“These assholes stole Wendy and hit me with a laser. I’m not staying home.”
“An hour ago you couldn’t stand.”
Ace shrugged. “Now I can.”
“What did you do to recover so fast?”
“Call it pent up adrenalin. I need to let it out.”
He glared. “Did you shoot up? A steroid?”
“Stop worrying about me and focus on Wendy.”
“I can do both, thank you very much. I’m capable of that, you know? I can also walk and chew gum.”
“Look, it’ll be me who crashes later if I overdid it, not you. I haven’t done this in a decade. I need to get my adrenaline back up.”
“It’ll be me hauling your ass back home when you can’t fly too.”
“So, let’s make this quick and when I crash, I’ll already be in my bed.”
His brother had a certain logic—a distorted one, but logic, nonetheless. “Fine, let’s do this. I’m grateful for the help. We need to take out the ten people in the main hall. Can you hear their heartbeats?”
“As well as you can.”
Draco nodded. “We’ll start with them. Then we’ll move in to get Wendy.”
“No.” Ace shook his head. “Someone is moving into Wendy’s room. There might not be time.”
His brother was right. “So you go in and get Wendy and I’ll take out the nine in the main room.”
“Again, not going to happen that way. Those lunatics zapped me with a ray and stole your girl when I was supposed to be watching her. I have a score to settle.”
“But you’re injured.”
Ace laughed. “At the moment, I’ve never felt better.”
“Ace—”
“Go get the girl, big brother.”
“I don’t know that there is a happy ending in this for us, even after I rescue her.”
“We’ll see.”
Ace left with that cryptic remark and busted through the ceiling into the main hall where the nine goons waited for him. Draco rolled his eyes. So much for stealth.
Nothing like a ceiling raining down on people to alert them someone was coming.
Following in Ace’s destructive wake, Draco jumped down.
* * * * *
Wendy was in a cage. It made him furious, but what made him even angrier was the little weasel of a man who taunted her from the outside. If this was her “friend,”
Kyle, Draco was going to have to teach her how to make better friends.
“It’s going to be epic. You’ll be on television. Everyone will see Draco Powers couldn’t save you and he’ll be considered inept. By the time the media is done with him, he won’t have one supporter left in the world.”
Stepping out of the shadows of the room, Draco didn’t even try to keep the sneer out of his voice. “Forgetting for a second that you’re not going to lay a hand on her, what do you think the media is going to do to you for killing her?”
Wendy’s voice was unsteady when she spoke. “Draco, he’s going to kill you.”
“No, Wendy, he’s not.” Draco jumped in time to miss the laser beam Kyle shot—
most likely, the same thing they’d used on Ace earlier.
Kyle gasped and ran for the door, firing his laser at Draco like a child might do with a pretend gun. Over and over again, he fired, hitting nothing and wasting his time.
Draco flew and landed directly in front of Kyle. “Not so easy when I know what you’re going to do, is it?”
Kyle blanched and tried to back up. Draco grabbed him. Like a fly caught in a spider’s web, the little man struggled against his fate. Apparently realizing he was not getting out of Draco’s grip, he sputtered. “I have nine men who’ll be here any second to destroy you.”
“Nope.” If Draco’s hearing was correct, and it always was, his brother had subdued them all. Most likely, they were tied up or knocked out. Those two options tended to be Ace’s modus-operandi. “It’s just going to be you and me, little man.”
Kyle shook his head frantically. “It won’t matter. Someone else will pick up where I started. My dream will be realized.”
Looking around the warehouse at the technology, some of which he couldn’t even identify, Draco felt less angry and more tired. Reaching up, he snagged a steel rod that lay on a shelf of building materials and twisted it around Kyle’s arms. He did the same with Kyle’s legs before dropping the surprisingly easy to defeat head of the Organization on the ground. “With all of your genius, if you had used it to do something worthwhile it would have been so much better.”
“I am a genius. My mental capacity rivals your physical ones.”
Draco nodded. “Maybe so.”
Ignoring Kyle’s rants, he walked forward and popped open the metal bars that kept Wendy prisoner. She climbed out and flung herself into his arms.
“I thought he was going to cut off my head.”
Draco rubbed her back. “Never a chance of that.”
Taking her hand, Draco moved her into the next room, a distance away from the cretin who had tried to destroy her life.
“Ace is okay?”
“For the moment.” His brother was going to crash and burn, but they didn’t have to discuss that in front of Kyle. With his super sight, he looked back at the subdued would-be villain and felt a tremendous amount of sadness wash over him. This person had ended Carl’s life and wanted to kill Wendy.
He squeezed Wendy’s shoulders. “There’s always going to be a Kyle, isn’t there?”
Wendy shook her head. “What?”
“Someone who wants to take down what I’ve built, someone who wants to destroy those who I care about.” He knew he wasn’t talking directly to Wendy as much as he spoke aloud, but he thought she needed to hear it. “I knew this when I started Powers. It’s why I changed my name, changed Ace’s, hid our identity, and didn’t tell anyone about how Ace and I were connected.”
“Fake names?”
“You didn’t think our mother actually named us Draco and Ace, did you?”
Wendy laughed. “I did, actually.”
“No.” The names on their birth certificates were much duller than the ones they’d assumed. It had taken years to get used to calling each other by the false ones.
“Draco, what are you saying?”
He looked down into Wendy’s trusting blue eyes and he knew what he had to do. “Powers, Inc . is most likely over. You and I both know it.” She started to interrupt but he silenced her by shaking his head. “Someone is always going to want to kill me and I can’t have a soft underbelly anymore. If they want me, let them come and get me.
I won’t be responsible for another beheading or some other terrible death.”
“How can that happen? You live in the world. You’ve created personal relationships.” Wendy pointed to the room with Kyle. “He doesn’t matter.”
“You’re right, he doesn’t.” He nodded. “Other people do. I’m sorry, Wendy. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be what you need me to be. I won’t have someone I can lose to a psychopath with a machete and a bad case of inflated ego. Next time, I might not make it on time.”
“Are you ending whatever this is between us?”
“I’m ending all of it.” He stepped back, suddenly feeling, above all else, he had to get away from her before he suffocated from the need to have her. She could get killed being his girlfriend. That would be a mistake he couldn’t take back.
He saw tears swim in Wendy’s eyes and he looked away. “Ace.” He shouted into the next room, not surprised to find his brother already stood in the doorway, clearly listening where he should have minded his own business.
“Are you out of your mind, Draco?”
He stared at his brother. “Take her home. Call the police to get these guys.”
There was nothing more to say. It was bad enough he’d always worry about Ace.
If he didn’t get away from Wendy now before he got too attached to walk away, he’d be destroyed. Separation was the o
nly answer. Even if doing so killed him.
* * * * *
He was ten miles outside New York City when his cell phone rang, dragging him out of his dark thoughts. Sighing, he landed and tugged the contraption out of his pocket. It wasn’t a number he recognized. He was leery, but finally gave in to curiosity and answered it.
“This is Draco.”
He hoped whoever was on the other end wasn’t calling with bad news. He might find a way to reach through the phone and rip out their throat.
“Mr. Powers, this is George Judge from the insurance company.”
Draco closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as he spoke. “Judge, I have had a very shitty day. It might be best if you just give me the bad news and hang up immediately.”
“That’s the thing, Mr. Powers. I’m not calling to give you bad news.” And if the man’s tone was any indication, George Judge was not happy about that. “I took your appeal to our board of directors. They seem to agree with Ms. Warner’s opinion that the destruction of your building was the result of an act of terrorism and that you are covered under those circumstances.”
“You’re going to cover the expenses to rebuild the building?”
“We’re going to pay to put the building back to where it was before the incident.”
Draco went silent. It seemed impossible. He’d had to fight for everything he’d ever achieved. His father had left when he was just a boy; they’d practically starved; he’d had to feed himself and his brother, help their mother, and find time to study because he knew college was the only way he’d ever get out of the hell hole that had become their life. All this and hide his powers from everyone. Now this man was telling him that a company was actually going to give him what they should?
Wendy had been right. Wendy, with her never-ending optimism fueled from her belief in a science fiction television show she had watched as a child. Wendy, whose eyes had filled with tears … who he’d left crying in a warehouse.
He shook his head. No, he couldn’t start doubting himself now. It was the right thing to do. She would be better off without him.
“Mr. Powers, are you going to hurt me?” Judge’s nasal voice interrupted his thoughts.
Now, he was used to hearing that phrase. “No, George, you are safe from me.”
After ending their phone call, he dialed Ace.
“You better be calling to tell me you realized you behaved like a piece of shit.”
“Powers is yours, little brother. They’re going to rebuild it. Use it or don’t. It’s up to you.”
He hit the end call button.
* * * * *
The kid had been impossibly easy to find. It was amazing the police hadn’t been able to locate him. He might not work for Powers, Inc. anymore, but Draco couldn’t leave this particular stone unturned. The kid didn’t even have a mother because Kyle had blown up her house trying to get to Draco. He didn’t have to be a genius to know Kyle had headed up the charity that had sent the flower-obsessed woman his way.
The news reports that had followed the end of Kyle’s reign at the Organization had given Ace credit for the take down and Draco was thrilled. He had meant what he said to his brother the last time they spoke. The company was his. He could run it, sell it, or close it down. No longer would he put himself out there in a way that got others hurt. Maybe he’d been okay with it when he’d been twenty-two and convinced of his own invincibility, but no more.
The shelter where he stood housed all kinds of runaways. Most of the kids looked to be boys of about fifteen, Lael’s age. But there were some girls and some teenagers who were both younger and older than the young man he’d come to find. As for his particular runaway, Draco couldn’t help but think he looked just like Ace had at that age, except for the brown hair.
Lael wore his hair long, past his waist, with a bandana around his head, which must have been some sort of statement Draco was no longer hip enough to interpret.
He moved forward. Today, he’d dressed in some clothes he’d bought at the local K-Mart the day before. Jeans and t-shirts were going to be his staple until he figured out what to do with himself. He didn’t blend particularly well with his black silk shirts. It was time to move on.
As he approached, he could hear kids talking. One of them pointed to the small, twenty-inch television with the reception that jumped in and out of focus on the wall.
“He’s my favorite. I’ve always liked Superman.” The kid who sat next to Lael was pierced nearly everywhere Draco could see. “If I could do that, I’d turn back time to save Lois, too. I bet she did him hard because of that.”
His coarse remark earned laughs from everyone but Lael, whose foot tapped loudly on the floor. As the laughter died, the boy Draco had come to find shrugged.
“That’s not why he did it. He didn’t do it to get laid.”
“Yeah?” The kid who’d made the remark didn’t like being challenged and Draco wondered if he was about to witness a fight. “Then why’d he do it, genius?”
“He did it because he loved her. He loved her so much he no longer cared what the right thing to do was, what the rules were.” Lael looked so sincere it panged Draco’s heart. “He knew he wasn’t supposed to interfere, but life was intolerable without her in it.”
“So I guess you like Superman too?” The other boy had cooled down considerably at Lael’s very adult statement.
“Nah, screw Superman. I used to be into him but now I know it’s just all shit.”
Draco stepped forward. “Why would you say that, Lael?”
At his name, his charge jumped up. The other kids followed suite, and before Draco could blink, they scattered, running off in different directions. Draco wished he could chase them all. But today he was only here for one boy. He grabbed Lael by the back of the shirt and the kid began to fight him, landing a punch on his jaw that actually hurt. What the—?
“Hey, cool it.” He pushed Lael up against the wall, more for the kid’s own protection as anything else. “How are you so strong?”
“I’m a freak, okay?” Lael’s eyes were wide with terror. “How are you restraining me?”
“I’m a freak too.” Draco couldn’t help his grin. “It runs in my family. Apparently it runs in yours too.”
“You’re that guy. You’re Draco Powers.”
Draco narrowed his eyes at Lael. His initial impression of Lael having physical similarities to Ace hadn’t changed, as he got closer to the kid. “That’s one of my names.
Let me ask you something, kid, who was your father?”
“He called himself Ben Monroe but I’m not convinced that was his name, really.”
Lael sighed. “He took off when I was a kid. I have a picture of him in my pocket.”
Not wanting to give the kid a chance to run, he held on with one hand and let Lael reach into his pocket to retrieve the photograph. As Lael handed it over, Draco recognized the man in the picture before he really even got a close look at him.
It was his dad. The son-of-a-bitch had left another family behind and the boy he’d been hired to find was his brother.
“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news about your mom but some good news about your future.”
Chapter Thirteen
She’d thought she knew pain having grown up an orphan. She’d thought she knew pain when she’d been taunted in school for being parentless. She’d thought she knew pain when Kyle had betrayed her and turned out to be a mastermind behind countless deaths. Hell, she’d thought she’d known pain when Draco had broken up with her and left her in the warehouse.
But she hadn’t really known pain, not at all.
No, pain was trying to date. She’d promised herself she would no longer sit at home and cry over Draco Powers, whose real name she didn’t even know. She couldn’t go to Space Adventures meetings any more. They reminded her of her stupid mistake in believing in the show. Humanity wasn’t getting better; it was getting worse, and if Kyle’s insanity hadn’t convinced her, Draco tak
ing off and leaving had.
The date she was on only added credence to the idea.
Dressed as fashionably as she could muster in a black dress that showed more cleavage than she usually allowed, she’d known immediately that her date was disappointed when she’d opened the door. She should have called off the date with
“Daniel but call me Danny.” Instead, she’d decided to give the night a try. What had he hoped she would look like? Her picture on the dating site hadn’t been a lie. Oh well, she inwardly shrugged, nothing she could do about it now and at least the evening was almost over.
She wouldn’t have to listen to any more stories of all the women he “banged” or how much money he made. Pleading an early day at work, she’d convinced him to take her home. It hadn’t been a lie; her new boss did like her in the office before seven in the morning. Of course, she got to leave by three o’clock, which was a benefit, but still, she was exhausted. The CEO of an airline needed his personal assistant to be available at odd hours. She’d been elated to land the job and hadn’t worried she was going to be so tired. Someday she might adjust but not yet.
She’d never been so grateful to see her doorstep as she was now. Turning, she held out her hand to shake Danny’s goodbye and jumped at his sharp intake of breath.
“What?”
Danny pointed behind her. “Isn’t that Draco Powers leaning on your building?”
She whirled around. Yes, it was Draco. He stood outside, leaning on the bricks, his arms crossed over his chest. Dressed in faded dark blue jeans and a white shirt covered by a navy blue blazer, he looked the most casual she’d ever seen him outside of the bedroom.
His eyes, however, blazed with unrestrained dislike and they focused on Danny.
She raised an eyebrow. Well, he could go to hell.
“Goodnight Daniel.”
Walking toward Draco, she kept her back straight. He hadn’t looked at her, his
“death glare” still on Daniel.
“Stop that.”
He finally met her gaze. “Who’s the guy?”
Screwing the Superhero Page 13
