by Nancy Gideon
Nica, hold on. Just one more minute. Just one.
The two cards Manny called for landed in front of him. He picked them up, his pupils widening, then he added to the stack on the table.
Max hesitated.
Silently cursing, Silas pulled away from Nica and sent a single thought at Savoie.
Take him.
Max reached up to dab at a sudden trickle of blood that spilled over his lip. And he smiled at Carmen, pushing the remaining stack of his winnings forward. “Call.”
Manny took a ragged breath. “Son of a bitch, that’s over a quarter of a mil. I can’t match that and you know it.”
When Max reached for the pot, Manny stopped him with a frantic growl. “What do you want, Savoie?”
“I want our association ended. Our accounts are settled on the turn of these cards.”
“Agreed.”
Manny laid down his hand with a grin. A full house, queens on tens. Max placed his cards on the table one at a time, revealing a jack high straight flush.
Blutafino stared at the display, his face pale, then florid. Outrage shook through him, but he didn’t dare act on it as Savoie picked up the attaché case he’d carried in with him and handed it to Todd, watching stoically as his winnings were stacked inside.
“Thank you for the game, gentlemen,” he announced smoothly as the latches clicked shut. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to place a call to have my men offload your cargo from my ship. Then I’ve promised Karen Crawford a brief interview concerning my return to the living. She’s meeting me in the lobby. Good-bye, Carmen. I can’t say it was a pleasure doing business with you.”
As Max rose up from his seat, Nica also straightened and stood. Her features were composed, her eyes gleamed.
Nica!
She didn’t glance MacCreedy’s way, her gaze tracking Savoie.
Silas started out of his chair, but Manny pressed him firmly back into it as his guests hurried to slip out before the press swarmed the lobby.
“We need to have a talk, Creed. I think it’s time to reevaluate your job performance.” He hissed at Todd, “If he moves, kill him.”
Helplessly, Silas watched Savoie leave the suite, crossing the hall to step into the elevator. Nica slipped in with him and her flat, emotionless gaze met Silas’s just as the doors began to close.
Good-bye, MacCreedy.
Awareness came back in slow, sickening waves.
“It’s all right. You’ll be all right. Don’t try to move.”
Brigit?
Silas struggled to force his eyes open and his sister’s features swam into focus. She was holding an ice-filled towel to his cheek and her eyes glittered with unshed tears. Two things became apparent. He was lying on the couch in his apartment, and he’d had the shit kicked out of him.
Carmen Blutafino packed one hell of a punch. His face ached in testament. Manny had delivered only a few blows himself. The rest of the beating was turned over to Todd, who didn’t let friendship interfere with orders.
“How did I get here?” he managed to whisper without moving his probably fractured jaw.
“Your friend brought you, the pretty blond one.”
Babineau? His senses began to sharpen into focus. “How long ago?”
“About an hour. He wanted to take you to the hospital but said you refused to go.” She blinked several times. “Someone sure made a mess of you.”
“Severance package,” he muttered, closing his eyes to assess his situation. Cracked ribs, a smashed and gashed nose from where his prop glasses had been broken, multiple contusions, and a possible concussion. But no .9mm termination notice.
Agony shot through his hand as a cold pack was replaced. Every one of his fingers had been methodically broken. Kendra was kneeling beside the couch, gently tending to his grossly distorted digits, her cheeks wet with tears.
His feverish thoughts drifted back to another time when these two had put him back together after the Terriots’ even less tender attentions. He’d heal from this, just as he had then. But time was a weighing factor and his energies were drained by the psychic exercise.
“Keep him still,” Brigit said as she pushed her palm against his splintered side. He winced in pain, then a deep, soothing heat penetrated through his skin, muscle, and bones.
Then she took each of his fingers in turn, straightening them with a quick snap, mending them with that infusion of warmth . . . the same way she had repaired the damage done by the Terriots’ brutal hands. He hadn’t remembered that until now.
Silas opened his eyes as she laid her palms on his face, easing her fingertips over each bruise and cut. No special gifts? His sister hadn’t exactly been honest with him.
Brigit smiled. “Better? Hurt anywhere else?”
He expanded his chest in a full breath, flexed his hands, then moved his jaw. “Maybe my pride. Why didn’t you tell me, Bree?”
“I promised our mother I’d never speak of it. She didn’t want me to be different, she said it was dangerous. But I couldn’t sit by and watch you suffer. Not then, not now.”
When her voice faltered, Silas sat up to embrace her, opening one arm to enfold Kendra as well. He kissed the tops of their heads. “The two of you mean more to me—” He broke off, and his gaze darted about the apartment.
“Where’s Nica?”
“She wasn’t with you.” Brigit released him, keeping her arm around Kendra’s shoulders.
Silas grabbed his ruined tux jacket off the coffee table, searching for his phone before remembering Nica had destroyed hers. Squeezing his eyes shut, he gulped down several panicked breaths before he could settle his heart and mind enough to reach out for her.
Nica, where are you?
A terrifying silence answered.
Nica, you don’t have to do this. Please don’t do this to us. Nica? I let you down. I’m sorry. Nica, please.
Savoie. He took another steadying breath and dialed. When his call was answered, relief shook through him. “Max, you rode down in the elevator with Nica. Is she still with you?”
“No. She took the money over to the Towers while I talked to the press. Why?”
“How long would it take you to pick me up at my apartment?”
“Five.”
“Hurry.”
He closed his phone and surged off the couch, stripping out of his bloodied clothes as he rushed into the bedroom to yank on jeans and a T-shirt. He sat on the edge of the bed to put on his shoes, but his hands were so shaky he couldn’t tie them.
Then Kendra was there at his feet, brushing his fumbling hands aside to efficiently do up his laces. Regret and affection twisted through him as his hand stroked lightly over her hair.
“I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
She straightened. No blame or ill will showed in her soft gaze. “We can’t help who we love. You’ve been my dearest friend forever. How could I not be happy for you?”
Smile weak with gratitude, Silas leaned forward to kiss her cheek. At the last second, she turned slightly so that their lips met instead. Her hands clutched the sides of his face, prolonging the gesture far beyond what he’d intended. Finally she released him, rising up and turning away before he could see the tears he knew were on her face.
MacCreedy waited on the building’s front steps for Savoie, finishing the raw burger his sister had given him along with a command to be careful. A motorcycle pulled up and Max tossed a helmet at him. Cinching it under his chin, he settled on the seat of the big BMW. The instant he rested his hands at Savoie’s waist the bike lunged away from the curb, rocketing toward the Towers with a roar.
In the rush, Silas had no chance to tell Max what he’d discovered.
Max wasn’t Nica’s target. Charlotte was.
Twenty-five
Lena Blutafino stared down into the suitcase of money, her mouth open.
“Where did you get this?”
Nica smiled thinly. “Some traveling money, compliments of your husband. Get dres
sed and get your things together. You’ve got a train to catch to Memphis, and from there, anywhere you want to go.” She held herself stiffly as Lena’s arms flew about her.
“How can I thank you?”
“No need.”
“I’ll come to Memphis with someone who’ll take your statement,” Cee Cee told Lena. “Then you’ll come back to testify. That’s the deal my friend in the NOPD got for you.”
The bright blonde head nodded. With her hair down and no makeup on, wearing an oversize sleep shirt, Lena Blutafino looked like a twelve-year-old girl . . . with a huge chest.
Her eyes were shiny. “I can’t believe we’re going to be free.” With a loud sniff, she hurried back to the bedroom to pack, and within ten minutes she was dressed in jeans and a blousy tunic. Her vibrant hair tucked under a ball cap, a single bag slung over her shoulder, she held the attaché case in one hand and her sleepy son in the other. Giles took them from her.
“Giles will drive you to Baton Rouge,” Cee Cee continued. “Your train leaves in the morning. Wait there until I contact you. Don’t call anyone; don’t talk to anyone but me. Don’t trust the cops—just me.”
Lena embraced Cee Cee, then Nica again, before following Giles to the private elevator.
Cee Cee pulled off the red wig she was wearing and tossed it onto one of the end tables. “I hope that’s the last time I have to put that thing on.” She gave her scalp a vigorous scratch. “With Lena under wraps and those girls freed from the freighter, we should be able to put a tight noose around Blutafino’s neck. We couldn’t have done it without you, Nica. I’m so glad you’ll be staying in New Orleans now. I haven’t had a real friend here—” She faltered and took a breath. “Since Mary Kate.”
“I’m not staying.”
The bluntly spoken words came as a shock. “But I thought you and Mac—”
She shrugged. “No. It’s all about the job. Anything else is just a distraction.”
“That’s not true.”
Nica laughed, a harsh, cynical sound. “Of course it’s true. It’s the only truth I’ve ever believed. You can’t trust anyone to put you ahead of their own interests. I know what I offer, and it’s a onetime-only deal. I’m not into repeat performances.
“I should never have come back. There’s nothing for me here. I’m the bad news people can’t wait to see gone. That’s just the way it is. I am what I am.” There was no inflection in her voice, no emotion in her eyes.
Before Cee Cee could argue, Max’s voice rang through her head.
She’s been hired to kill you, sha. Run! I’m on my way.
Without hesitation, Cee Cee gripped a marble-based lamp and swung it with all her strength. It caught Nica in the temple, sending her crashing to the floor. Cee Cee raced out the door to dash for the stairs. When she pulled the fire door open, two things surprised her: three of Blutafino’s thugs were trotting up the steps, and thick curls of smoke drifted through the stairwell below them.
“Ms. Pepper, Mr. Blutafino wants to see you. Something about a blood test.”
“Tell him I gave at the office.” She shoved against them, sending them stumbling over one another to the landing below while she jumped back, pulling the heavy door shut. She heard the ping of the elevator and sprinted for it.
Its door opened just as Nica reeled out of the apartment, and MacCreedy exited. He gripped Cee Cee’s arm and shoved her inside where Max waited, then turned to intercept Nica’s running charge.
She sprang, vaulting high to clamp his head between her knees, using a twist of momentum to throw him down onto his back. In an equally quick move he wrapped his legs about her shoulders, scissoring her to the carpet, where they both scrambled to their feet, panting warily.
“Nica?”
A slow, fierce smile. “Nobody here by that name, MacCreedy.”
She feinted toward him. When he countered, she whirled and ran for the stairway, jerking open the door and plowing into the bruised henchmen. They didn’t realize they had the wrong female until she literally punched holes through them with a stiletto-heeled shoe in each hand. When they fell back, clutching their puncture wounds, she leapt up onto the railing and slid in her stocking feet to the landing below. From there she headed down as fast as she could, hearing Silas pushing his way over the injured men to follow.
And then she saw the flames.
Tongues of fire shot up through the open stairwell, chased by thick curls of smoke. She flattened against the wall, too terrified to move. The surge of adreneline cleared the last of Hawthorne’s influence from her mind, leaving her starkly aware of her position.
She couldn’t remember much. The brutal, escalating pain in the hotel room. She’d tried to cling to her mental hold on Silas, but he’d pulled away, letting her fall into the seething dreams. Horrible visions. Horrendous truths telling of death and misery. Of Silas weeping inconsolably over the mutilated bodies of his sister and best friend.
It can only end badly, Nica. Hawthorne’s insidious whisper was a serpent’s hiss in her ear. When they’re dead, who will he blame? Let go. If you care for him, let him go with them. You have work here. Just this last job before you see your friends again. Or do their lives mean so little to you? Is this what you want for them, Nica?
Images burned into her mind, flashing like the flip of MacCreedy’s cards. Henry disemboweled in that cold basement. James beheaded, outlined in separate parts by police tape. Colin run through as he stepped from a limo. Jilly garroted from behind. Silas with their beautiful child on his shoulders, both cut down in a hail of bullets. It was too much, too awful. Her doing. Her fault.
Everything lost.
Her spirit broken, her will folded like that house of cards. And for the first time, because she couldn’t obey, she bent under the crushing emotional pressure, letting her Controller take her over. Letting him use her as others always had.
After that, all was a blur until the fire slapped her awake.
She heard MacCreedy rounding the landing above her, but he stopped when he saw her situation.
“Nica, come up here to me. Don’t run. You won’t make it. All of the seventh floor is burning. Don’t be afraid. Trust me. Come up or I’ll come down to you.”
Afraid? Such a weak word to describe the horror clawing through the haze of her memories—a horror locked away just out of reach, but so very, very real. Panting, beginning to cough, she forced her paralyzed limbs into action, going up the stairs to where MacCreedy was waiting to slip his arm around her and hurry her back up to eleven, avoiding the thugs on twelve.
Once the fire door to the stairwell shut behind them, sealing out the heat and smell, Nica struggled to escape him, toppling them both to the floor. Silas simply held on to her, letting her kick and slap and scratch.
“Let me go, MacCreedy!” Her voice was raw from smoke and emotion.
“Walk out with me. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll protect you.”
“Savoie’s here to kill me, and he’ll go through you if he has to.”
“Then he’ll have to. Nica, stop fighting me, dammit! Let me help you.”
She went still, gasping and trembling. “You can’t, Silas. You can’t protect me. Either let me go or let them kill me. Those are your only choices. I won’t destroy you.”
“I don’t accept those choices.”
“I can’t stay with you. You have to let me go or you’ll die. They’ll all die. Take Kendra and your sister to Nevada. Be safe and live long—or stay here and die soon.”
“I’m not letting you go.” He hauled her up into his arms and she sagged against him, sobbing miserably.
“You have to. You’re not strong enough to fight them, and I can’t bear to let them kill you. Please, Si. Just let me go.”
“Together, we’re strong enough.” He buried his face in her hair. “Don’t give up, Nica. I’m so sorry I let you down at the hotel. It’s my fault that bastard got a hold of you again. I thought I could do both things and I was wrong.
“T
here’s just you now; nothing else matters to me. I’ll find a way, Nica—just stay with me. I love you. You’re my heart, my life. I can’t lose you. I won’t let you go.”
She was quiet for a long time. Then she whispered, “I don’t want to go.”
He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Let’s get out of here.”
As they got to their feet, Nica looked about, puzzled. “Why aren’t there any alarms? Why isn’t the sprinkler system working?”
“I don’t know.”
Concern sharpened her tone. “Silas, there are families living on this floor. Jacques has a room here. We have to warn them.” She gripped his hand and started pulling him.
Halfway down the hall, the lights went out. A haze began to thicken in the air. Nica started running, her fingers flying over the room numbers until she cried, “Here it is!” and started banging.
LaRoche answered the door in a pair of gym shorts, holding a powerful flashlight. “What the hell’s going on?”
“There’s a fire on seven. We have to get everyone out,” Nica told him.
“There’s a flight of stairs to the right and straight back. Only two through four and ten and eleven are occupied,” LaRoche told them.
Silas volunteered to help Jacques on the floor below, where the danger was closer and the need greater. Nica hugged him, struggling with her terror of the flames and her reluctance to part from him as she said, “The only good hero is a live hero. Don’t you dare let anything happen to you. I want your promise, MacCreedy.”
“I promise.”
His kiss sucked the remaining oxygen from her lungs and left her reeling. Then she turned to face her fears.
Max and Cee Cee stood with a member of the fire department, checking every person who left the building against the occupancy chart. The blaze was nearly under control but the damage was horrendous—a crushing setback to all Max’s plans. His mood was raw, his temper short. So it wasn’t the best time for one of Blutafino’s men to approach him with a message: nobody fucks with Manny Blu.
