The group of women behind me suddenly came to my defense, shocking me. Three of them ran to my sides and began beating on the Stick Man’s hands with their purses and even a shoe, cracking the thin fingers until he was forced to let go and the doors shut. The elevator began to go downward once more.
I stared at my hands and the squirming slivers under my skin. “This cannot be good.”
An older black woman with gray shot through her hair put a hand on my arm. “Honey, you come with me to my office. I’ve got tweezers for those.”
At the fifteenth floor, she pulled me out with her, not allowing me any room for argument. Mostly because I could feel the magic weaving around me, forcing my feet forward, the smell that could mean only one thing.
This kindly, grandmotherly woman was an abnormal.
And she’d caught me.
Chapter Sixteen
“I don’t think tweezers are going to get these out.” I turned my arms outward so the woman at my side could see the wriggling slivers. I tried to do more than that, tried to get my feet to obey me while I did what I could to distract her from her hold on me.
“That won’t work on me, Nix. I know you. I know who you are. Your Hider can’t keep you safe from eyes that know here.” Her dark brown eyes flicked over me in a way that felt like a dismissal. She ushered me into an office that was big enough for a single desk, two chairs, and a large filing cabinet. Her words were reminiscent of the note left in my dive of a rental room, but I doubted that she was the one who’d left it.
“Sit.”
My legs bent without any instruction on my part. “What are you?”
“Abnormal,” she said without looking back at me. Her hands were inside the cabinet and I could hear the clinking of glass on metal.
She lifted three vials with thick cork stoppers out, and a pair of shimmery silver tweezers.
“What you got, Rose?”
“Your tweezers speak?” I arched an eyebrow.
“You should be one to talk,” the woman I assumed was Rose said.
She smiled kindly at me. “Your guns are a tool, and tools can be used for good, Nix.” She tapped the desk and my arms shot forward, palms up and showing the squirming slivers. They were past the crook of my elbow now, headed for my shoulder.
“Shit.” I whispered.
“Yes, that is quicker than I thought too. Linx, get to work.” She held her hand out, palm up, and Linx flicked through the air, floating above my arms. The sharp points of the tweezers grew and lengthened until they were needle sharp, and one side had a slight curve to it.
My stomach rolled with what I knew was coming. “Do it.”
I made myself watch as the tweezers shot down, not unlike Mary-Ellen’s beak, and cut through the skin to the sliver that was furthest up my arm. Blood welled up around the tips, but Linx was sure in his dive and a squirming sliver came out in his grasp.
“Got it,” he said like a kid with his mou
th full of macaroni. He dropped the sliver into a tin bucket with a sharp ting of wood on metal. I looked to Rose.
“Convenient that you have all this here.”
She gave me a wink. “For you, it surely is.”
My mouth tightened. “Why are you helping me?”
“My calling is one of healing, and help,” she said. “It’s why I chose to work here. Your father is dabbling in things he shouldn’t be and good people are put in his path every day. I’m doing what I can to stem the injuries from here.”
Linx kept at my arms, moving from one to the other, depending on the slivers and how far up they were. I glanced down. One sliver was at the top of my shoulder and starting its way across my chest. The pain was sharp and piercing as the tweezers dove into my skin.
“They’re going for my heart,” I said softly.
Rose nodded and lifted both eyebrows. “That they are. Good way to finish you off and not even have to face you, don’t you think?”
The squirming in my arms was gone with one last piercing from Linx. “That’s it.”
“Good job.” She held out her hand and he floated down to her. She dipped him into the narrow bottle of bright purple solution.
“Not that I don’t appreciate this, but again, why are you helping me? You know who I am, you know what I’ve done to your kind of people.” I wanted to understand her motives, because they made no sense to me.
Rose sighed. “Nix, you were a child, a pawn of your father’s. You may have killed many abnormals for him, and humans too for that matter, but I believe that wasn’t you. It’s not your heart to be a killer.” Her eyes were soft and all I could think was how wrong she was. How very, very wrong.
“Thanks for your help.” I slid off the chair and stood.
“The Stick Man, he’s going to keep coming for you,” she said.
“I know.” I had my back to her, the file folder clutched in my arms. Once one of my father’s guardians were set on a prey, there was no stopping them.
“You want to know how to kill him?” she asked, and I whipped around to stare at her.
Fury of a Phoenix (The Nix Series Book 1) Page 17
